Thanks for the report L764. May I ask what nationality your passport is and how the visa application went? Did you declare the fact you went to Djanet?

Many thanks

I have a UK passport. I applied for the visa by post and got it in about 10 days with no problems at all. I included an itinerary with the visa application but didn't say anything about gonig to Djanet, based on some comments I'd read here.

I don't know if it would have made a difference if I had said I was going to Djanet, as I didn't have any problems when I was there. No one asked me any questions at Algiers airport, either when checking in or at the departure gate. When I arrived at Djanet airport the guide was there. All they did at Djanet was make a note of the tour operator and when I would be flying out again. When I took the plane back to Algiers they just made a note that I was leaving.

I spent just over 3 weeks on my bicycle in Algeria, entering in the east in Tébessa and leaving in the west in Ghazaouet.
1. Crossing the border involved sitting around for 4 hours 'pour votre sécurité' while the price worked out was happening. By the time it was done, it was 9pm and I wasn't allowed to stay there that night, or cycle in the dark so my bike was put in a gendarmerie SUV while I had to go in a regular car. Dropped off in Tébessa at the hostel which is where I learnt that auberges are amazing and cost 200-500 dinar a night (€1 was 190 when I entered).
2. A few days of cycling by myself with nothing more than a couple of curious gendarmerie driving past me and waving me down to see my passport.
3. Went past a checkpoint just west of Jijel where I was flagged down and spent a couple of hours in the police station while they did their thing. From then until Mostaganem I had the gendarmerie with me at all times as a forced escort.
4. Gendarmerie presence was mainly two SUVs, but peaked at 4 regular SUVs and some form of an APC. While their presence was OK at first, it got excessive (including them trying to escort me when I was going to pee by the side of the road) and spoilt my enjoyment of the country as my interactions were seriously limited by them with people being much less curious about speaking to me than they had been in the short time before the escort.
5. Main advantage of the gendarmerie was that thanks to them I found myself checking into a couple of auberges that had the 'complet' sign up.

The country didn't feel dangerous to me, but who knows. They weren't with me in the border area with Tunisia which the FCO colours red, but were in the parts where it's green.

Home | OneBikeOneWorld you can see my more detailed map on there.
Hello Algerian police presence | OneBikeOneWorld and the next couple for me rambling about the police.

The oued at Djanet is filling up today
https://scontent-arn2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...5a&oe=57E26924

Weather, rain and dust
 

Nice weather over Djanet.

Here are two images from the SEVIRI instrument on the geostationary Meteosat satellite.

The rain seems to have resulted from a cluster of thunderstorms which built over the Erg d'Admer on the afternoon of 23 May 2016. These storms built on the northern edge of a large dust outbreak and then issued there own rain and dust which you can see in the second image from today (24 May).

Dust is pink. Deep clouds are red. Ice is black.

There are interesting feedbacks that happen between the storms and the dust. The loop on short timescales (hours to days) goes like this:

1. storm builds and issues rain which causes lots of evaporation of water in the extremely dry desert air below the unusually high cloud base (often 5km in the Sahara compared with 1 km over, say, UK).
2. The rain evaporates, leads to cooling through latent heat exchange and a huge mass of cold air hits the desert surface and rolls off along the desert surface as a gravity wave. The cold air with winds around 15m/s lifts huge amounts of dust into the atmosphere
3. The dust sets up heating gradients around which further outbreaks of thunderstorms occur in the moistened environment from the evaporated rain
4. the cycle can repeat itself 3 or 4 times over 2-4 days.

On longer timescales (months to many years) the feedbacks are as follows:
1. a dust outbreak leads to preferential development of a storm (see above)
2. the storm provides rain, especially along escarpments like that at Djanet
3. runoff and flash floods (see Priffe's posting) bring fine material which deposits in the flood plain ready to be blow away in the next dust storm.

It gets interesting when you are in a sandstorm and then a heavy thunderstorm on top of it.

Three weeks ago I have returned from short Algeria trip - few days in the north, few days in Djanet area. North independently, the desert with local tour agency. No hassles, very smooth and pleasant trip (including the visa procedure).
I have tried to visit Hoggar as it is on offer by more than one agency but the authorisation was not granted. Its definitely closed.

Hello,

I am actually now here in Algeria (business) and a few days ago I was also in Ghardaia. So what I can tell is that during the business we got from Ghardaia Airport to Hotel a military escort, but this is related to the government rule, that when for business reason foreigner are visiting statet companys that they have to protect everytime each movement with military escort.
On the late evening we went by ourself with the local translator with the taxi into Ghardaia center without escort. So i did feel more save there as in Germany in some particular areas in Dortmund :-)
I know only if you would like to go from Algiers by yourself to Ghardaia and probably further (but i wasnt) you have to call the police and inform them about Name, how many people, number plate and so on.
So during my stay here if someone needs more infos I can go in Algier to the Government and get some latest news.
Sorry for my bad english but I hope you could read it.

Thanks to all for this great forum what i actually found during seachring for my planned africa trip with in the future, Greetz Thomas

Coming back to Hoggar soon?
 

From El Watan:

"A une question relative à la possibilité de relancer le tourisme réceptif, le ministre a répondu que de nouvelles mesures seront prochainement prises pour alléger les procédures liées à l’octroi des visas aux touristes étrangers. Ces procédures, a-t-il expliqué, seront étudiées par une commission mixte, présidée par le Premier ministre, qui se compose des ministères des Affaires étrangères et de l’Intérieur.":

Extrait d'El Watan....May be we can have a little hope....cool4:

Message - El Watan ... 82_258.php

RR.

Hi folks,
I can confirm that. One of my algerian friends talked last Thursday to Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs and "minister promised to make easy for tourists to get visa as son as possible. As before you will need only invitation from tourist agency and you send it direct to Embassy".
I will go to Djanet soon but we got the visas based on current procedure with "attestation" issued by Foreign Affairs in Algiers.
I will write when the procedure really changes...
Artur

Look forward to any update! Like many I hope for the day when we can travel unescorted and enter the country more easily.
Nick

Which basically translate in Algeria still not being interested in tourism. I can ride in Tunisia without such invitation or visa. Same with riding Morocco. Show up at the border with a valid passport, get greeted with welcomes and enjoy your trip... So, it looks like Algeria is (again) missing the boat... ;-(

Lee

I get the feeling that self drive tourism can happen in the not very distant future
Someone should be a test pilot
I may volonteer... :)

I am awaiting anxiously. What about reopening the border between Morocco and Algeria too? ;-) Some families have been split for 20 years on each side of the border.... This is Sahara by godsake... ;-)