Welcome to Algeria Vol.2 - GHARDAÏA | Exploring Ksars & markets, buying crafts & rescuing a kitten!

Join us as we explore a city of fascinating culture and captivating beauty. We just woke up. It's 6 a.m. We are going to Gardaia today. It looks like a gorgeous city, more down south. We're going by a local bus. We're really looking forward to it. We just got in the bus and this woman in the bus station helped us a lot. Yeah, she sold us the tickets yesterday. This morning she came to make sure we got on the right bus. She was so kind. Yeah, she positioned us in the bus and she just brought us dates. Yeah, we were just leaving and she brought us a plate of dates. People here, what a kind woman, what a sweet, sweet soul. We're loving it. We always try to take public transportation in lieu of flying. Although not many tourists seem to travel by local bus in Algeria, we found it to be an easy and affordable way to move around. We've made it to Gardaia after a very long day. The bus ride was around nine hours, which was pretty okay for us. We're used to it. It was comfortable. It was fine. It did a few stops along the way, but not too bad. There are a lot of military checks along the way, especially when leaving the capital. It was a bit nerve wracking, but that's fine. Nothing happened. It was all good. The arrival to Gardaia, much more rough than we expected. The bus station was intense. Anyway, we're finally in the room, quite tired. We need to take a shower, sleep well, and tomorrow we will be exploring Gardaia, which I hope is really nice. Good morning. We're out to explore Gardaia. From what we've read and seen, it's a much more conservative place, so I'm going to be fully covered up. We're doing it on our own. Our friends left this morning with the tour, and they were escorted by military. We hope it's going to be fine and that we can do our own thing, but just in case, we're going to be the most covered, the most respectful we can be. Recording might be difficult because the people don't want to be recorded. Gardaia is the capital of the Amsab Valley, a unique region, both culturally and geographically, located in northern central Algeria in the Sahara Desert. It is a fortified town meant to protect the community from the surrounding desert and external threats. We've just come to the main market area, and we've gotten a tour guide that's going to take us around with a group of Arabic-speaking people leaving in like 15 minutes. We're very pleased. We already saw a carpet we absolutely love. We just have to figure out how to take everything back with us. It's going to be very heavy. But it's gorgeous, and it is very, very beautiful here, I have to say. We're already happy campers. It's going to be fine. Happy campers. Happy campers. Dexar is a fortified citadel made up of narrow streets, alleys, and courtyards. It is the heart of the city and can only be entered by tourists when accompanied by a local guide. It is also important to dress modestly and to respect the privacy of local residents, many of which do not want to be photographed or filmed whatsoever. The buildings in Dexar are made of clay and palm tree wood and are designed to blend in with the surrounding desert landscape. Each citadel has their own mosque with a pyramid-style minaret. The houses are built around the mosque in concentric circles and are characterized by their flat roofs and narrow windows. The residents have preserved the original medieval architecture remarkably well. Finding vegan food here at times can be quite hard because even vegetarian dishes that look like they're vegan, like they tell us oh it's only lentils and vegetables, it's vegetarian, then they come and the broth has been made with meat. We found bits of meat in our food before, so whenever in doubt we just go to a pizza place and ask for a pizza without cheese. And so far it's really good, it's cheap, affordable, really nice. So totally recommend that if you're vegan you can always eat a pizza without cheese. You have to be more specific. We didn't get the cheese but now there was a lot of chicken on it. I think they just substituted it, they're like oh these guys they have so little on their pizza. We're gonna take a takeaway so we can get all the chicken bits off without offending them and give that to our cat. And now we've ordered another one with nothing. Let's hope that one comes in. Maybe I should say without fish as well. Let's just watch him when they're putting stuff on top. Oh yeah that's a good idea, we'll watch him, we'll watch him. We're walking to Ben Iskuen, which is another fortified town. We did Gardaya this morning and now we're doing another one. There are five that are joined, practically joined all together and they've always collaborated in the past but they are a distinct town. And this is apparently the prettiest one during sunset. Although they are all within a few kilometers of each other and share similar cultural and religious practices, each Xar has its own history, architecture