travel articles – Page 2

It’s the end of a sunny and warm December morning. Behind me is the crowded Martyrs’ square buzzing with street vendors, and in front of me is the famous Ketchaoua mosque with its outstanding fusion of Moorish and Byzantine architecture.

Ketchaoua mosque – built before 1612 during the Ottoman era.

I’m standing in the middle of the street, with an almost empty handbag, listening to the call to prayer echoing from the surrounding mosques and watching worshipers flocking the Ketchaoua doors.

I can feel people looking at me strangely. It’s clear I’m not from the area and they are probably wondering why I’m standing here, at the foot of the Casbah of Algiers, with one leg to the front and another to the back.

A street in the lower part of the Casbah.

It’s been over 10 years since I last set foot here. At the time, I visited the Casbah with my parents as it wasn’t considered safe to go there alone, but today I want to explore it by myself. I want to see what has become of this old quarter of the city.

The Casbah of Algiers is the oldest quarter of the city, nestled on top of a hill with white washed houses overlooking the Mediterranean sea. It has been an unsafe quarter for tourists and locals alike for decades during the civil unrest in Algeria – pretty much like the rest of the country, but has recently started reshaping itself with various renovation projects and guided tours.

An alleyway in the lower part of the Casbah.

El-Casbah, as the locals call it, is full of historical and religious sights. A walk through it feels like a journey in the past. It’s been inhabited since at least the 6th century BC by the Phoenicians and has been the heart of the capital since the Ottoman era as seen from the plethora of palaces and mosques scattered across its alleyways. During the Algerian revolution against the French occupation, it played an essential role as a base for planning and hiding.

An old Ottoman palace converted into the museum of miniatures and calligraphy.

I start my walk in the lower part of the Casbah, which has a number of ancient Ottoman palaces like Dar Aziza and Dar Hassan Pacha – all within a short walking distance from each other. They were built in the 16th and 18th centuries by the Deys and Pachas of Algiers, and have very similar moorish architecture, which dominated the region at the time.

In the centre of each palace is a marble courtyard with a fountain in the middle to keep the house cool during the hot summer days. The rooms are split across two floors surrounding the courtyard, and the walls are decorated with different types and colours of faience that give each palace a unique style.

Dar Mustapha Pacha alone is covered with more than 500000 Italian and Dutch faience mostly coming from Delft in the Netherlands. Dar Khedaoudj el-Amia, which was originally the palace of Ahmed Rais then the home of Hassan’s Pacha daughter, is now home to the national museum of arts and popular traditions.

Inside the palace of Mustapha Pacha.

As I was admiring the grandeur and style of a wooden door in one of the alleyways, I suddenly hear someone asking me “Do you know why the knock handle is so high up?”. “No” I reply. So, he continues “during the Ottoman era, the nobles used horses to go around. So, to avoid getting off their horses to knock on doors, they placed the knock handles high. You can also see that there is a large and a small door – the large one is for people coming on horses”.

An Ottoman-style door of one of the old palaces.

The man then walks few steps towards the end of the alleyway and points at a sign with two hands carved in the top corner of the wall explaining that it was used to mark the streets inhabited by Muslims. It’s amazing how people here are very eager to share information about the history of the place, their struggles and the way they live.

The sign at the top corner of the wall was used to mark the streets inhabited by Muslims.

From the Ottoman era, I move to a more recent period of the Algerian history. I’m now in front of the museum of Ali la Pointe, located in the middle part of the Casbah, which was the house where four famous freedom fighters got blown up during a raid of the French military, as they refused to surrender.

The entrance to the museum of Ali la Pointe with the painting of the four martyrs on the side.

The alleyway leading to the museum is decorated with colourful street art and Algerian flags including a painting of the four martyrs. As I look around, I get flashbacks from the famous Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 black and white movie – the Battle of Algiers, which was shot here and is a true recreation of the Algerian uprising against the French occupation.

The alleyway leading to the museum of Ali la Pointe.

My next stop is Sidi Abdarrahmane mausoleum, which is a mosque, a mausoleum and a graveyard where some very notable people have been buried including patron saint Sidi Abdarrahmane. It was built in 1696, and today it’s a place of worship and spiritual connection. The view from here is breathtaking with the mausoleum’s white dome and minaret, emerging from behind the trees, overlooking the blue sea and clear skies.

The view from Sidi Abdarrahmane mausoleum.

It’s now mid-afternoon. The streets are not very busy in this part of the Casbah, apart from the men sitting by their front doors watching passersby, kids playing football in a courtyard and a group of men playing dominoes.

Kids playing football in one of the courtyards.

The afternoon here seems to be long and enjoyable. Someone once told me “In Europe, you have watches, in Africa we have time”, and he couldn’t be more right as you can clearly see people here enjoying the slow movement of the day.

A man sitting by his front door enjoying the quiet afternoon in one of the alleyways.

I continue to walk up the alleyways until I reach the Palace of the Dey at the top of the Casbah, which was completed in 1596 and was once the second largest palace in the Ottoman Empire. During the French occupation, it served as a military base for the French army. As much as I want to spend more time strolling through the alleyways of the upper Casbah, I need to head down to Bastion 23 (Palais des Rais) before it closes.

Bastion 23 is a magnificent historical monument with three palaces and five fishermen houses, built in 1576 by the famous corsair Barbarosse. A walk around it gives an evocative insight into how the Deys and corsairs lived during the Ottoman era.

Fishermen houses inside Palais des Rais (Bastion 23).

“If it wasn’t for a group of people who sponsored its renovation, this palace wouldn’t exist today” tells me one of the guards. The monument is indeed well refurbished compared to the other palaces and certainly the alleyways I walked through earlier today.

