On into Niger

 

Tam to the border

Algeria 20 Feb 1979 to 9 Mar 1979

9 Mar 1979

We left Tamanrasset and headed south. No more near solitude.  We are now on the main North South road through the middle of Africa, now referred to as the Trans Saharan Highway, the N1. A Transcontinental road according to the Michelin Map of the time. That said, it is still not a motorway or anything like it. We traveled the same route as even larger trucks than ours, and even artics. It was not a simple case of following a blacktop road, in a long convoy. It was an earth track according to the Michelin Map. 

 The width of the road would have varied according to the terrain in which it was in. Gravel and rock is good and firm with less dust. Some of the softer sand with clumps, and everybody is down to pushing through in just one lane, each truck eating the dust from the one before, as if in convoy. A lot of trucks travel in convoy to help each other out in the difficult areas. However, where the ground permits the trucks widen the road to over one mile wide in places. Trucks spread out to avoid the dust of the one in front or just choosing variations of the general route. Sometime half a dozen abreast.

 About 250 miles to the border. It is possible that we completed border control at Tamanrasset and then had to drive south to the real border. 

 

 

Across the border and into Niger

 Little difference from one side of the border to the other. Still sand and more sand.

 Map of North Africa with approximate route showing the last element of the Sahara crossing and entry into Sub-Sahara Africa. A little greener.

 There is one photo that gives a slight hint of the dust cloud generated by crossing that part of the Sahara. It is taken in Niger but the long dust cloud behind the truck could have been anywhere between.

 

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Map of North Africa with approximate route zoomed in to show the border with Algeria at In Guzzam, into Niger and onto Agadez via the salt pans at Teguidda-n-Tessoumt.

 

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News Flash

Change of host Sept 2023

 

Change of host Sept 2023

 

In the begining of August 2023 I transfered my ivanhurst.me.uk sites, including this one from 123-reg to IONOS. It was meant to be a simple task. However, that was to to be the case. The reason for the move was primarily the hugh increase in price that 123-reg was applying regarding email boxes. Previously, the upto 500 of the boxes were included in the various hosting packages I had. Now they were going to charge for each mailbox based on size, and as far as I could make out, this was going to cost me nearly £2,000. This was not acceptable, and I did not get satisfactory answers from support. So I turned of all the auto renews and stated to move sites and domains accross to IONOS.

Travel data problems

 

Travel data problems

This is where it starts to get a little technical.

The site is built on a content management system, CMS, using Joomla. Joomla is moving forward and version 3.10.?? is being discontinued. Future developments are for version 4.??

Similarly, PHP 7 is being replaced with PHP 8.

Part of the migration is relatively simple, I have already changed to a new template which works on the new platforms.

However, some of the helper applications, which work within Joomla are not yet ready.

Fabrik is one of those applications, if fact a significant 'Joomla Custom Website Application Builder'.

Refresh 2021

 

Site refresh Easter 2021

I decided to give the site a bit of a refresh over Easter 2021 and install a new template and some additional functions. One of the things I didn't like about the old site was the delay in text appearing which probably meant some people left before the content appeared. This has been corrected now.