and cultural tradition. Founded by the Mozabites, a Berber ethnic group who have lived in the area for over a thousand years and in the process developed a sophisticated system of urban planning, water distribution and agriculture that has allowed them to thrive in the harsh conditions of the desert. We unfortunately didn't catch the market open but like the one in Gardaya, it is used by locals to sell handmade crafts, spices and other goods. We had a really fun day. Now we're back at the hotel, we've showered, we've rested, we're eating our daily dose of vitamins because here they're very cheap and really good. We're gonna have a pizza, the leftover one that we picked out all the chicken from and gave to the cats and that's it. We're gonna rest tonight so we're very happy. Happy campers! The Mozabite people have a distinct culture and way of life with their own language, music and traditions that have remained largely the same for centuries. They are known for their strict adherence to Islamic tradition as well as their unique social and economic organization. The majority of the population is Ibadi Muslim, belonging to a branch of Islam that places a strong emphasis on communal structures and the principles of social justice, equality and democracy. In Gardaya, the Ibadi faith is deeply ingrained and translates into a tight-knit community where cooperative labor and collective decision making is essential. The residents are organized into different social and occupational groups and each group has its own specific role in the community. One of our favorite things here is the mint tea. We get it in our cup, it's really delicious. You get this little stand. We just got our bus ticket. It was 2,050 dinar which is around 10 bucks. You have to go from Gardaya to Timimun. Yeah which is even more in the south. It's the furthest south we go. It will take us around 8-9 hours. It's all very easy so far because you don't find any information online and it seems like you need a guided tour for everything but you don't. It's just you have to go to the bus station and buy the ticket on the day of the trip. You just ask for it and it's super helpful. And there's lots of buses. It's really easy and you just have to be here to figure it out. So we have another two hours to explore and then we'll take our bags and off we go. The markets in Gardaya are famous for their wide selection of beautiful handmade crafts. Especially eye-catching are the colorful carpets that hang from every corner. Made using a traditional loom and natural dyes, they often feature geometric shapes and symbols. And of course we had to get our own. We just paid 30 bucks for two carpets. I mean we've asked in lots of shops and they're normally around 100 something around 120, 150, 180 depending on the carpet. And these are not the most detailed but still I'm so confused. This is the shop of the carpet. It has a layer of herbs and soaps. It doesn't have a sign but this is how it looks on the inside. Totally recommended. This country just keeps on surprising us. We were trying constantly to go to the shop that the guide had recommended with local handicrafts and we finally found it open. And the man was so nice. He was like apologizing because he had heard from all the merchants around that we had gone a lot and he had been quite sick. But he gifted us a cup first of all. Out of nowhere. A beautiful cup. He asked me which one I preferred and then wrapped it up for us. And then he offered to keep our carpets for us so we don't have to carry them, which is so nice. So we left our stuff there and we're definitely coming back now. We've decided our route. And now I'm gonna stop talking because We went to Timimun for a few days before coming back to Gardaya. A little learning mode. We got to the bus station. We didn't pre-book. We just went to the bus station because they said there were enough buses. We were here at before 8 and the bus is only going at 10 45 which is a bit of a shame. They said it was gonna go at 9 yesterday but like it turned out not to. And this bus station is far away from everything. Yeah we cannot go really. Like we cannot really go anywhere. It's a lot of sitting around. We'll just have to wait. Next time pre-book it. Right? We seem to be having a bit of a Murphy's law moment. The bus was already pretty late. Then it just made a really bad sound and everyone got off. So I don't know if we're gonna make it to Gardaya in time. I think we're gonna have to find another way of transport. Yeah let's see. It's really hot outside so it's not gonna be fun. And we're in the middle of nowhere. We are pretty in the middle of nowhere at the moment. But we'll figure it out. It's all gonna be fine. Round two. Success. We're on another bus. It was only one hour delay so it's quite smooth. Let's see how this goes. This bus sounds better. It does sound better. It sounds much better. This is the first hotel room that we haven't booked using booking and that wasn't like a fancy place. We'll report on