All language subtitles for Sahara with Michael Palin 4of4 Dire Straits 720p HDTV x264 AAC MVGroup org_Subtitles01.ENG

In the heart of the Sahara, national
frontiers are often flimsy affairs.

I'm in a no man's land
near In Guezzam

on the border
between Niger and Algeria.

These chunks of scrap metal

tell me I'm crossing between two of
the largest countries in the Sahara.

It's a terrible anticlimax.
A scribble in the concrete.

It reminds me of a tombstone.

Maybe that's appropriate -
this whole godforsaken area,

haunt of smugglers and bandits,
feels like a graveyard.

No point waiting around for customs.

Goodbye, Niger. Hello, Algeria.

It's time to unwind and look around.

Algeria, tenth largest country
in the world, is 85% desert,

dangerous desert.

As many have discovered to their
cost, driving here is not a right,

it's a test of survival.

The soft sand is treacherous,
the temperature scorching...

and failure can be fatal.

The route from the Niger border
up into Algeria

is absolutely littered with
the bleached carcasses of vehicles

that set out to cross the Sahara
and never made it.

It's so bleak and pitiless here

that what might be a routine problem
elsewhere,

like running out of fuel,
becomes a matter of life and death.

This is where Mark Thatcher
went missing.

He was discovered
after an enormous rescue operation.

And other people
just weren't so lucky.

They paid for their mistakes
with their lives.

The desert does weird things
to your sense of reality.

As we head north, the shady rocks
and cool lakes on the horizon

turn out to be mirages,
no more than a trick of the light.

This wholly edible non-mirage
of fresh tomatoes

and not-so-fresh tuna,
is real enough.

But it's accompanied
by, well, a pretty rum coincidence.

I'm writing up my diary,
miles from anywhere,

when I bump into the only other
Englishman in southern Algeria.

Or rather he, poor man,
bumps into us.

The number plate is the first clue.

The lone Mercedes belongs to Tom
Sheppard and, no, it isn't a mirage.

Tom Sheppard
is something of a legend out here.

He's a 68-year-old ex-RAF test pilot
and travels the desert,

writing books, taking photos
and getting away from people.

Well, I'm on my own, yeah.

I've come down really from
the north of Algeria, from Tunisia,

and I'm going very carefully around
the old French tracks.

When you're travelling,
what do you survive on?

I had a birthday two days ago,

and I had a really special meal
on that one.

Meat and two veg, chilled
grapefruit, for goodness' sake,

with a damp kitchen towel,

and the dryness of the air
makes evaporation,

and you get cool grapefruit
segments.

What more could you ask for?

Does loneliness worry you? It's been
more lonely than I expected.

Last session was about eight days

between seeing one human being
and seeing the next.

I didn't expect to be that long.

Does that worry you? No, it's just
so beautiful to be out there.

You get such a lift
from the countryside.

You think, "I've exhausted
the pictures I can take,"

and then, next morning, you see...
"My God, look at that!"

And so it goes. And that's what
the desert has always been for me.

40 years of it now. 40 years? Yes.

You've been coming to the Sahara?
To the Sahara.

It's my lucky 13th visit to Algeria.

We're just going to have some lunch.

Would you like to join us?

It's kind of you,
but I've got to be on my way now.

Anyone who can be that busy in
a place like this wins my respect!

Maybe it was the tuna.

As Tom hurries south, we head north

into the weird and wonderful
Hoggar Mountains -

one of the most bizarre landscapes
in the Sahara.

It's like riding
through a giant sculpture park.

The hard cores of extinct volcanoes
form a panorama

of bluffs, and spires,
and pinnacles.

These are young peaks,

their sides scarred by the explosive
force of their creation.

The Touareg call this land Atacor,

like something
out of Lord Of The Rings.

Next morning. I climb to the top
of a 9,000ft mountain

to watch the sunrise.

Because of Algeria's
ten-year civil war,

the Hoggar Massif is rarely visited,

which only increases
the impact of its beauty.

Down in the dormitory where we spent
the night, it's time to pack up.

Our newly acquired sense of peace
is about to be shattered.

This is the other face of Algeria -

a modern republic
which freed itself from the French,

and is now desperately trying to
free itself from Islamic radicals.

But airlines and newspapers
can't disguise underlying tensions.

Or the fact
that these 21st-century comforts

are paid for
by one great stroke of fortune.

