Algeria

Algeria is the largest country in Africa and one of the least visited, which creates a particular kind of encounter - places that have not been worn smooth by tourism, hospitality that has no practiced quality to it. Algiers climbs its hill above the Mediterranean in layers of Ottoman and French and something older still. The Sahara here is the Sahara at its most extreme: the Hoggar Mountains rise from the sand like a geological argument, Tamanrasset sits at the edge of the knowable, and the silence south of that is one of the last true silences left.

Our guide is being written from the ground up, with the time this place deserves.

We are still gathering the notes that make a guide worth keeping: Casbah guesthouses, Hoggar trekking routes, desert convoy logistics and the restaurants in Oran where the food reflects a history no single flag can account for.