After three days’ riding, we will not be donning motorcycle gear today. After yesterday’s effort to get the bikes into the hotel entrance, Anne cleverly thought that we should get a driver to take us to Timgad, the complete ruins of a Roman city some 30km from Batna. We will be able to dress for the weather, leave the helmets behind and not have to ride motorbikes up steps!

We continue to be blessed with more temperate mid 20 Celsius weather. A 40 minute drive and we have arrived. After purchasing tickets we ask if we can hire a guide, none are available although we are asked if an Italian speaking guide would do. They must have many Italian visitors. As we do not know the area a guide would help identify one pile of stones from another.

We head to the museum first and are impressed by the scale and quality of the recovered mosaics on display. The detail on some including shadows and 3D are amazing.

On leaving the museum we are approached by a guide. Museum staff members had been searching for one on our behalf and now we are good to go.

Timgad, or to give it it’s full name “Colonia Marciana Ulpia Traiana Thamugadi” was founded around 100AD by the Roman Emperor Trajan in the Aurès mountains. The city was initially populated by Roman veterans and settlers. Timgad today is one of the best preserved Roman grid pattern cities mostly due to fact that after it ceased to be inhabited in the 8th century, sand covered the site protecting the remains until Archaeological exploration in the 1880’s. Today one can wander the main streets, sit in the amphitheatre, look into bathhouses and generally as our guide showed us get a good understanding of the different sections of the city and their functions that the population of around 14,000 went about on a daily basis.

While at lunch at a local hotel we see a small Italian tour group, hence the Italian speaking guides. It must be a popular destination for Italians.

Our route from Batna to Constantine will take us on a back roads rather than the main RN 3 as our future route will be on major highways. Back past Timgad and we turn north with the sun at our back rising through open countryside. We approach Constantine but are delayed by our first traffic jam. Three lanes have become 5 as cars squeeze further forward. We find the road surface very slippery as we head down a very steep hill towards what turns out to be an accident. Our final approach to the hotel takes us through a mixture of cars and people attempting to use the same roundabout concurrently and in different directions. This is next level people /vehicle interface, there were even three guys carrying on a conversation in the middle of the road on a roundabout! Luckily we avoid mowing down any pedestrians and safely reach our hotel.

We can definitely use the two days here in Constantine for a little bit of R&R. The concentration required when riding in unfamiliar circumstances does take it out of one. This also gives us time for a little reflection on what we have seen and done here in Algeria.

Streak and Storm now sport Algerian flag stickers. We have always kept and eye out for them and when we saw stickers in a shop at a petrol station it was closed. Ali the manager opened the store for us and of course they were a gift as visitors to Algeria. This has been the norm for us here, kind and helpful people. We have learned we do not need to ask the price, or haggle, we will be charged what is appropriate. Long may this continue.

We have seen very few tourists. It seems that the season ends in April as the weather warms up. We have hardly come across any foreign tourists even at places like Timgad and Ghardaia. We have also been mostly lucky with the temperature being in the high twenties Celsius, however we have been up to 39 degrees Celsius.

We have also determined that a business displaying VISA/Mastercard signs or having four credit card machines on the counter does not mean they work. Cash is king still, so do not leave home without it. While talking about money do note that the same item can be sold to you for 125, 1250 or 125,000 depending on which version of currency is used. It is all the same price, people just refer to it differently.

Time to explore Constantine…

– Anthony & Anne