This is Algeria's Aladdin's cave -

oil and natural gas fields

that provide 90%
of the country's foreign earnings.

They've spawned high-security towns
in the middle of nowhere,

like this one at Hassi Massoud.

45 years ago,
there was nothing here but desert.

And this amazing transformation

is due to electric pumps working -
24 hours a day, 7 days a week -

to pump water from, sometimes,
thousands of feet below the Sahara.

The result is a man-made oasis

and this extraordinary illusion

that, in the middle of the desert,
there is no desert.

It's not just like a French
provincial town,

but French countryside as well.

These are different cattle from
the bony ones in Mali and Niger.

It just shows what can be done
to the desert if there's a will -

and a petrochemical industry -
to back it up.

A few miles from where
they first discovered the oil

that so changed Algeria's fortunes,

there is another frontier.

On the other side of it,
an even richer country.

This lonely tree represents the
border between Algeria and Libya.

And apart from being one of the most
spectacular frontiers in the world,

it's also one of the friendliest,

because people from Algeria
and people from Libya come here,

sit under the tree and take tea.

And I don't want to leave
this beautiful spot, but we must,

and cross the border
into the sands of Libya.

In Libya, like Algeria,
the bulk of the population

clings to the Mediterranean coast.

It was quite a coup to get
permission to film here,

and I'm not going to miss
a minute of it...

Well, maybe just a minute!

This looks like being one
of the longest bus rides of my life.

To all appearances, Libya
is a country with plenty of money,

but very few people.

Which is not surprising with the
world's third largest oil revenues

to divide amongst a population
less than that of London.

In Benghazi, Libya's second city,
you can see the layers of history.

An Italian colonial palazzo,
next to a mosque,

now houses one of the committees

which run the great Socialist
People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

It feels sleepy, but 60 years ago
this coastline

was one of the great
Second World War battlefields.

The British garrison in Tobruk
has more to contend with
than just Germans and Italians.

Choking sandstorms
are part of the daily round,

but they don't interfere with
the real job - to destroy the enemy.

It's the most tremendous battle.
It was a real turning point.

We mustn't forget. If you forget
your history,

it comes back and hits you!

Over the last few years,

Lady Avril Randall has organised
regular reunions for Desert Rats
and their relatives.

Today, they're at Tobruk.
Survivors, now in their 80s,

remember what it was like to be
trapped here.

There were no girls, no bars, no...

it was just desert and to spend
from the age of 20, 21, 22

in that sort of environment,
I hate it.

Food?

Well, it was corned beef,
bully beef in one form or another.

We were down
to about a cup of water a day or so

and that was for everything.

And yet...and yet the surprising
thing was none of us grew beards.

PIPER STARTS TO PLAY

Highlight of the reunion is floating
a wreath into the harbour

these men defended so, so long.

If they'd lost this supply line,

the Allied army in Africa
would have faced defeat.

There was nothing
inside the garrison at all.

Only ammunition and men...

They had to bring all our food...
all our supplies up

and get it in here somehow.

Rommel said that the desert
was a tactician's paradise

and a quartermaster's nightmare.

And that was the fact. It was like
a naval battle at sea,

with the tanks, great fleets
of tanks here and there.

If the petrol or ammunition didn't
get there, you were in trouble.

There were 25,000 of us in here -

and that's where we won
the name rats, you know.

The Haw-Haw used to say,
"Come out of your holes, you rats!"

We did, eventually. We came out
a bit too quick for him, eventually.

Eyes left.

It's unlikely than any of these
Desert Rats will see Tobruk again.

It's a long way
and they're not getting any younger.

Today is probably the last time
they'll celebrate

those who gave Hitler
the first bloody nose of the war,

one from which he never recovered.

What's been the high point
of this trip for you?

I think the last march past
of the old Rats

with the bugler and the piper

and the Rats of Tobruk Association
standard.

Desert Rats, do your duties!
Dismissed!

The boys can now march off
into the sunset.

APPLAUSE
You'll never see them again.

Modern Libya has often cut itself
off from the West,

but over 2,000 years ago,
it was an integral part of Europe.

First the Greeks, then the Romans
were drawn to this fertile land

between the sea and the Sahara

and built
some of their grandest cities here.

Cyrene was a bustling metropolis
500 years before Christ.

