There was some rain that came through in the middle of our visit, so I got to see the light chance a good deal throughout this photo shoot. I look at these photos and I can almost hear the gentle sound of rain on the tea fields.
It was the British who introduced tea to Kenya in 1903. And, apparently the place where it was introduced was right here in Limuru! Today the majority of tea in Kenya is grown in the Kenyan Highlands, mostly on the upper slopes of the Great Rift Valley. As I understand it, a good proportion of it is concentrated on the slopes of Mt. Kenya. So, Limuru is definitely the easiest area of tea fields to access from Nairobi.
Clocking in at the projected 12th largest city in the world by 2100 (a title that is today held by Lagos, Nigeria), Nairobi is the capital city of Kenya, and by far its largest population center. The most common languages spoken here are Swahili, and then English (Kenya is a former British colony). This pretty much covers “mainstream” Kenya, but like most nations on this vast continent, there are a LOT more languages being spoken here in addition to these main 2. In fact, there are a total of 68 languages spoken in Kenya!
Tunisia was going to be my second country in Africa, so I was excited to at least get a taste for it. We didn't have much time here, but we would still be able to see a decent chunk of Tunis. The flight here from Algiers was short but green and scenic as we made our way horizontally across the top of Africa. And as our plane made its final decent over northern Tunisia, I was excited. Here are a few pictures I snapped out the window. Drink 'em in, because everything went to shit from here.
To finish this series on Algeria, we're going to dive headfirst into the legendary Casbah of Algiers. This is the oldest neighborhood in Algiers, and many locals would also say that it's the most dangerous. In fact, the vast majority of locals that we asked about it told us that they themselves would not walk through this neighborhood alone. Yikes!
Now, if you've been following this series on Algiers/Algeria, you know that I've been preaching about how unexpectedly safe Algiers turned out to be. So it might seem odd that I'm now telling you about a place that is supposedly so dangerous. Well let me kick this off with a spoiler for you: the Casbah isn't so bad.
Today we're going to be doing a double-header: Cherchell and Tipaza. These places are not quite on the level of Timgad, but they are still going to be interesting and gorgeous. So buckle in kids! It's time to drive out into rural Algeria for some adventuring!
So, if you've been following this series on Algeria, you know that I was traveling with my mother. One little-known fact about my mom is that she's secretly a bad-ass and had actually lived in Algeria briefly in 1980. So this was a long-awaited return trip for her. During that time, although she did spend some time in Oran and Algiers, the majority of her stay was spent in a tiny town called Cherchell (pronounced "share-shell")...
In the previous article, I spent significant time gushing about how much I loved this city but I also talked a lot about the geopolitical isolation of this place. Most people even can't place Algeria on a map, and I want to change that.
But what if you decide you want to come here? What the hell are you going to do while you're here? What does "sightseeing" look like in Algiers?
That's what we'll be discussing today!
At a glance, much of Algiers is almost a mirror image of its former colonizer, France, which sits just across the Mediterranean. Visually, it is defined by Parisian-style buildings, almost all of which are colored white. However, in spite of its surreal visual similarities with France, it only takes about 10 seconds of walking the streets of Algiers to realize that it is a world all its own.
I’m going to tell you this up front: I LOVE this city.
If you're an American interested in visiting Algeria, first of all, that's really cool! Not a lot of Westerners come here, but the Algerian government isn't exactly making things easy. In this article, we'll walk through exactly how Americans can go about obtaining a tourist visa for Algeria. It's a little complicated, but if I can do it, so can you!
Travel plans! This time we'll be exploring Sicily, as well as the North African nations of Algeria and Tunisa. We will also be stopping through one other mystery Mediterranean location, which will be revealed shortly. In the coming articles, you can expect to hear about cities like Algiers, Tunis, Catania, Syracuse, and Palermo, among others.
LET'S DO THIS!
