Alger La Blanche: In search of peace and beauty
April 27, 2018
My ‘Treasures of Algiers’ excursion promised to take me to ‘two beloved oases of peace and beauty.’ Today it has little of either, though remains of both can be found.
Algeria has had a dark history and its present and future don’t look good. Some 70% of the population are under 35, but unemployment is between 20-30% (depending who’s talking): with nothing to do, idle youth are fair game for political, criminal, and religious proselytizers. Most Algerians live along the Mediterranean leaving the vast desert area to two groups: very well-paid (because they are highly kidnappable) oil workers and the jihadist terrorists who do the kidnapping for ransom money to fund their activities.
The 140-acre Jardin d’Essai du Hamma — a test garden built in 1832 in a drained swamp — is peaceful and beautiful though not imaginative. Many locals were visiting on a Friday. The country is 99% Muslim, and the women are NOT to be photographed (without their permission). (Except when I sneak up behind them.) Some wear black, stylishly; others wear bright colors. Since it has very little tourism — only 20 cruise ships dock each year — there would never be many non-locals.
From the Jardin, one can see the Martyrs Monument to those who died during Algeria’s War of Independence, 1954-1962. Those are stylized palm fronds that surround an eternal flame. I’m not sure, but that looks like a cell phone tower up the middle.
Our bus climbed up up up to the Casbah and the Basilica of Notre Dame d’Afrique, atop Mont Bouzareah. This was the oasis of peace. The sky cooperated with the camera.
No, I don’t know the name of the guy throwing the book.
Down down down and back to the ship, we rode through the extensive French Quarter, with its wide boulevards and European architecture. It looks like it was an elegant place for French colonials to live in the mid-1900s... but a horrible place for the Algerian natives, who were treated badly.
Like I always say: You know me and doors. I call this one ‘Faded Glory.’ #
ORIGINAL POSTS*
*I've been having trouble recently getting the Original Post links to work. If you'd like to read any of them: Go to the right column and scroll down to ARCHIVE, then locate April 2018. The Original Posts are there.