It had its own port, Apollonia.

Staggering, but totally deserted.

But then the modern towns
are deserted as well.

Is there some national emergency
we've not been told about?

Is it National Stay Indoors Day?

Where are all the Libyans?

Apart from our driver,
everyone seems to have gone...

..and taken everything with them.

Picnic time and despite the fact
that there are big cities -

we've seen Tobruk and Benghazi,
we're off to Tripoli -

Libya is largely desert,
so it's picnic time in the desert.

Here's my packed lunch. It's
enormous.

I can't actually tell what it is
because everything's in Arabic.

All the signs are in Arabic as well,

although a lot of people here
speak English.

Could be lunch,
could be a large hat.

It is lunch! There we go.

Now...

Nice little well-sealed box here...

Ah!

Don't think it's
very typically Libyan.

Got some cold chips.

The shortage of water
is clearly a problem for Libya,

but Colonel Gaddafi
has an impressive answer to it.

These concrete sections will form
part of his man-made river project,

bringing underground water
1,000 miles from desert to coast.

It's one of the world's
most ambitious engineering schemes.

1,700 years ago,
water was no problem.

This land was known
as the breadbasket of Rome.

Rich enough from exports
of wheat and oil

to boast the most magnificent city
of North Africa - Leptis Magna.

It still gives off a powerful sense
of the brute strength of Rome.

These halls
were built by Septimus Severus,

an African who became Roman Emperor

and died in the north of England.

It wasn't just Septimus
that ended up in England.

In 1827,
the ruler of Tripoli sent 35 columns

and other assorted features
as a present to King George IV.

A bit of Leptis Magna
can still be found

off the A329 near Virginia Water.

I'm told the amphitheatre
at Leptis Magna

has the best
acoustics in North Africa.

Well,
there's only one way to find out.

# I'm leaning on the lamp-post
at the corner of the street

# Until a certain little lady
comes by

# Oh, me, oh, my
I hope that little lady passes by

# She's absolutely wonderful
and absolutely marvellous

# And lots of people ask me
just why I'm standing on the corner

# Of the corner of the street until
a certain little lady passes by. #

Get off, get off!

As we leave Libya, I get the feeling
that, despite being generous hosts,

the Libyans are deeply mistrustful
of people with cameras,

something which was never a problem
in my next destination.

Less than 100 miles
from the Libyan border,

we're in this arid, almost lunar
landscape, of southern Tunisia.

And it's so arid
and uncongenial here

that, for the last 700 years, people
have lived in caves underground.

And, believe it or not,
I do know this place.

I was crucified here 23 years ago
for The Life Of Brian,

and I've always wanted to come back
because it is so unforgettable,

a place that remains in your mind.

There aren't many people who can say
they've gone back

to the place they were crucified!

I'm going to see what it's like.

The crosses are gone,
but El Hadej hasn't changed much.

It remains an underground town

and though the authorities
try to move people into houses,

there are those who, by tradition
and inclination,

prefer to live and work
below the surface.

The older generation of troglodytes

can't see why they should
have to move from their caves.

One answer is to cash in on the
curiosity value

and become hoteliers.

Bonjour. Bonjour, sir.
I'm Michael. Beautiful.

This is where you live?

Your house? Yes. Mmm.

Nice and silent
and cut off from the world.

You have a room? OK.
Ah, yes, OK, I'll see the room.

Thank you. In here?

Ah, merci. Apres vous.

HE SPEAKS ARABIC
My host was very keen to point out

that living underground made very
good sense

as the caves are warm
in winter and cool in summer.

I think tea's made.

Yeah, that's what the...

My own Arabic being limited,
I rely on the one word I know

and repeat it as often as possible.

Thank you.
Shokran. Shokran. Shokran.

Shokran. Shokran.

My little Arabic that I know.

Some nuts as well. Thank you.

We've been right round the Sahara
and the one thing

that doesn't change is the tea.

The method of making the tea,

it seems to be the same
in every country we've been to -

From Morocco to Mali
to Mauritania to Tunisia.

Good! Thank you.

Shokran. Very nice.

Cheer up, Brian,
you know what they say.

Some things in life are bad,
they can really make you mad.

Other things
just make you swear and curse.

# When you're chewing
on life's gristle

# Don't grumble, give a whistle

# And this'll help things turn out
for the best

# And always
look on the bright side of life... #

WHISTLED ACCOMPANIMENT

# Always
look on the light side of life... #

Come on, Brian, cheer up!

