TIMIMOUN, Algeria - Saharan sand dunes stretch to the horizon
at this oasis town of red clay where visitors can ride camels with Tuareg nomads
and sleep on dunes under the stars.
Timimoun should be easy to get to, but it isn’t. It offers
few comforts after a long, arduous journey. But those few tourists who make it
here value its remoteness.
"Only a few tourists are here compared to Morocco — which is
very good," said Marene Nordal from Norway, enjoying the isolation 1,200 km (750
miles) southwest of the capital Algiers.
Local people are less appreciative of their region’s
"undiscovered" cachet.
They want more hotels and better transport links, and say
Timimoun’s isolation reflects a wider failure to promote the cultural and scenic
glories of Africa’s second largest country.
"The more tourists we get the better because it will boost
the local economy," said M’hamed Asmiti, 63, who run a handicraft shop in Kali,
30 km (20 miles) from Timimoun.
"Tourism could reduce unemployment. One tourist feeds 12
people here per day," said tourism operator Mustafa Djebaili.
Algeria receives just 1.4 million visitors annually and most
of them are Algerians back from France on holiday. Neighbors Tunisia and Morocco
each welcome 6 million foreigners a year.
The lack of travelers is testimony to Algeria’s long neglect
of a sector that remains one of world tourism’s undiscovered gems.
Algeria offers magnificent Roman and Islamic sites — and
excellent beaches — just an hour’s flight from Europe yet villages like Timimoun
lie undisturbed.
The town plays host to an annual festival to mark the birth
of the Prophet Mohammed, when thousands of desert-dwellers draped in colorful
robes converge on Timimoun and outlying villages for a week of feasting and
revelry.
At this year’s event in March, turbaned men shot ceremonial
muskets and charged, on camels, in a blur of flapping robes across dunes bearing
flags on ornate standards.
Just a handful of tourists saw the spectacle, a glimpse of a
region of Algeria far removed from the Mediterranean north where al Qaeda-aligned
groups stage sporadic suicide bombings.
"It is the most beautiful desert in the world," said Austrian
Stephanie de Windish. "People are very warm and the music is simply great. There
is no danger at all."
The kidnapping in neighboring Tunisia in February of two
Austrians by an Algeria-based group of gunmen caused few jitters among the
tourists in Timimoun.
"I feel safe here. And terrorist attacks are everywhere now — in London, in
Madrid," said the Norwegian Nordal. "The problem here is infrastructure. We need
a minimum, at least hot water. Anyway, if you are here it is not for luxury."
—Reuters
