Day 91: 14 Nov ’91 Thursday Into and out of Bechar

On the road by 0830am after taking some pictures of the sun coming up. The ride that day followed the line of old barbed wire and observation towers. It was a pretty dull ride through fairly featureless terrain, along a busy road (by Algerian standards).

At one point, with Dan behind me, I noticed a car had come up beside him. The same car then came up beside me. Inside a man was driving with fat and jolly wife next to him in the passenger seat. She offered me dates and bread but I refused because it was a bit awkward to take their kind offerings on the move. I thanked them and then moved on.

Dan called me and we stopped. He’d got some bread and shared it with me. That was good for morale. These Algerians seemed to be a lot friendlier than their Moroccan neighbours. The rest of the day was pretty boring.

We pulled up outside Bechar and put our trousers on after seeing a sign saying “It is strictly forbidden to wear indecent clothing in Bechar”! We’d picked up a tout on a moped who we soon lost. We looked around for a long time for hotel but they were all full. Hell!

We found a market. Dan waited with the bikes while I shopped. We filled up with water given to us by a shopkeeper and headed out of town as the light went. We had trouble with a few kids on bikes on the way out, one of whom I thumped. But, soon, we were out of range of the town lights and into a place to camp.

We had a hot drink but could face cooking up food so we ate our lunch for the next day. It was quite cold. We got into the tent and fell asleep. My sleep was disturbed by someone footsteps outside on a nearby track. Our kit was untouched. Nothing happened.

Distance 81.13 kms Average speed 14.6 kmh Time 5 hours 31 minutes

---