Algeria has some of the most spectacular Roman ruins in existence. Timgad, the ultimate example of Roman city planning. Djemila, perhaps the most beautiful of all Roman sites. Remote forts. Soaring aqueducts. The mysterious tombs of the Numidian kings.
Yet I had never seriously considered exploring all this. I’m not sure why. It may have been that I had heard the country was difficult to access. Perhaps I simply wasn’t ambitious enough. But when Rochdi, a Toldinstone fan who worked for a travel agency in Algiers, invited me to lead a trip to Algeria’s Roman ruins, I was intrigued.
Unfortunately, as I discovered when I began negotiations with Rochdi’s company, no American travel agency wanted anything to do with the country. And when I finally found a company – Iconic Journeys Worldwide – that would accept bookings, a new series of problems arose. Jerry Sorkin, the company’s president, had a health crisis that left him hospitalized for weeks. A virtual meeting intended to drum up interest in the trip got Zoom-bombed by hackers with a keen interest in ebony porn. All my attempts to entice YouTube viewers to the trip were ignored.
And then there was the visa issue. With the exception of North Korea, Algeria has the world’s most difficult visa application process. Applicants are required to submit a dozen documents – including proof of income, proof of address, flight reservations, a detailed certificate of accommodation, and a USPS money order (!) for $160 – to the consulate in New York. For reasons best known to themselves, Jerry and our Algerian partners waited until only three weeks before the trip to send us the required documents. With a frenzy born of desperation, and after a series of maddening delays, I assembled everything and sent it off to New York via FedEx.
I knew that it would come down to the wire. The average processing time was 10 business days, and there were exactly 10 business days left before my departure, thanks to the impending Eid-al-Fitr holiday. I knew that Tuesday, April 9 would be my last chance. I distracted myself on Monday by driving down to a small town in Indiana with Athalia to watch the total solar eclipse. As soon as the consulate opened on Tuesday, I called the visa office. My application, I was told, had not been approved, and would not be until the following week.
Despondent, I asked the consulate to send my passport back. On Wednesday, while visiting my parents, I received a call from Jerry, informing me that our Algerian partners believed the visa would be approved on the following Tuesday. Since my flight to Rome was scheduled for Monday, I had a decision to make: I could write off Algeria entirely, go on to Rome as planned, and spend two weeks in Greece; or I could cancel my flights, go to the Algerian consulate in New York, and then – if the visa was approved – go on to Algeria. After a moment of indecision, I decided to gamble on New York.
I cancelled my flights and bought new ones: one to New York, early Tuesday morning; another from New York to Paris, late Tuesday night; and a third from Rome back to Chicago. Then I packed my bags, and waited.
4-16
I left home in the middle of the night, and sped off in a cab under the fluttering shadow of spring leaves. Desperate to reach the consulate while the employees could still call Algiers (five hours ahead of New York), I had booked a 6am flight. As usual, the best-laid plans fell apart. The flight was delayed, and there was nobody at the desk where tickets could be switched. I raced across the airport to another 6am flight, but was too late. I trudged back to my gate, and watched the screens as the delay lengthened. A little white dog gazed dolefully at me. I gazed dolefully back. When it finally boarded, the flight – naturally – was turbulent. So was my stomach, which repeatedly sent me lurching to the bathroom.
There were more delays in New York. The bus to the subway was late (Athalia, whom I’d been texting, half-jokingly suggested taking an executive helicopter to Manhattan.) When I finally got on the subway, I kept trying to get the consulate on the line, unsuccessfully. Emerging at last from Grand Central, I stored my bags at a nearby deli and raced to the consulate. I reached the door at 11:45 – only 15 minutes before the Algiers foreign office would close.
My phone was confiscated by the receptionist, and I was ushered into a waiting room filled with Algerian families. They had the look of having been there for a long time. The murmur of Arabic filled the room. At long last, I was called. I explained the situation, and presented my passport. The employee – the same short-tempered man I had been calling for the past two weeks – looked on severely. My application, he said, had not been approved. The Ministry of Tourism had authorized it; the Ministry of Accommodation had not. I pleaded my case. He listened impassively. There was, he allowed, a slight possibility that a visa could be issued today, in light of the circumstances. He vanished upstairs. People came and went. A bored toddler crawled under the seats. The hands of the clock stood still. At last the employee merged, still unsmiling. “Ryan?” I walked over, heart heavy. “Your visa has been approved. Welcome.”
Outside, the sun shone a bit brighter. For the first time in weeks, birds sang. After demolishing a celebratory burger at the Times Square Shake Shack, I indulged in an afternoon of pure tourism. I rode the Staten Island Ferry over the sparkling bay past the Statue of Liberty. I took the subway to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and strolled beneath the flowering trees. I sat on a bench, and promptly fell asleep.
