Today proved to be another interesting day of exploring Algiers, although in many ways not quite as we expected.
We took the metro in the morning to the last stop, Place des Martyrs, which is just below the Algiers Kasbah, which rises up the hill above the western side of the Bay of Algiers. Unfortunately, it was raining heavily for much of the morning, which certainly put a damper on our tour of the kasbah.
Place des Martyrs itself is a nice square, famous for the 450-year old Djemaa El Djedid mosque.
The square also has an archaeological site where Byzantine ruins are being excavated.
Although a UNESCO world heritage site, the kasbah is not like the charming, well-preserved medinas we had visited in Tunisia. In fact, in many ways the kasbah feels quite rough and gritty, and many of the buildings appear to be in a bad state of disrepair.
One thing that was exciting about the kasbah is at some point we were walking along a street that was packed with booths, most of which seemed to be selling various paraphernalia relating to celebrations for the prophet's birthday, which is today. Mostly this involved fireworks, but also candles and other cheap, colourful decorations and so on--not unlike what you might see being sold in a dollar store at Christmas in Canada. This morning we did not quite grasp how big a deal the prophet's birthday was, but we found out this evening, which I will get to later on.
Although there were many places to buy fireworks, we were having a harder time finding somewhere to get breakfast. Eventually we had worked our way back down and out of the kasbah and found a cafe where we were able to order coffees and croisssants and pain du chocolats. Thankfully, this cafe also had a nicely covered patio, because as we sat there the rain really started coming down.
Besides all of the prophet's birthday excitement, we were also noticing an incredibly significant police presence, including in the park across from the cafe. Mostly the police looked bored and as irritated with the rain as we were, but there numbers were really something. At the small park alone there were at least several large police vans, with at least several police in each of them--easily 20-30 police officers at this one location--and we had noticed similar numbers at the metro station and other places. I was largely unperturbed by it, but Diana seemed to be getting mildly anxious as the morning wore on.
Eventually, somewhat reluctantly because of the rain, we decided to move on, making our way back toward the Place des Martyrs. I was keen to see the Ketchaoua mosque, which is just up from the square.
Wikipedia describes the Ketchaoua mosque as the cyonsure--"thing that is the center of attention or admiration"--of the 17th century kasbah. It is even older than the Djamaa el Djedid mosque, which is just a few blocks away. Unlike the Djamaa el Djedid, however, the Ketchaoua mosque was converted to a Catholic church (Cathedral of St Philippe) by the French in 1845, before being converted back to a mosque in 1962.
We also walked around the waterfront east of the square where the fish market and fishing boat harbour is.
In this picture below you can, of course, see the Bay of Algiers and the fish market, but further on you can see the Martyrs Monument on the hill in the distance and to the left across the bay you can see the minaret of the Djamaa El Djazair mosque. You can also see a ferry at the port where ferries from Spain and France dock.
Thoroughly soaked and quickly becoming miserable now, we decided to retreat back to the hotel, stopping for a lunch of chicken shawarma on the way.
In the hotel Diana decided to ask the man at reception what was with all of the police. "Because of the manifestations," he explained. Turns out that every Friday since February Algiers has had massive demonstrations after afternoon prayers against the government and political corruption. Diana asked if it was safe to be outside and, although he said the demonstrations have been peaceful, he recommended we stay in our room for our couple hours.
That was okay with us, because were were tired and wet from walking around in the rain anyway. Around 14:00 the protests began, and we were super lucky, because we had a great view from our balcony of crowds marching down the street towards the central square.
The protests have been dubbed the "Revolution of Smiles," and we could see why, because it seemed to be a very happy protest, with lots of singing and flag waving. Wikipedia has a good article about the demonstrations, and apparently they have been quite effective.
Interestingly, we turned on the TV to see if the protests were being covered, but we saw nothing. Apparently media is not covering the protests in Algeria, or at least not live, whether because they do not want to or are not allowed, I am not sure. In any case, it was a really fascinating event to experience and we felt really lucky that we just happened to end up in Algiers on a Friday and in a hotel room with a balcony above the street like we did!
Once the commotion settled down (and with the weather decidedly improved), we went back outside to catch a taxi to the Basilique Notre Dame d'Afrique, one of the few Catholic churches remaining in Algeria.
It took us a few minutes of haggling with cabbies before we found one whose offer seemed reasonable (albeit significantly more than we had been told to expect at 700 dinar, or ~$7). Obviously we were paying more because we were tourists, but we also realized that navigating Algiers was not easy on this particular afternoon! The taxi had to go the long way, up the hill and around, to avoid the crowds and road closures. It ended up being an interesting tour in and of itself as we wound up the switchbacks and along the hillside. The cabbie, an older man, seemed to like us and was trying to tell us interesting things about the city as we drove, but I was struggling to understand his French most of the time. Nonetheless we managed to learn a few things, including that a particular mosque we passed was a converted church, and that a surprisingly impressive building we passed was actually just the parkade of the Ministry of National Defense building!
As we neared the basilica I realized it would be nice to have the same cabbie drive us back, so I attempted to ask this. Actually I am not positive he understood that that was what I was asking, but either way he offered to wait for us! He suggested 20 minutes, which was perfect.
The basilica is not particularly large, but very beautiful, inside and out, and obviously a unique site given that it is in a Muslim country.
We were not supposed to take pictures inside, unfortunately, but I did take one before Diana (who likes to follow rules) pointed out that I was transgressing. For me the greatest part of the basilica is the wording in my picture: "Notre Dame d'Afrique priez pour nous et pour les Musulmans," or something like "our lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Muslims," which I find very profound.
The basilica is situated on a hill in western Algiers overlooking the Mediterranean. It is a very nice setting and thankfully the weather was now quite nice in the late afternoon.
On our way back downtown, the taxi took the lower, more direct route that he had had to avoid earlier, along the bay, past the Place de Martyrs where we had been this morning, and so on. There were still police and many demonstrators out, but the crowds had mostly dispersed. Now, Algiers was getting ready to celebrate the prophet's birthday, and our cabbie was excited to tell us about it. Again we understood little, but at some point he said he had bought fireworks for his grandchildren, and when he realized we understood that, proceeded to open his glove compartment and show us the package.
He dropped us at our hotel, and we headed out for dinner. The prophet's birthday fireworks sellers were now everywhere, and children began setting them off as it got dark. As we walked back from dinner, we even had to dodge some of the kids and their firecrackers! I got a bit caught up in the excitement of it all and suggested we make the most of our last night in Algiers and embrace the pyrotechnic celebratory atmosphere by lighting our own fireworks. Diana took some convincing, but eventually agreed. She went back to the hotel room, and I did some shopping--fireworks from this table, lighter from that corner store. I smuggled it all up to our room underneath my jacket and we each set off a stick of Roman candles from our balcony.
No doubt this is not the safest way to set off Roman candles, but generally there did not appear to be a lot of concern in Algiers over pyrotechnic safety, and we ensured we shot them away from us and toward the empty lot across the street. It was a fun way to end a very memorable day in Algiers.