# Always
look on the bright side of life

# Always
look on the bright side of life... #

In southern Tunisia,
where the desert meets the sea,

there's an island called Djerba
which hangs on to old traditions

as tenaciously as the troglodytes
of El Hadej.

In their case, it's catching
octopus in Greek vases.

The fishermen may look as if
they're dressed by Dolce & Gabbana,

but their technique is pre-Roman.

The pots are strung out on a line,

and, unfailingly, between November
and March every year,

the octopus obligingly
climb into them.

Yes, oui. That's it.

What do they look like?
Let me have a look.

Ah, there it is! Wow!

You want it?

That's one, so...

SHOUTING IN ARABIC
Get back in there.

They're all over the place.

OK, well, there's two.

One's about to crawl up your leg,

but there's that one - get back in!

Thank you. There.

Not much good at octopus-wrangling,
but I'm learning. Get in there.

Oh, my God! Another.

Getting them out of the sea's
the easy bit,

keeping them on board
is a little bit...

Sad... They love living in
these little bowls, these urns.

There's a synchronicity
between the octopus and the urn.

And here we are, ripping them out...

So I'm not going to have any more
to do with this.

Thank you.
Start the Octopus Protection League.

Djerba claims to be the island
of the lotus-eaters,

to which Ulysses and his weary
sailors came

to be seduced by
the narcotic delights of the lotus.

There's no lotus left, but Djerba
still manages to seduce

thousands of foreigners every year.

ARABIC POP SONG

Tourism is now the biggest business
in Djerba.

I walk round the souk with El Hajj,

who runs one of the better shops
in town.

There were hardly any tourists
when he was a boy,

but he now relies
on them for 70%-80% of his business.

You think tourism can have
a bad effect, an adverse effect?

Of course, yeah,
it didn't bring only good thing,

it brought a lot of money, but we
have other problems. What problems?

Well, we have a lot of
our young people who have changed,

they are not practising
their religion any more,

they are, er...running after,
I don't know how to...

Seduced by the money? Yeah, exactly.

We have these... I don't know
if I want to talk about it,

but the sex tourism,
we have a lot of old ladies,

coming here to find a young friend.
This is not good.

That's not good, of course,
it's one of the bad sides.

You find sometimes some homosexuals

or they are...
You just go to the beach

and you see that there are
people staying there,

waiting for an...an old lady or...

We also have a lot of young people,

they don't want to work cos
they have a German or an Italian -

I don't know, I don't want to say...
but old ladies, they are...

they leave their husbands
or don't have one,

they come to find a friend here.

They pay him. So that is one
of the bad sides of tourism.

But Tunisia, lacking the oil
reserves of Libya and Algeria,

has to do all it can
to make tourists welcome.

They have been greatly helped
by the Romans who, at El Jem,

left the third biggest amphitheatre
they ever built.

At Dougga, temples overlook
a purpose-built brothel

and, next door to it,
a masterpiece of imperial plumbing.

The Romans weren't bashful
about bodily functions.

This is a public lavatory
in the truest sense of the word,

in that there are 12 little toilets
here and it was a communal lavvy.

You went in - they were called
furaci - and you paid one,

believe it or not, one as
to come in here,

which was a tiny little coin.

They would sit here, a group thing.

You'd discuss the weather,

what's going on, politics, acting,
life, architecture, digestion...

and there'd be water running round
this runnel here.

It's very immediate,
so you can your hands there...

bring the water up
and then put your hand under there
and washed the bits.

It was cold water, so it must have
been a bit of a freezing jobbie,

but the Romans were oddly civilised
in this insanitary way, I think.

Not just Romans, but Phoenicians,
Turks, Greeks, even Normans,

have all contributed
to Tunisia's rich racial mix.

The most influential were the Arabs.

One of their great monuments
is in Monastir.

The locals never stop talking
about when Monty Python came.

The more comfortable parts of the
film that weren't done on crosses,

happened here in Monastir.

And this is the Ribat,
which is a very old building,

probably about 1,300 years old.

This is where most of the scenes
of Life Of Brian were done.

I'm trying to remember it because
it all looks tidy and neat now.

It's coming back to me now.

I think the stoning scene, and we
were all dressed up as...