how we feel about the place tomorrow but I'm pretty happy. It's just yeah all clean. It all looks new. I can't wait to shower. I feel disgusting. We're having breakfast and they're so lovely. The gardener came with a bouquet of basil and I think this is citronella. It's one of these plants that smells really good. And then a rose for each of us. How sweet is that? Smells so nice. Yeah they're really worried because we tried to explain to them that we're vegan and they fully do not understand. But they're being very kind. We have some fruit, tea, bread, some cookies that we'll give to kids outside and yeah just the loveliest people. As with moving around we figured out the best way to look for more affordable family-owned hotels only once there. We did it by looking up options on google maps and simply calling them. This worked out for us even without very limited french. We're back in Gardaia. So we left our carpets here. We're in a hurry because we had to catch our bus very soon. Yeah like five minutes later. And we're going back now to the shop to pick up our things and buy some more stuff. We need to figure out how to ship everything to Europe. You know. We're gonna figure it out. Yeah. We had a very difficult time choosing but we've taken without breaking it. In our favorite pizza place because they put a lot of veggies on the pizza. Well we had a crazy day. Ali found a cat early in the morning. A little kitten. And yeah you couldn't let it go. It was all alone. It was tiny. It was market day and everyone kept knocking it over and not seeing it and stepping on it and it just broke my heart. I tried to just put it down but I can't do it. It's too sad. Like it looks for me and then it doesn't know where to go and it's everything is so dangerous and it's so small. So i'm just sitting till all the shops close at lunch so at least it will be able to hide somewhere and not get troubled. But this is breaking my heart. I really i'm not cut out for this. This is the worst part of traveling. So we bought some chicken for it which it devoured. It was so hungry. Like it didn't even like it didn't even chew. It just swallowed like big chunks. Which was not a great thing but. And then it yeah it just trusted me and it lay on me all day. I was really tired and and I know how hard it is like for this little baby. So I just sat all morning letting it rest and then we tried to find a spot like a little hole where it could hide at least. But it was difficult. It was difficult because the streets here are basically they're so narrow that there's no spot for like any gaps or anything. Yeah. But you did you found spot. You put it in the scarf. We left it there. I'm thinking of the small ones for corridors. We just left the cat in the spot. Ali is really upset. Of course that's all that finds a nice place. Then we went back to the hotel to try figure out a solution. Like Facebook groups. You know expat Facebook groups etc etc. I always try like rescues etc. It seemed like we weren't going to be able to find anything. But we looked up a vet here in Gardaia. We're on a mission now. We just went to the vet to get some food. But they actually don't have any cat food. But he said that we could bring it to him and he would bring it to another cat rescue. To a place where they are okay with keeping with the cat. Of course we don't know what will happen with it. But we think it's better than just leaving it in the street. I don't know. It's one of the situations where we're just trying and it's a bit of a gamble. And I hope it will be fine. If not it will probably die anyways. This lovely lovely vet is gonna take care of him. We just brought the cat to the vet. And the vet was amazing. We tried to give him a donation but he didn't want any. He's gonna take it home. Take care of it. It's insane. It's bizarre that you found it. We're happy. We're very happy. That was quite a day no? Happy tears. Happy tears. Basically the whole day Ali spent finding a solution for his cat and it looks like it worked out. Quite impressed. Even here you managed. Okay it's six months later. A couple of days before posting this video and we have an update from the cat. So exciting. We just got it. I have to translate so it might take a bit. The vet says bonjour. I hope you're doing well. He was adopted and taken care of by a good family who loves him very much and takes care of him. Oh my god that's insane. This is the best news. And then we have a photo. Oh he's so big. He's so big and fluffy. This is such good news. We're so happy to get this update. That's like the best news you can have. This vet what a what a nice loving caring amazing human. He helped us out. He took the cat in and he found it at home. We couldn't have asked for anything better. We're so happy. No this is the perfect outcome. Good way to end the video. The cat was adopted. We absolutely fell in love with Gardaya and would truly recommend going there should you want to immerse yourself in a whole new and fascinating way of living.