The first day off in Algeirs I found the local diving club down at the spa in Sidi Fredj, a couple of miles from the hotel. Needless to say I took the plunge and went diving in the med.
Terrible decision to make.
The rental of the equipment, shortie wetsuit, BCD, bottles, weightbelt came to around 8 pounds sterling. The people there while not speaking much English and my french about as bad made me feel very welcome, brotherhood of divers I'm sure.
From the surface the med looks delightful, under the water it looks like the toilet it really is. Visibility was around 2 meters and there was lots of things floation around down there. Diving off the rocks was a new experience for me and the buffeting from the surf and the tidal currents was disconcerting at first but got used to it after a little while.
Whilst initially getting my bearings and balance underwater and getting used to the current I inadvertently put my hand on a small brown spikey creature. Picked up what I thought was a thorn of some kind. Thought nothing of it at the time.
The next day while eating lunch one of my colleagues noticed a red mark in my arm which looked like a pressure mark from leaning on the table. A couple of hours later this mark had not gone and was in fact creeping up my arm and could clearly be seen to eminate from the 'thorn' I picked up diving the previous day.
Heigh-ho off to the quack, very pretty lady incidentlt, where I had an anti-toxin in the arse and a course of antibiotics for the infection. tried to go diving a couple more times but the weather and waves were not right and visibility would be zero so did not get to repeat the experience or get back there and kill one of the little things that poisoned me.
Monday, 24 September 2007
Algeirs cont...
Algeria is a police state.
There are cops and gendarmes everywhere. Tight security at the hotel and work site. Cops at every street corner and at all junctions on the motorways. Looked a real raggety outfit so not sure how effective they would be in a firefight with terrorists, but I suppose they are there for show mainly.
The hotel we stayed in was a Sheraton and probably the worst sheraton in the world. the service was pretty appaling and for the most part I had to have luke warm showers. Only once in the entire 33 day stay did I get a really hot shower, sometimes it was cold. Complained often to no avail.
Most of the people that worked in the restaurants and bars were very helpful and sometimes too attentive, while some were downright rude. Had one barman refuse to serve me unless I spoke french to him, very wierd.
Worked six days a week so did not have too spend too much time at the hotel. Took to drinking wine on the beach or by the pool on our day off.
Beach at the sheraton Algeirs.
There are cops and gendarmes everywhere. Tight security at the hotel and work site. Cops at every street corner and at all junctions on the motorways. Looked a real raggety outfit so not sure how effective they would be in a firefight with terrorists, but I suppose they are there for show mainly.
The hotel we stayed in was a Sheraton and probably the worst sheraton in the world. the service was pretty appaling and for the most part I had to have luke warm showers. Only once in the entire 33 day stay did I get a really hot shower, sometimes it was cold. Complained often to no avail.
Most of the people that worked in the restaurants and bars were very helpful and sometimes too attentive, while some were downright rude. Had one barman refuse to serve me unless I spoke french to him, very wierd.
Worked six days a week so did not have too spend too much time at the hotel. Took to drinking wine on the beach or by the pool on our day off.
Beach at the sheraton Algeirs.The last month or so.
Sorry it has been so long since my last post but access to the website was blocked by the company I have just been working for in Algeria. Coupled with an extortionate internet access rate at the hotel I have had to wait until I arrived back home.
Rather than one big entry I will jot things down roughly as they happened over the last month or so.
Getting the visa for Algeria was fraught with problems, sent the forms off to a visa processing firm by royal mail with a guarenteed next day delivery on what turned out to be a day of strike action. Long story short, after 4 phone calls from me and some from the agency I was finally told that postman Pat would not redeliver the letter and I had to get somebody to pick it up from the sorting office. These delays caused me to be over a week late on the project in Algeria.
Eventually arrived in Algeirs to work on a disaster recovery project that was already 2 weeks old. Again the team was a pretty odd collection of people, there was the part Indian very British ex-government employee PM to the converted muslim Canadian. The guys I spent most time with was a Californian and a Brit from Aldershot.
Drinking buddies from Algeria. Victor and Todd.
Rather than one big entry I will jot things down roughly as they happened over the last month or so.
Getting the visa for Algeria was fraught with problems, sent the forms off to a visa processing firm by royal mail with a guarenteed next day delivery on what turned out to be a day of strike action. Long story short, after 4 phone calls from me and some from the agency I was finally told that postman Pat would not redeliver the letter and I had to get somebody to pick it up from the sorting office. These delays caused me to be over a week late on the project in Algeria.
Eventually arrived in Algeirs to work on a disaster recovery project that was already 2 weeks old. Again the team was a pretty odd collection of people, there was the part Indian very British ex-government employee PM to the converted muslim Canadian. The guys I spent most time with was a Californian and a Brit from Aldershot.
Drinking buddies from Algeria. Victor and Todd.
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