Women were not allowed
to go to stonings.

Women weren't allowed to go,
so we all played women with beards.

Come on, who threw that?

HIGH VOICES: She did!
DEEPER VOICES: He did! Him!

Was it you? Yes. Right...
Well, you did say Jehovah.

Now, this does bring it back.

The tower Graham Chapman ran up,
got to the top, the stairs ran out

and he's rescued, highly improbably,
by a flying saucer and goes on.

I think we must have just taken over
this place entirely

for about two months,
which seems unlikely.

Up there, where those girls are
coming down,

above that, the columns were built

where Pontius Pilate came out and
there was the, "Welease Wodewick!"

and, "He ... higher than any in
Wome," and all that was done there.

It's difficult to tell
because we added bits on,

we added sort of great coloured
flags...

but I seem to remember coming out
above that - above that bit there.

People of Jewusalem...

..Wome is your fwend.

LAUGHTER

A very strange
and rather effective moment

where the power of Rome was
challenged not by people fighting,

but by people laughing.

That's what moved me about it -

once people laughed at him,
there was nothing you could do.

Laughter's a very good weapon,
not used enough...

Lying on their backs, laughing,

then he got vewy angry and made
a vewy gweat fool of himself.

Silence!

This man commands a cwack legion.

Along the coast from Monastir
is the city of Sousse

in which Brian also came to life.

It seems strangely subdued today.

I remember the streets of the old
town as the liveliest in Tunisia,

but now they're quiet as the grave.

In the main square,
they're already shutting up shop.

The reason, I learn, is
that this is the start of Ramadan,

the month every year
when Muslims are expected to fast

during daylight hours.

Candy stalls do a roaring trade in
anticipation of night-time feasts.

I've heard some people put on weight
during the month of fasting.

Now I can understand why.

Tunisia likes to see itself
as secular and outward-looking.

It's also the only Islamic country
in which it's not compulsory

to observe Ramadan, but most do.

With my friend Moes, I visit a cafe
to see how the country

makes the most of the hours of
darkness.

Moes orders a chicha, a cigarette
the size of a vacuum cleaner.

Charcoal heats
honey-flavoured tobacco

and the air is cooled by the water.

Er, do you want to try it?

Yeah, OK, yeah, yeah...

So I just...?

Yeah, it's very nice.
It's very relaxing, isn't it?

Would you normally smoke this?
Sometimes, especially in Ramadan.

People after eating and everything,

they like to relax, to have a cup
of tea and to smoke the chicha.

Can you smoke during Ramadan,
during the day? No. Nothing.

No water, no smoking,
nothing in your mouth.

Really? That's very hard.
Just air, you know. Yeah.

What is the worst thing, you know,
to be deprived of?

Is it water,
is it food, is it smoke?

For me, it's water,
for some people, it's food.

It depends, you know, each person...
Some people, it's smoking too.

It's the hardest thing for them
is to stop smoking for 12 hours.

Does it make people bad-tempered?

Yeah, some people are bad-tempered,
but some people are not.

If they are bad-tempered,
they're bad-tempered,

Ramadan or not - it's not Ramadan.

Some people say, "I am bad-tempered
because it's Ramadan." Not true.

My excuse! Yeah, as an excuse.

Apart from the Arabs, most
of those who invaded North Africa

stopped short of the Sahara.

The Romans never crossed it and one
of the most famous occupying empires

looked only towards the sea.

They were the Carthaginians
and their power base was here.

In fact, the station's
called Carthage.

This is the start
of my journey to Algeria.

This local train will take me to
Tunis Nord,

the main station in Tunis,

for the Trans-Maghreb Express...
LAUGHTER
Excuse me, please, I'm working!

..Which will take me to Algiers.

This line goes through
some wonderful stations, Carthage
Amilcar, Carthage Presidence,

Carthage Hannibal - great name -
Carthage Dermech, Carthage Byrsa.

So five Carthage stations.

Whatever the Romans think,
Carthage is not destroyed.

When the Romans left Carthage,
they were so fed up

with the Carthaginians that
they sowed the fields with salt.

From the main station in Tunis,

it looks easy enough to continue
my journey across North Africa,

aboard the Trans-Maghreb Express.

The Arab word Maghreb
means the lands of the setting sun -

the lands of the west.

But there are problems ahead.

