Crossing Over
Posted by Tom | Filed under Travel, Writing
As soon as we had crossed into Algeria, it was clear that something wasn't right. Our shared taxi was slowing down and speeding up, and staggering from side to side like an overloaded, drunken donkey. To the side, lay a sharp, deep drop from the mountain to the surprisingly verdant valley.
All the way from Tunis, and up the steep mountain road to the border post, the driver had seemed fine. Once we had entered into Algeria, he seemed to lose his mind.
As we continued to veer from side to side, we received a good beeping from a car coming up from behind. For a minute or so, the driver seemed to regain his senses but as soon as the other car had passed, it all went wrong again. While drifting around a bend - on the wrong side of the road - he suddenly swerved to avoid a dozing cow. I began to wonder if everybody simply went mental as soon as they entered Algeria. This theory was starting to grow on me - it could go a long way to explaining the 100,000 or so killed in the nearly ten year long civil war - when we almost drove into a warning sign (with a picture of a cow on it).
By now, I really felt like I ought to say something - I didn't want to spend my holiday being dead. I leant forward and saw his mobile in pieces as he struggled to insert a new SIM card.
While popular tourist magnets, such as Australia or New Zealand, excel at self promotion, other equally deserving destinations fare less well in the image stakes;
they may be a little of the beaten track, have suffered from poor leadership, or simply have failed to sufficiently promote their own attractions...
