Despite of our tandem, which the guard of the Algerian Consulate in Rabat found impressive, we don't get a visa for that country.

We tried yesterday to get a visa for Algeria. We parked our tandem in front of the Consulate well before closing time and went into the guards booth. But we were very politely told a) that visa requests are only accepted before 2pm, b) that normally visa are only issued in Rabat for residents in Morocco, c) that we should try to get "a paper" from the German Consulate, d) that anyway we could come back the next day.

We still managed to cycle to the German Consulate on time yesterday, where we were "generously" allowed to talk through a tiny window literally in the street to someone not speaking German at all. He indicated that we could put down our desire on a slip of paper. After spending quite some time waiting in the street and feeling quite ridicolous, that person came back letting us know (in French) that there is nothing the German Consulate could do for us, after all German citizens. Not that we really think they could have - we could not figure out ourselves what that "a paper" the Algerian Consulate was referring to could have been - but we disliked the way we were treated.

Today we tried again with the Algerians - without "a paper". We were kindly invited to come inside into the waiting room. A friendly lady explained what we had heard the day before: visa only issued for residents in Morocco. Since we are not residing we should (have) ask(ed) in Germany, etc etc.

I explained that we are on a year-long cycling trip, that we would very much like to include Algeria in our "around Europe" cycling tour, that I had of course enquired with the Algerian Consulate in Frankfurt before we left for our trip more than 2 months ago, but that the information I had recieved was that we could only request a visa maximum 30 days before entering Algeria. The friendly lady confirmed this rule, she seemed to understand our problem with the Algerian visa rules and invited us to wait, she would speak to her superior. While we were waiting we watched a nice film aiming at promoting adventure tourism in Algeria with 4WD jeeps into the desert with bedouin camps and that kind of stuff....

When the friendly lady came back she regretted very much to tell us that she couldn't open an exception. We left. Two adventure tourists less for Algeria. Because sending passports to Germany after leaving Morocco - after all we still need the passports here - and "waiting" somewhere in the South of Spain for at least two more weeks to get the visa is not an option.

Plan B? We don't really have one yet. The good thing is we have more time for Morocco, because we really like the country. We'll try to get on a ship from here to Palermo, the next important point on our way to the East, skipping Algeria (and Tunisia alongside) alltogether.