Tunisia, which I'm leaving, is
outward-looking and fairly stable.

Algeria, where I'm going,

has been caught in a spiral
of violence since 1992.

Foreign Office advice
is unequivocal.

"Security situation remains serious.

"We advise against all holiday
and non-essential travel to
Algeria."

At first, Algiers seems little
different from any other city.

The trains seem to be running
on time, there are no porters,

and my hotel, the El Djazair,
is rather grand.

It was formerly called the St George
and was built in the 1880s

to accommodate all those fashionable
Victorians who flocked to Algiers

to benefit from the healthy climate.

No-one flocks to Algiers now.

I can't even leave the hotel
without a bodyguard.

Beyond the hotel, we'll be required
to travel around Algiers

with a team of the
Service de Protection...

This is Eamonn,
an ex-marine commando.

The reason that we need this
security is that, since 1992,

foreigners in Algeria have been
under fatwa

by certain extreme Islamic groups.

Fatwa -
same as in the Salman Rushdie case?

The Satanic Verses, yeah.

The result is over 100 foreigners

have been killed in Algeria
since then.

I've travelled a bit. As far as
I know, no-one's tried to kill me.

I ask Eamonn
if this is all strictly necessary.

You're a public figure
with a high profile and, frankly,

if I lose you, I lose my job.

Well, I hope we won't be a problem.

ACCORDION MUSIC

On the streets, you could be
mistaken for thinking

you were in Lyon or Marseilles.

For 100 years, the French
treated Algeria not as a colony,

but as part of France.

As a result, the independence
movement was resisted

more fiercely here than anywhere
in North Africa.

Said Shitour, a local journalist, is
proud of the fight his people put up

and takes me to what was the centre
of the struggle -

the heart of Algiers, the Casbah.

As the streets of the Casbah
are still a flash point

for violent protest,
the local police, the Casbah cops,

have thrown a comprehensive
but discreet cordon

around the area for our visit.

So successful is this precaution,

that there's absolutely
no-one about.

When someone eventually appears,
he's one of the police, regrouping.

But they can't keep out the ghosts
of old heroes.

Ali La Pointe was one
of the fighters against the French?

He was in the film Battle Of Algiers
in these streets. Yes.

He lived here? He lived here with
his friends

and all the freedom fighters,

and he was a hero of the Casbah
and the Battle of Algiers.

The resistance was centred
on the Casbah? Yes.

It was difficult for the French to
come in

and get the revolutionaries
out of here?

Very, because it's roof to roof,
house to house,

and the people
can jump from roof to roof. Ah.

This is the memorial plate in memory
of Ali La Pointe. What does it say?

In the 8th...October 8th 1957,

Ali La Pointe,
with his companions...

spent all day
resisting the French paratroopers,

and in the end the French army
decide to blow up the house.

He didn't want to give up
and he died.

Yeah, the scene where they give them
the chance to come out.

They say, "We'll give you one hour!"
Yeah, yeah.

And then they blew the place up.

What do you think Ali La Pointe
and these people achieved?

Freedom. Independence for us,
the generation who came after 1962.

Now this place became a kind
of training centre

for girls of the Casbah to teach
them how to make good couscous.

That's a bit of a sort of
the sublime to the ridiculous.

The Casbah sounds like it's coming
to life. Things are happening.

I begin to forget security and enjoy
myself.

There's lots of character
to these claustrophobic alleyways.

Funny girl. Yeah, yeah.

Said shows me
some of the Casbah's hidden gems,

like the mosque
of Sidi Abderrahmane,

a 15th-century holy man
and patron saint of the city.

A visit to his tomb is said to be
particularly effective for women.

SHE SINGS IN ARABIC

These are some women. Yeah.

Some women pray in here for Allah
to give us more...

to be merciful and to give us more
rain, because in Algiers

we have a big problem, there
is no water.

Ironically,
the prayers worked only too well.

Within two weeks of our visit,

hundreds were drowned in Algeria's
worst flooding for years.

By Saharan standards,

the people who live in Algiers
look quite prosperous.

The oilfields see to it that
the street markets are well-stocked.

Look at the size of those
brassieres!

A couple of footballs in there.
Yeah.

I might just pick up a couple.

Next morning, it's time to leave
Algier La Blanche,

the White City,
as the French called it.

There's a train to Oran.

I was warned the line is dangerous,
so I seek professional advice.

