As I was leaving work on a freezing early February cold night from Altenkirchen heading to Bonn where I live, I was looking for my permit that allows me to drive during curfew hours, unfortunately it wasn’t anywhere in the car which possibly could have been forgotten in the house, which means I would have to drive through the curfew time without my permit. I was driving as fast as I could to reach home, minding the bit of the black ice on the B8 road, but I was more worried about reaching home before being stopped by police and getting a big fine. During the months of late December until April, the Department of health of the region where my shop located forced a curfew law to reduce the raising number of COVID-19 cases as the region was considered as red zone and therefore only staff with permits are allowed to drive after 21:00. That situation has put all businesses on hibernation, we were struggling on surviving back then and reduced our employees to the minimum, the permit I had granted was to work as a delivery driver.
maps of Algeria I found in Paris
Normally when I first arrive home, after having a quick bite for dinner, which is most of the time some burgers I get from the diner, I spend the rest of the evening either writing for my book, on the candles light and chilled out music, or watch some NETFLIX, that would be the only time for me home before heading to bed. I would sometimes browse Instagram, Facebook or Twitter while I watch TV, most of the time checking the news of the lockdown, curfew or hoping to have a reduced number of cases and therefore we could open back our shop for public again. While I was going through Twitter, I have spotted a tweet by Qatar Airways, promoting that Algeria has been ranked as first destination for adventure travelers and promoting their scheduled flights to Algeria. I kind of got impressed of Algeria and this announcement, wondering what would make Algeria best destination other than the Sahara, and Algerian hospitality which I heard a lot about before, but I shouldn’t ignore that I was always interested since childhood to discover the Caves of Tassili. I have quoted the tweet trying to become a bit of a “Not serious” sarcastic tweeting: “in this case, I would go on an adventure on my motorcycle around Algeria, sponsored by Qatar Airways, what do you guys think?” I have then blown all the candles, walked upstairs to call the night switched off my phone and headed off to bed.
that tweet by me replying Qatar Airways that started it all
I have some procedures to do every morning that I would never miss, especially during the situations of COVID-19 lockdown days, first when I wake up is to prepare my morning coffee and chill in the garden with my dog “Gyda” then start my morning walk in the woods for around an hour with Gyda, no matter how cold or wet it is, this is a must to start the day! Normally I would check my phone and whatever I have missed during my sleep when I first wake up, but that day I carried my phone as I started walking with Gyda, as I switched on my phone, I got shocked of the number of followers I gained on Instagram which was 3000+, the tags and mentions reached a number that I lost track on, the mentions on Twitter too and followers I have gained were the highest activities I have ever got on my account! This has got me confused and reminded me of the story happened to me when I was in Colombia back in 2018, when a Colombian model tagged accusing me for promoting crime in her town Medellin after she viewed my story planning to visit Escobar’s farm house. That issue was resolved after we had talked to clear out the misunderstanding. But what shows to me from the mentions on all my platforms that they were all welcoming and greeting me and it was all related to Algeria! I have tried to trace down who caused that “Traffic”, which caused a slowness of my morning walk, and ended up walking back home to get deeper into this thing!
right after this tweet, the engagement started raising up and more up
Digging through Twitter it was easier to find who was the first ever mentioned my visit to welcome me, was an Algerian Journalist/reporter who is also a friend of mine her name was Wahiba, she spotted my tweet replying to Qatar Airways and retweeted with a warm welcome, which opened my window to all Algeria fans and Algerian people! What Wahiba did was a very big move and motivation for me to visit Algeria, she opened up lots of opportunities to me that even Ministry of Tourism themselves followed and contacted me! all of that, I haven’t still decided to visit Algeria yet! I have called Wahiba to thank her for what she did, she was super excited that I have decided to go finally as she was always recommending Algeria to visit, she told me: “you will get lots of invitations, promises, and just talks, ignore them all and stick to Rachid!” and this Rachid was the man who contacted all the authorities and made things go smoother by doing lots of paperwork and procedures to smoothen my visit.
