Djafar Mohammed, Guide du Desert

We had been told that there are two types of guide in Algeria – the young ones, who are good at languages, good at dealing with officials at checkpoints, and like to sleep in a bed; and the older ones, who know the desert. Thankfully, we got the second type. Mohammed Djafar is a Toureg from the south east, 48 years old, and totally at home in the desert. He had been a guide in the army, and travelled by camel on long journeys in Southern Algeria. We were very lucky to have him with us from border to border, not just for route finding, but for his good company and mischievous sense of humour. The dye from his turban, and ash from the fire, gave him a blue/grey glaze, so we called him Azar Sh’arab, or blue beard.

At lunchtime and camp he would have the fire lit almost before the engines had stopped. In the mornings we could hear him stir at 5.30 am, but he had little to say until about 10am, when he’d come to life. The day was punctuated by his prayer stops and tea making. He carried large bags of tea and sugar, and a couple of little pots and a set of glasses. In the Sahara style, we would always be offered three glasses, the first undrinkable, the third perfect. He catered for himself on a separate fire, eating beans he’d soaked during the day, unwrapping a cloth with dried mutton, baking bread under the sand of his fire; but he didn’t say no to some of our Edam or biscuits either. By nights he was wrapped up in his bed roll by 9pm, and I don’t think he ever slept indoors, even during our lazy hotel days in Djanet and Ghardaia.

He doesn’t read or write or use maps. He would navigate by picking features on the horizon, then steer us on the best routes to avoid soft sand or the sudden dips caused by water erosion. Although he speaks some French, he would give instructions in Arabic, or by hand gesture - Imin for right, Yasar for left, and G’jam is straight on. If you did not take his advice he would stay quiet for a while and suffer the bumps, as if to say "you’ll take my route the next time", and we got a little better at recognising the changes in sand colour or vegetation cover that determined the best routes. 

At Bordj el Haous, Djafar invited us to his home for tea and biscuits. It has a number of stone compounds. As far as we could tell, his mother is in one section, and each of his two wives has her own compound, and he has eight children. There was no fuel at the station there, but he soon sourced 60 litres in jerries for us, at twice the official price but still cheap. 

Sometimes Djafar stops at In-Salah and does not go to the Tunisian border on the tar road with his tourists, but this time he stayed with us. He seemed smaller and out of place in the towns, and often picked the wrong route. I think he was happy when the last couple of hours of paper work was completed at the Algerian border post and he could turn around for the long trip back to the deserts of the South.

A guide is compulsory in Algeria, but even if it were not so, a person like Djafar makes it much more enjoyable. We were very happy with his agency, Tanezrouft Voyages, who were very flexible considering the group they had - arriving two days late, and not even knowing where in Algeria we wanted to visit.