Is it OK to travel on the train?

Yes, there are security -
not problem in train.

Yes, yes. It's not problem in train.

You can go in at Oran or
Constantine.

Security, it's not problem.

OK. OK. OK.
How do you speak English so well?

Is it something they teach
you on Algerian railways?

It's my English of school,

but when we like English,
we practise it. Really?

So what is your job here?
My job is master of the station.

Stationmaster? Yeah. Not station
mistress - stationmaster.

Yeah. I am the first lady in Algeria
to run a station.

That is very clean, I notice.

Yeah, it's... Absolutely tidy.

It's a woman who is master.

And it's a policeman
who's following us.

The train is about to leave and
it's time to say farewell to Said,

who's shown me
that despite the dire warnings,

the people of Algiers could
not have made us feel more welcome.

We'll see you soon.
Inshallah. Goodbye.

As we pull out,
everything looks normal enough,

but in Algeria
it's never wise to be complacent.

The Algiers-Oran line
does have a history,

and I'm certainly not allowed
to ride it unprotected.

OK?

Is there a security problem
on this line?

Yes, there is, and there has been
over the last ten years.

This is an area
to the south of Algiers

known as the Triangle of Death.

We're approaching Blida,

and this has been the most bombed
railway line in the world

over the last ten years.

What sort of form does that take?

Do people attack the train, ambush?

This train here has been bombed,

it has been stopped by people
pulling the communication cord,

which is why you won't find
a communication cord now.

What was the problem,
people were...?

Well, yeah, you'd get confederates
of terrorist groups

who'd come on to the train,
masquerading as passengers.

They'd pull the cord at a certain
moment, the train would stop

and the terrorists would come
on to the train

and commit acts
of cruelty and barbarism.

What - they'd take people's lives?

Yes, they would. On the train? Yeah.

In awful circumstances that we
really don't want to go into.

Now, over the last couple of years,

you'll find, as you go along,
there is a major security presence,

and you will not really run
the same risks. Or so we're told.

Yeah, yeah. But you don't see
many foreigners on a... No.

In my consideration,

you're probably the first foreigner
on this line in the last ten years.

I have to say, so far,
it seems to be fine.

The train left on time,
everyone's friendly.

The countryside is sort of farmland.

I wouldn't want to put people off
coming to Algeria

because we've had no problems
really.

I know we were guarded, but I don't
feel there's been any hostility.

No, there's no hostility
from the general population -

they are very welcoming people
as you would no doubt have seen.

Even at stations like Chlef,
where violence has been rife,

there's an unthreatening air
of ordinariness.

But the fact remains that, in ten
years of terror and counterterror,

100,000 people have been killed.

One thing you won't actually be able
to see on our journey

is the armed guards.

We have a heavy security presence,

both from Algiers and then a town
called Chlef where we stopped.

They changed the guard round,

and 18 members of the Gendarmerie
Nationale, with AK-47s, came aboard.

They won't want to be filmed -
it's dangerous for them -

but the train is bristling
with guards looking after us.

Bonjour. Merci.

Merci. Merci.

The train used to be
exotically known

as the Algiers-Casablanca Express.

But tensions between Algeria
and Morocco over security

have closed the railway border and
now the train terminates at Oran.

The army can go home now -
I'm someone else's responsibility.

Great station. Absolutely beautiful.

Mooresque.
Is this Oran an important city?

Yes, the second important...
second city of Algeria. Right, OK.

Now, where do we head?
Off, down here?

Straight into the centre
of the town.

Oran, like Algiers, is still
steeped in French influence.

Bare-breasted northern maidens
gaze down from the opera house,

sharing the square with a carved
likeness of Arab nationalist hero,

Abdelkader. The confusion
reflects my own feelings

as I near the end of the journey.

This is the last big city on
my journey and you can't

get much further west
in Algeria than this,

so I've got to think hard
about how to get back home.

I'm able to bypass
the closed border with Morocco

by taking a roundabout
ferry route into Ceuta.

From there, it should be easy enough

to get back across
the Straits to Europe.

SPANISH GUITAR

Ceuta is a curiosity,

a slice of Spain
clinging to the coast of Africa.

It's surrounded by Morocco.

In the same way
that Spain wants Gibraltar,

Morocco wants Ceuta. But there's
no sign of Spain parting with it.

