Day 96: 19 Nov ’91 Tuesday No water in Adrar

Dan on the road to Adrar

The next morning, we were fully aware of it. We cycled the last 80 kms to Adrar through sandstorms blowing into our flanks at times, but gusting the two of us along for the remainder making it very easy cycling, despite our bad guts.

We came into the rusty-red coloured town and soon had a cluster of kids around us before entering the main square. I went into a bank to change some money before going up to the ‘Hotel Touat’ (I’ll let you guess how that is pronounced).

We were filthy, tired, hungry and ill. The two of us heaved our kit upstairs to our room after putting the bikes away in a lock-up room. There was not water until 7pm, we were told, but it did not come on at all that night. Both of us had bad guts and were feeling very pissed off, especially because we could not flush our lavatory in the room.

We lay around on our beds the following day, feeling terrible. In the evening, we met an odd character, an Irishman, Felix, who was working on the oil rigs locally. He reminded me very much of a ‘Wilbur Smith’ character. He had a confident, hardworking but quietly spoken and keen on beer drinking and ‘women-chasing’ image. He was there for the money and not for the love of Algeria! We talked for a while before he headed out for a dinner date. 

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