WF traveller Sue Banks (alias Eustace) recently went on our Algerian Colours group tour. Below Sue talks about the various fascinating sounds she encountered whilst travelling around Algeria.
Binoculars are banned in Algeria; luckily, I know my birds by song as well as sight. Other sounds fascinate me too. Arabic, for example, is a fine language if you want to shout and gesticulate, and the traffic cop who'd stopped our taxis in Tipaza was making the most of it. We'd failed to halt long enough at the STOP sign. The taxi drivers waved driving licences and arms in the sea-bright sunshine. Then, abruptly, the cop was all smiles, and waved us on, his duty done.
Swifts screamed in Algiers over the traffic noise. At the Roman ruins in Djemila, I found a goldfinch singing in a bamboo cage on the cafe terrace. Its owner poured water over a lettuce leaf and held it tenderly through the bars as his bird nibbled.
The funicular gear clanks as the carriages come into the station at Constantine. Jennifer, 82, nipped onto the platform, followed by our security guard. “Children are angels”, he said, showing me a photo of his 8-month old daughter. “Until later....” I said. He laughed. “When they become devils!”
Then, still in Constantine, we heard the wail of police sirens, fore and aft. At 3.30pm we'd discovered our flight to Algiers left in an hour. With a fine sense of drama, our security escorts cleared the traffic, and we swept into the airport, blue lights flashing.
At Bejar airport, there was the magical sound of women greeting their families in ululation. Outside my desert hotel in Taghit, the wind hissed in the palms, and house sparrows chirruped as they went about their ever-busy sex lives.
Nightingales sang in the bushes in Sidi Boumedienne, and families on a Friday bus trip to visit the shrine chattered excitedly. A golden oriole fluted in the trees lining the square in the former Spanish town of El Maleh. Bulbuls called in the Bey Palace gardens in Oran. "Bulbul is an Arabic word!" exclaimed Robbie, our Algerian guide, who'd been apologising for the absence of birds.....
Then, on our final journey back to Algiers, there was the mournful blare of the train klaxon as we hurtled along.
And the sound I really wanted to hear? Oran is the home of rai music. Ah, we would need to visit bars for that, but sadly there's no time!
My new CD is playing as I type.