Indeed, this monument
in the Plaza Africa,

commemorates
a Spanish invasion of Morocco.

The Spanish presence
makes Ceuta a magnet

for those wanting to get out
of Africa.

High on a hill above the town

is one of the outlying defences
of Fortress Europe -

a holding centre for immigrants
built and run by the European Union.

Gracias!

It's bright, clean and modern, and
people here can't wait to get out.

There are nearly 400 men,
women and children in the centre,

but only 45 applications have been
processed in the last six months.

The inmates are restless, but
they're not giving up,

not after the
risks they've taken to get this far.

And where have you come from?
You've come from? From Nigeria.

And how did you get here?
Through the Sahara Desert.

On a vehicle? With leg. On foot?
You walked through the Sahara?

Yeah, yeah. How long did that take?
Take me almost one year.

How did you get into Ceuta?

Into Ceuta, I passed through Sahara,
got to Morocco, on to this place.

How did you get here from Morocco?
From Morocco...

Because this is a fortress...

Passed through the barbed wire
with a fisher boat.

I came by the boat.
Came by boat? Yeah.

That brings you on to shore here?
Yeah.

Did you have to pay a lot of money
to get here? Yeah, for the boat
we paid about 1,500 to reach here.

1,500...? Dollars, yes.

Dollars? Yeah. US dollars? Yeah.

At the narrowest point
of the Straits of Gibraltar,

only nine miles separate these
people from their goal.

I'm lucky - I can cross the Straits
in an hour,

on a scheduled ferry,
in broad daylight,

but thousands of Africans will pay
to be brought over

in unsuitable boats
at the dead of night.

Belinda Braithwaite, who has a house
close to where they land,

knows many
will never reach Europe alive.

They tend to come across when it's
calm, in the middle of the night.

But you can suddenly get a squall,

and they're halfway across,
too many people in the boat.

None of them can swim, and they
don't have any life jackets,

so the boat capsizes and they, poor
things, are thrown into the sea.

Do they have any sort of navigation?

Presumably they've got to come along
here with no lights or lamps?

Well, it's always at night,

and some of the worst casualties
happen when it's foggy,

because it appears
the more unscrupulous skippers say,

"Well it's 200 yards over there -
jump out here,"

and, in fact, it's more like a mile.

So the poor people find that they're
out of their depth and can't swim.

Imagine if you're a pregnant woman
thrown over the side of a boat,

you don't stand a chance, so...

When they do get ashore,
this is what...?

The boat has been wrecked,

hurled against the rocks,
there's great holes in it.

What happens when they get ashore?
They disappear in the pine forests.

But if they've just got out of a
boat

or they've had to swim the last bit,

their clothes are sopping wet,
so they tend to bring with them...

There - a little plastic...
Is that something from...?

It looks like it's been bound up
to keep it waterproof.

And they would keep some
dry clothes in there.

You see here the fellow's clothes
that he's actually taken off.

They take these off because they're
sodden. They have clothes with them?

Shoes, things, and his water bottle.
Someone from Morocco, Mali...

Then he'll quickly get away
before he's spotted.

So there's clothes all
over these dunes, scattered about?

I come across them miles...

When at last I reach Gibraltar,

the flags are flying
and day-trippers fill the streets.

But there's something different
in the air - a smell of betrayal.

May I have your leave
to secure the fortress, sir?

After nearly 300 years,
the unthinkable is happening.

Britain and Spain
are discussing joint sovereignty.

Halt!

Who goes there?

The keys. Whose keys?

Queen Elizabeth's keys.
Advance, Queen Elizabeth's keys.

The Ceremony of the Keys
dates back to the days

when the gates of the citadel
were locked every night.

The fortress is secure
and all's well, sir.

But how secure is the fortress?

Suddenly, this harmless ceremony
seems loaded with significance,

more than just an entertainment.

Will the gates of Gibraltar
have to be locked again?

BAND STRIKES UP

When I set out, I always thought
of Gibraltar

as the bridge between
Europe and Africa.

But now I think for the future
that the Sahara

is the bridge
from Africa into Europe.

There is a danger in becoming
obsessed with our own security.

There may be enemies at the gate,

but locking them out
may only create more enemies.

I think the best hope for the future
is to look around the gate,

to find out more of
how other people live.

After all, this time a year ago,
I thought the Sahara was empty.

Whoo!