Algeria'n doubts

[Eric DN]

More or less the same for us, we arrived around 3 pm, we started paperwork with the police ( after doctor control ) but unfortunately for some of us the visa started the following day, so we was not allowed to cross, we set the the bivouac near the border ( we was inform about the auberge the following morning grrrrr).
We woke up early and was ready for the customs at 6 am and finished at 9 am.
and stop almost one hour at the first CP, 150m after the border.

South is beautiful but far, very far from the border

Eric

[Roman]

Originally Posted by Richard Washington

In Algeria, perhaps it is the guides, who sign their live's and the lives of of their families away to look after their clients.

Richard,

What do you mean by that?

[Richard Washington]

Originally Posted by Roman

Richard,

What do you mean by that?

This was based on conversations with Algerian guides in Algeria. The guides become personally responsible for the tourists they are with for the time that the tourists are in the country. The authorities apparently make this clear to the guides and the strong suggestion is that the guides will suffer consequences if something were to happen. I wonder if anyone else has heard similar?

[Yves]

Richard,

>The guides become personally responsible for the tourists they are with for the time that the tourists are in the country.

That is true, they sign a contract, usually at the Gendarmes post at the border.

[priffe]

Originally Posted by Yves

Richard,

>The guides become personally responsible for the tourists they are with for the time that the tourists are in the country.

That is true, they sign a contract, usually at the Gendarmes post at the border.

I took that to be a marketing ploy, so they oblige you to sign them on for the whole trip and pay for every day. When I asked agencies "what if?" they meant that it was little they could do. Protection is from the gendarmes.

[Chris Scott]

... I wonder if anyone else has heard similar?

I never have and I wonder whether this may have been a case of b/s to try and impress clients about the terrible pressure they are under.
IME guides (who are very poorly paid - the cars are rarely theirs) rarely want to take risks or follow interesting diversions at the best of times and AFAIK itineraries are approved by the wilaya or gendarmes.
Once that is done it would be pretty severe to what... send a guide's family to the salt mines just because he and his clients were unlucky enough to get nabbed?

For sure the agency (and so it's employes) is responsible and any funny business (most likely collecting neolithics/sand) it would lose its license.

But as with so much in Algie, what do we really know...

Ch

[Richard Washington]

The interesting thing in the case/conversation I quoted was that the claim came from a person who was a stand-in (i.e. temporary) guide who came to our assistance following some problems with a vehicle with a regular guiding company. The temporary stand-in guide spoke openly about the agreement he had signed. The context of the conversation was that, far from us as tourists being afraid of any eventuality, he, as the stand-in guide had more to fear because he had guaranteed our safety.

A fuller set of circumstances on the trip is described here:
Sahara with Series 2A Land Rover

I mention this detail because a stand-in guide would probably not be motivated to make false claims for the sake of the tourist industry. He was not normally involved in the tourist industry and made it pretty clear he didn't much like tourists anyway. He may, of course, have had other motivations for saying what he did. That is why I asked if others had heard such claims. One case would not prove all.

Still, we are left with explaining why AQ-M, which began in Algeria pretty much, has not kidnapped tourists in Algeria since 2003 whereas they've spread the net now from Niger to Mauri. There must be a reason. At the same time AQ-M have transitted the country, sometimes with prisoners (Austrians from Tunisia). So the threat imposed on them by the Algerian military does not explain everything either.

[Eric DN]

Hi
Yes it's totaly true. Our guide was not an official guide, actually he was a friend of the couple who organize the trip, he made an agreement with a travel agency . And at the border when he signed the contract he realized the commitment he took, an really the police at the border was clear, he was responsible of us and for all which could happened. In Algeria it seems that every body fear the police.
When we (the bikes rapidly followed by the car) went off road at Borj El houes until Djanet, he was really angry against us, because at the check point before the military said stay on the road.

After Djanet and until Illizi throug Tam not control at all, it seems not logical at all, I don't think that all controls are for our safety, I think it is just to have a total control within the oil area, and after they don't care.

[Chris Scott]

I believe controls and regs vary from wilaya (province) to wilaya. Illizi town and Djanet are in Illizi wilaya which extends well north of HbG. Although there are plenty of oil installations around In Amenas etc, the current checkpoints (as well as piste closures) are I believe primarily an over-reaction to 2003 which all happened in Illizi wilaya. A shame as, as far as pistes go, Illizi wilaya was about as good as it got in Alg.

Tam wilaya (which on the regular piste starts at the re-occupied Serenout fort) is more relaxed, AFAIU, although I dont know why - is it just lack of oil installations? That is why were were going there next Feb, to roam around where we liked.

Ch

[priffe]

As far as I have heard, there hasn't been any incidents in the Algerian south for years now?

We had a number of guides after driving from Tunisia to Illizi without one.
Sometimes we had a contract with an agency, sometimes not. For the guide from Illizi to Djanet, nothing was written down or signed (except for the renseignement). Nor did we ask for it - we only gave him a ride because they wouldn't let us through without him.
What kind of responsibility would the guide/agency carry? Accidents? Theft? Kidnapping? What could the penalty be, other than loosing the license to operate?
What is written in the fine print when signing with say Tanezrouft?
And what could they do if beards with Kalashnikovs showed up?

From our experience, a guide is not mandatory except for in some parts - the desert between HBG and Illizi. And Illizi wilaya. Could be because of 2003?
Between Djanet and Tam there's barely a checkpoint.
Going west from Tam to Mali. we could have done it without a guide but preferred not to. And if we had run into the gendarmes on the way down, I don't think they would have let us go alone.

[Roman]

Hello,

I asked Richard about an explanation as I was assuming it may have to do with some sort of unwritten code. political alliances, clan politics, etc. But the outcome is that Algeria is in this respect very much like Egypt. And I remember hearing the same line in Libya, too: "In the desert we are 100% responsible for you, and we won't leave you, no matter what".

In reality it was as much a matter of honour as public relations and the simple truth that an agency losing a client, or guiding a client who misbehaves, will also lose the licence, hence his whole family will suffer, too.