The second part was to find who boosted my Instagram engagement with the Algeria topic, going through that app was more difficult because there were more than 5 accounts mentioned and welcomed me to visit Algeria, which all of them had over 100k followers, but I do remember that another journalist friend who used to live in Qatar tagged me on a post and I assume the other accounts got to know me through her, she was Nawel Kadi, who used to live in Qatar previously, and by her I got to know other news agencies and radio channels, such as Arabell FM Brussels, a visit and campaign on some other electronic newspaper and a visit to Paris with her to promote the trip. The situation I was put by those 2 journalists put me under a big pressure to decide what I should do with Algeria! Until this moment I wasn’t serious about it and due to the covid situation I didn’t have any scheduled plans in 2021 because I didn’t know when would this tragedy end, if ever! I was put into a situation to announce either I wasn’t serious about this trip, or I should continue with the plan as it was from the beginning scheduled from the moment I quoted the tweet of Qatar Airways.
This situation has taken me back to two different periods of my life, the first one, was when I was a kid and stolen a book from my elder brother that was named “Those who ascended to the sky” which discusses the mystery of Tassili caves, the probability that people who lived there thousands of years ago could be aliens or smarter people than us who live in the present. How they drew space ships on rocks, how they used ink that stayed over 10 thousand years until now, I was living the dream that I am walking through the Tassili desert exploring all these mysteries. I still remember how I sneaked to steal the book from him earlier during the day, to hide it under my pillow, used the little blue torch my grandmother bought me to read and go through the images. The reason why I wasn’t allowed to read that book because I was told by my brother this book has sin and bad energy, and reading it would make me see evil people. That was the first time ever I knew about the Tassili and Algeria, imagining how I would visit this country and explore the Tassili deserts with my own eyes, walk through or climb the rocky columns that are proudly standing on the golden sand dunes towards the sky, and crawl through the caves to find all these drawings.
packing and preparing all the gear for Algeria
The second period was back in 2019, when I was on the highway driving from Paris back to Bonn, Germany, and I remember it was a foggy freezing night, my heater was on at the maximum, and radio was playing too, I didn’t pay attention to what was playing until a “Rai” song has started. This song moved every part of me that I got goosebumps, I was pretty sure that song was Algerian, a very beautiful music that reminded me of the early 90s when the trend of Rai music invaded the world, as the song started with its strong beats, I slowed down and reduced the loud heater, an imagination that felt like a flash appeared at my eyes imagining myself cheering a crowd of Algerians welcoming me on both sides of a main road, I see young girls dressed all in Gold waving at me, they were around four young girls, I wouldn’t say dark skin, but similar to mine, and couple of men drumming in what they call “bandir” with another older man blowing a sharp flute. I could also notice school kids carrying both Algeria and Qatar flags waving at me as I was about to arrive into the stopping point! As I got into the crowd, I slowed my bike down and started waving them while still the Rai song was playing in the background, then I stood on the foot pegs and continued waving at the kids until one of them handed me both Qatar & Algeria flags to wave back at them. Yes, I have imagined all of that within few seconds, and was wondering what that could be? Could it be a message that I should do Algeria? Or just an imagination along with the song? But it did remind me of the first experience with the book. Then I promised myself to do Algeria one day, didn’t know when this “One day” would come, but defiantly it would come.
Until I have seen the tweet of Qatar Airways, I have never thought of how I would reach Algeria on a motorcycle, I was sure borders are closed with Morocco since years, when I was in Morocco back in 2018, I thought of riding from Merzouga towards the last village before the Algerian border “Taouz”. Where I rode the bike with couple of British riders to check the borders of Algeria, or we could at least say, we have seen the Algerian soil with our eyes, but a mid-age local man stopped me and recommended we should make our way back to where we came from because it wasn’t safe to reach that far, so, we had to ride back to the town for some camel meat grills. It felt strange knowing that the same people and cousins who are neighbors but still can’t cross borders to see each others, but I didn’t want to ask too many questions and preferred to end the conversation, reject nicely his offer to have some “ata[1]i” and rode back to town.
[1] North African Tea
The sooner I got to October, the more hope I lose to make it to Algeria, first no one was giving me any clear answer whether I will be granted the visa or not, then the Algerian government became more and more strict with the covid restrictions, other than that horrifying fire incident that started in all northern forests which made it worse to be able to visit Algeria in October. I have received lots of promises from officials and friends of friends, but nothing was honest and no official answer, except that it is better to move it to next April! I have even contacted some Algerian embassies in Europe asking what is it needed to get the visa granted, no one gave a clear answer yet! my last hope was my Algerian friend, “Zohra” who lives in Brussels, who forwarded my request to her cousin who lives in Qatar, and he was a good friend with the Ambassador in Doha, who arranged a meeting with him. The Algerian ambassador was a sharp looking man in his 70s, with lots of knowledge and wide experience about cultures, diplomacy and history of Qatar, he was so excited about my trip, asked to know more details and more of what I have achieved previously, I did most of the talk and he was a great listener with an impressed smile, then he said: you need to write all of that on a sheet of paper and attach it with your request for the visa, including all supporting websites, then he moved to his office to call his assistant, and continued: but I doubt you get the visa for October, we are too soon to that date and I strongly recommend you do it next April, by then we would have more time to promote your proposal, get all necessary approvals and get it approved for 3 months. But anyway, I will be flying back to Algiers and I will do my best, I can’t promise you though.
