I have never been so close to being denied boarding on a flight until I tried to go to Algeria.
Algeria is considered one of the more difficult visas to get, historically, although they have been loosening the restrictions a bit recently. Part of that is introducing a visa on arrival that can be used as long as a portion of your trip is going to the southern part of Algeria. That was my method, and it basically required filling out a form, getting a pre-approval notice, and then when I arrived in Algiers airport, the plan was to get the visa at the counter. But first, I had to board my flight in Marseille.
I arrived at the airport early, because I was worried about getting my boarding pass. And it turned out I should be. Basically, when the employees for Air Algérie arrived and opened up check in, they told me that they didn’t believe that the visa on arrival would allow me to stay in Algiers at all, and that they were only familiar with people using it to transit through Algiers directly to the relevant regions. This was complicated by the fact that I didn’t have my domestic Algerian flight information because the tour company was booking them on my behalf. I tracked those down while the Air Algérie employees checked everyone else in, then they circled back to me and told me they would need to get someone in Algeria on the phone to confirm what I was telling them. This proved difficult because it was early in the morning, but after 4 or 5 phone calls, finally, someone picked up. And thankfully, they said that my pre-approval for my visa on arrival was sufficient to let me board.
Other people on my trip did report some friction at the airport, but none of them had quite the same experience as me of being pulled aside. It sounds like at the other airports that people were flying through, like Istanbul, Cairo, and Barcelona, the airline employees were skeptical but let them through without more than a cheeky “good luck.” For me, though, it was a stressful morning. I was very thankful to be let on my flight.
Once I landed in Algiers, I went to the immigration counter and they brought me to a room and took my passport to handle the visa paperwork. I paid my fee and got my stamp, and with that, I was all set!
I started with about a day and a half in Algiers, and then there were a couple more times where I was there passing through, so I’ve combined all my photos and thoughts into the one post. To start, Algiers is beautiful. A lot of the architecture is very French, which is not surprising given they spent 130 years under French rule. It’s right along the coast and there were some really nice cafés near the water where we had coffee. The first day we were there, it was some sort of holiday or a festival or something, and there were tons of families out in the streets enjoying themselves.
In preparation for this trip, I had watched The Battle of Algiers, which is definitely worth a watch if you’re interested in the history of the region. It is a fairly accurate reenactment of the guerrilla warfare that took place in Algiers during the Algerian War, where the local Algerians were fighting French colonization and ultimately gained their independence. There were a few areas highlighted in the movie that we saw on the tour, including the Milk Bar Café. The Milk Bar Café was once the site of a bombing. It was particularly popular with the French, and so the rebels picked that site to target and ended up killing several people.
The movie also largely takes place in the Casbah, which is the old town and medina of Algiers. During the Algerian War, it was primarily where the local Algerians lived and it was often targeted as the French tried to strip away their rights, so it is where the rebels organized during their war for independence. We spent a large portion of our tour in the Casbah, which is a very interesting part of the city. It has a higher concentration of Islamic architecture compared to the rest of the city.
One thing about walking around the Casbah – it has so many stairs! Thankfully, it did reward us with a very cool view of the city.
It’s hard to even pin down everywhere that we saw in Algiers, because we spent so much time walking through the city!
One of the parts I was very excited about was taking the metro! It’s something I love to do in new cities. Our guide was not very complimentary about their metro, but I found it clean and nice and easy to navigate. I don’t think they have a ton of lines but it’s certainly better than a lot of American cities have in the way of transit.
Another fun part of Algeria was the coffee culture. There were tons of cafés everywhere we were, and it seemed like a lot of them were great gathering places. It’s also the only place I’ve ever ordered coffee with milk and been handed a coffee in one hand and a cup of warm milk in the other, so that was kind of fun.
On the other hand, another interesting aspect of Algeria was the lack of drinking culture. It’s not shocking that it doesn’t have much drinking, to be clear. It is a predominately Muslim society. What did surprise me was that some places sold alcohol but it was treated almost more like speakeasies during American Prohibition. When I’ve been to Muslim countries before, they either sell alcohol or don’t. Some, like Yemen, are fully dry; others, like Saudi Arabia, just don’t sell much and the few places that do are hard to find and expensive. Or most just sell it normally, even if there’s slightly less availability than non-Muslim countries.
Algiers had places that sold alcohol but they wouldn’t let us in, or they would tell us they were full even when they clearly weren’t, or they would open the door a tiny crack and tell us we should try going around the corner, to another bar that opened their door a tiny crack, determined we were okay, and then welcomed us in. Big shout out to the one bar that did let us in while we were in Algiers, it was such a fun vibe. I am obsessed with the license plates they chose to put on their walls.
Algiers also felt pretty distinct out of everywhere we went in Algeria. I was in Algeria for about ten days, and got to explore a huge variety of different areas of the country during that time. Given how much trouble I had with the visa, I was glad that I could go to everywhere that interested me on this trip, because I’m not sure I could get back in!
I also found Algeria, across the board, to be a pretty easy place to eat as a vegetarian. They had lots of couscous with vegetables, and while I’ve had couscous before, I’ve never had it as good as I did here!
From there, it was time to head south! There’s a lot more to come in my trip to Algeria – we’re just getting started.