GEAR September Going to Algiers is like hitting black ice at two in the morning. For a few terrifying moments you lose all control and sense that this is not the end.
Then the car rights itself and you are facing in the right direction and all is good. The only difference is that all your senses are on full alert. The air smells fresher than it ever has, the cranky gas station attendant doesn't get on your nerves and the first bite of food is like biting into your first nibble of protein after a fast. Arriving can be daunting. When the plane comes to a complete stop it is surrounded by heavily armed men in SWAT-type uniforms.
Before disembarking I take a quick scan of the horizon. I can't see it, but I know the Sahara is just a couple hundred miles away. And then there is the history of killing foreigners, in the last decade. The oil execs, the beheaded Christian monks, the reporters. I remember when it was a popular to say that the average life span for a foreigner was one week: from the time of arrival to the knife across the throat. I take a taxi to the hotel, where a guard checks the car for bombs.
He gives us the go-ahead and I reach for the door. Outside, I must pass through an X-ray machine and metal detector to get in the hotel. The clerks are professional and speak fluent English and seem wildly surprised that an American other than an oil executive is in Algiers. I would be treated like a novelty for the trip's duration; often invited by locals to dinner, to tea, to visit the Sahara and to marry their daughters.
After a few moments I open the curtains. Outside stand more Algerian anti-terrorist police, here to protect the cash-carrying foreigners. According to a U.
