We left Marseille on 10 December ferry to Tunis. The ship docked in Tunis at noon with clearance through Tunisian immigration and customs taking a mere 30 minutes compared to 5 hours in allowing us to reach the salt pan of Chott El Jerid near Nefta Algerian frontier shortly after dark.
We camped on the salt pan, leaving early for the border crossing the next morning. Clearance out of Tunisia took about 30 minutes but entry into Algeria just over 4 hours. In that time the officials processed only 3 cars, two of which were Algerian. The officials were nevertheless friendly. Two German bikers were crossing into Tunisia as we were leaving. They had ridden a loop from El Oued to Djanet then onto Tam and back along main route through In Salah which included a convoy.
The Algerian border formalities correspond exactly with those described elsewhere on this website immigration, customs, compulsory money change and car insurance. I guess this finally signifies the death of the British automotive legend, in this part of North Africa at least. From the Algerian border we headed on towards El Oued. There seemed to be few camping possibilities along this stretch given the awkward hummocky dunes lining the road and the proximity of villages. About 20 or 30km from El Oued, while entering one of the small villages, a group of youngsters aged less than 10, stoned the Landrover.
No windows were broken but a bit more topography was added to the body work β never a serious issue in a year-old vehicle with an aluminium body. We were welcomed into El Oued by the police and local businessmen alike. El Oued was calm and the streets clean and quite empty. We changed money at one of the banks.
That night we slept on the south side of the road 60km short of Hassi Messaoud. A strong north-easterly was drifting sand in a conveyor about 1m deep so we were looking for shelter behind south-facing hills.