As I step into the terrace overlooking the blue sea, I see the canons surrounding its walls and start to picture how this place looked back in the 17th and 18th centuries when Algeria had one of the most powerful and feared fleets in the Mediterranean.

As I leave the Casbah behind me and start walking along the bay, I suddenly wake up to the sight of a beautiful sunset settling down in the horizon. I stare in awe and wonder if this place will ever be buzzing with tourists, or will it continue to be a destination for the daring ones who want to travel through its memory lanes and enjoy its unspoilt beauty.

Or, will it be for people like me who want to explore the homeland they once left behind. After all, this trip may not have been to satisfy my curiosity of what had become of a place I visited a long time ago but most probably to settle the feelings of nostalgia from self exile.

It’s just after 9am as we leave the busy V&A Waterfront behind us and head towards Robben Island – an island unlike others that is famous not for its turquoise blue waters and expensive hotel chains, but for its role in reshaping South Africa’s political history and the struggle against apartheid.

Robben Island has been a place of imprisonment and isolation for centuries starting from the time when the Dutch arrived in the 17th-century to when the British took control. In the second half of the 19th-century, it became a leper colony before turning into a military base during World War II and then a maximum security prison during the apartheid regime in the 20th-century.

Today, it’s an island with a very small population that includes tour guides and their families. It opens its doors to tourists who want to learn about the struggle against apartheid and see the place where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years before becoming the first black and democratically elected president in South Africa.

To many in South Africa and abroad, Robben Island is a symbol of forgiveness, triumph over adversity and most importantly freedom. As Ahmed Kathrada (prisoner 468/64 1964-1982) put it “We want Robben Island to reflect the triumph of freedom and human dignity over oppression and humiliation.”

As we arrive to the island, we are welcomed by clear blue skies and the sound of screaming seagulls guarding its shoreline. We are then escorted to board buses, which once used to transport prisoners, and today serve as the island’s tour buses. Our bus; number 2, we are asked to remember so we know which one to board at the different tour stops, is guided by a former political prisoner who returned to work in the island years after being released.

Island’s tour buses which once used to transport prisoners.

Our first stop is the limestone quarry, where prisoners were forced to work and dig up stones for years. It’s around 11am now; the sun is high in the sky and scorching hot – a perfect setting to picture part of the struggle the prisoners lived when breaking stones under the burning sun. In the middle of the quarry lies the cairn of stones laid by Nelson Mandela and former prisoners on their first reunion in the island in 1995, as a memorial to their hard work and daily life back then.

After a short stop at the military bunker, we board our buses again towards the maximum security prison. As we arrive, we are greeted by a new guide who takes us on a tour around the different sections of the prison he once was a prisoner in. The prison was split into 4 sections: A, B, C and D. Each section was dedicated to different groups of prisoners based on their race and sentence.

The tour around the prison is probably the most emotional and distressing one. As we start our walk in a long dark corridor and listen to the stories from our guide, it’s easy to picture the suffering of the political prisoners back then.

The cells on either side of the corridor have cemented floors, a tiny window; covered with iron bars, and two doors: a metal one with bars on the inside and a thick brown wooden door on the outside. They are all very small; as Mandela put it in his Long Walk to Freedom “I could walk the length of my cell in three paces. When I lay down, I could feel the wall with my feet and my head grazed the concrete at the other side.”

“This is Mandela’s cell”, our guide tells us, so we all queue eagerly to take a peek through the closed iron door. It looks the same as all the other cells. On the floor is a straw mat he used to sleep on, a small side table; with a metal cup, a plate and a spoon, and an iron sanitary bucket.

Our guide Sama seems open to answer any questions we have, but I’m finding it hard to ask about the past, especially after walking around the cells and seeing what had become of these former prisoners. Their faces still bear the scars of past struggles, their bodies are frail and their eyes are weak from all the hard work and sharp light in the quarry.

“Even diet was discriminatory and was subject to apartheid regulation” Sama tells us holding a board with the breakfast menu, which was split into 2 sections: group B for the coloured (mixed race) and Asian prisoners, and group C for Bantus (Black Africans). The latter had smaller sizes and less content. “We were told that our bodies don’t need sugar and require small portions only since we were thin” Sama continues with a smirk in his face.

Our guide showing us the food menu split into 2 sections: one for the coloured and the other for black Africans.

After completing the tour in the inside of the prison, we step into the courtyard, which has a small garden on the side. “This is where Nelson Mandela used to grow tomatoes” Sama tells us. “He also used to hide his journals, which later turned into A Long Walk to Freedom, under the soil”, he continues.

It’s almost 1pm, the tour has ended and we are rushed back to the ferry terminal, after passing by the souvenir shop where I grabbed a couple of books: “A Long Walk to Freedom” by Nelson Mandela and “Robert Sobukwe how can man die better” by Benjamin Pogrund. “Robert Sobukwe was a very important icon in the struggle against apartheid. He’s not very famous like Mandela, but his work was equally important” the guide tells me – I cannot wait to read the book.

On the way out of the maximum security prison.

The entire trip has been emotionally challenging but equally inspiring to see how these ex-political prisoners turned a big tragedy that took their youthful years into something positive. They used their years in prison to educate themselves and plan for a better future despite the harsh conditions. Today, they continue to educate visitors about the meaning of freedom, forgiveness and perseverance.

It’s certainly not easy to go back and work in a place where one was humiliated for years. One needs a big heart and a wise soul to take that step. This is not just about Nelson Mandela who changed the face of South Africa, but it’s also about all former political prisoners who still live there and use that experience to educate the world.