I ordered a gigantic calzone from a nearby deli, and ate it on a park bench as evening fell. Back in Manhattan, sunset caught the spire of the Chrysler Building as I reclaimed my bags. I took a final look at the Empire State Building, glowing in the warm night, before vanishing into the Amtrak station for the train to Newark. My train, naturally, was delayed.
4-17
I had booked a budget flight to Paris on French Bee, AKA Transatlantic Spirit. As expected, the plane was a cattle car with wings. I didn’t sleep. We touched down in Orly, the other Paris airport. The weather was gray and cold, with bursts of drizzle. As I waited for the bus to the nearest metro station, I found myself regretting that I hadn’t brought a real coat.
Lengthy sojourns on the bus and metro brought me to a hotel by the Gare du Nord, which had a bed-buggy look. I considered trying to sleep, but someone was hammering on the walls in the neighboring room. So off into the city I went, to make a video about Roman Paris.
A downpour caught me near Notre Dame, and I sheltered – as I had last year – under a bridge by the Seine. I visited the archaeological crypt and the Cluny Museum. Fatigue caught up with me as I was recording in front of the Pantheon. But I persevered to Arena of Lutetia, where the scanty remains of Paris’ Roman amphitheater are preserved in a pleasant park. Where the gladiators once battled, old men were playing bocci ball.
As I walked back to my hotel, a crack opened in the leaden sky, and sunlight flashed along the boulevards. Then the clouds closed again, and a piercing wind plucked at my jacket. I opened the door of my room, kicked off my shoes, and fell instantly asleep on the filthy duvet.
4-18
Another gray day. I rode out to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, at the end of an RER line, to visit the National Museum of Archaeology, installed in a former royal chateau during the reign of Napoleon III. I wandered through long and mostly empty halls festooned with rusty swords and broken pottery, tracing the gradual rise and abrupt destruction of the Gauls. The final room, centered on an elaborate maquette of Caesar’s siege lines at Alesia, showcased dozens of artifacts recovered from the site, from a Roman pickaxe to gold coins lost by the soldiers of Vercingetorix.
Back in Paris, I visited the Carnavalet Museum, which documents the history of Paris in commendable detail (and for a commendably free ticket). In the basement, which houses ancient and medieval artifacts, I peered at a prehistoric wooden dugout and a collection of Roman tombstones.
Then, back to the airport – CDG this time – for the long-anticipated flight to Algeria. Since I had arranged to spend a day before the group trip doing some solo filming, my destination was Constantine, on the west side of the country. My visa was scrutinized at the Air Algerie counter, and again at the gate, where it became clear that I was the only non-Algerian passenger. The plane had seen better days. Most of the seats were cracked, exposing the stuffing. The safety demonstration consisted of the pilot shouting into the intercom as a harried-looking attendant mimed what to do in the not unlikely event of a crash. The other passengers had seen all of this before. Immediately after takeoff, one of my neighbors trotted down the aisle to an empty row, popped off his shoes, and took a nap.
About ten minutes before we landed, the Algerian coast came into view. I was surprised by how rugged it was, and how green. Sunset streaked the valleys. We plunged through a cloud bank, and there was Constantine, white buildings on dark hills. Then, with a shudder and a dip, we touched down. Everyone clapped.
I had never seen such chaos at an airport. Thousands of Algerians had gone on the Hajj in celebration of the Eid holiday, and all of them seemed to be returning at once. An enormous plane had just arrived from Mecca, and the arrival hall was swarming with white-robed pilgrims, most elderly and visibly infirm. The line at Passport Control was long and slow. When I finally reached the booth, I was subjected to a final interrogation about my travel plans, then sent to the back of the line to fill out a detailed form in French. This was inspected; additional documents were demanded. Finally, grudgingly, my passport was stamped.
Thanks to the sheer press of pilgrims, I could barely walk around the luggage carousels. Stepping around an old woman lying full-length on the floor, I finally made it to the arrivals door, where I found literally thousands of people. It is traditional for returning Hajj pilgrims to be welcomed by their entire family, and all of Constantine seemed to be crowding around and shouting. With many apologies in French, I forced my way through. Rochdi had arranged to meet me just outside the terminal; I must have stuck out, since he found me almost immediately. A tall, thin figure in a Harvard baseball cap emerged from the dark, kissed me on both cheeks, and enthusiastically welcomed me to Algeria.
We walked a short distance to a waiting van, where I was installed in the middle seat. Then I watched in respectful astonishment as the driver negotiated the bedlam around the airport – people parked in the middle of the street, cars driving in the wrong direction, etc. – and shuttled us into central Constantine. My hotel room featured a small balcony overlooking the city. As I stepped out onto it, the evening call to prayer sounded from a dozen mosques. I had arrived.