SANDS OF TIME

COVERING AROUND 800,000 SQUARE MILES, ALGERIA'S SHARE OF THE SAHARA TAKES UP OVER 80% OF THE COUNTRY - THE VOLCANIC PEAKS, CANYONS AND VAST SAND SEAS FORM A STRIKING BACKDROP TO OASIS CITIES AND UNIQUE NORTH AFRICAN CULTURES

- SIMON URWIN

Life has flourished for centuries in Algeria’s Saharan oases — home to some of North Africa’s most striking architecture. One of the most rewarding to visit is Timimoun, located in the north on the shores of an immense sand sea of over 23,000sq miles. It’s nicknamed La Rouge (‘the red’) for its ochre-red mud-brick buildings — a colour some locals believe represents blood, and by extension their sense of belonging in the desert. Further north, in the M’Zab Valley, lies a chain of five ksour (fortified towns) with distinctive pastel-coloured dwellings. These citadels have been recognised by UNESCO for their ‘exceedingly original architecture’ and for conserving ‘practically the same way of life and the same building techniques since the 11th century’.