my interview with Arabell FM in Brussels
I have left the embassy losing all hopes of starting the adventure in October, I have flown back to Germany, where my parents joined later on, and started applying to enroll into German lessons, I was also talking about flying to Canada or Morocco in October, I had more free time, that was dedicated for Algeria! I have promised my partners that I would be staying for a longer period in Germany, and promised my parents that I will be in Qatar in September for a whole month. I have also asked Milko, my business partner to stop working on the bike “Fennec” since I will not make it to Algeria. Honestly, I started believing that Algeria will not open up for tourism even next April and started planning another route for a motorcycle trip elsewhere. I was still having a 1% hope that I would get a positive call sometime about visiting Algeria and didn’t want to lose it all.
meeting with HE The Ambassador of Algeria to Doha
At one fine sunny morning of Wachtberg, Germany, I woke up on 3 missed calls from Qatar, and few messages from Zohra telling me to answer the phone on my Qatari number, the Ambassador is trying to call me, and she didn’t have a clue why he was in need to speak to me urgently! I was expecting that he would ask for more information, make me re-write my proposal for the visa for the 3rd time, or ask for a bank statement, so when I first called, he asked: where are you khalid?
In Germany, in the house, I answered!
Ambassador: what would you do if we ask you to come for issuing the visa?
I said: I would immediately fly over and come!
He laughed out loud and said: then come over!
I didn’t know if I should be extremely happy, or extremely in panic! Happy because I didn’t expect the approval to come that soon for October, during August, which means everything goes back to the initial plan and prepare myself mentally to be in Algeria. But in panic? Because it is coming so soon that I have stopped everything and should get back running, which means I was way behind schedule, especially with preparing the bike, find a shipper, order spare parts, adventure clothing shopping, buying insurances, needed medicines, contact lenses, etc, and above all of that, fly to Qatar to get the visa issued. The most important issue I had in August, that my father didn’t fully recover his surgery he had in Germany and I still have to wait for his recovery and then we both fly to Qatar, I didn’t want to push for it and waited until he got his fully recovery and decided to fly back, this has moved us to first week of September!
The next day after my arrival to Doha, I drove to the embassy to get the visa granted, the ambassador was more excited for the trip, and made a lot of calls to get me sorted out at the airport, he just advised me to ship the bike by air to get it into Algeria, because Tunisia-Algeria borders were still closed, all the ferries are on hold and the only way to enter Algeria was through Air France from Paris to Algiers! This has put me into more stress and crazier thinking on what to do! It is impossible to do all of that before the 30th of September, it would be a miracle for the bike to arrive before that date, especially that the bike was not ready yet! now as I have the visa in my hand, I am still in Qatar, I need to decide what to do, I haven’t had enough of my kids and parents, and the same time I had to fly back to Germany ASAP to finish planning the trip and fly to Algiers. I have decided to fly back to Germany just 9 days before departing to Algeria and from there plan whatever I can do to make it happen for the Boarding Tassili to start!
i wouldnt leave without my father feels fully recovered to leave Germany back to Qatar
Going through all that tough time in order to get into Algeria gave a wonderful flavor to the whole adventure, it was an adventure by itself working, planning, shipping, modifying, packing and flying in 9 days, big thanks for the team who supported me to make it all happen, everything was made perfectly in order and ready for my departure, except that I would fly 2 weeks before my “Fennec” bike arrives, which means I would be chilling around Algiers until fennec is in town. It took the team another challenge to prepare everything and set it on specific confirmed time to arrive in Algeria, it would be a nasty challenge to ship a motorcycle within 2 weeks during Covid, but I got a confirmation that it would be there by first week of October, now I am ready to leave, big thanks Milko, Sid, Katharina, Joe and everybody who worked for this project to make it happen, Algeria here I come!
