It's the boom town that never boomed. A dusty Foreign Legion garrison town, expanded to hold the hoards of desert tourists in the seventies, it's got wide new roads, and dozens of unfinished hotels. High up, and cold, our hotel seemed to be one of them. Turn the heater on, and all the lights go off. There was a small scene from a French farce played out, as doors opened and closed, doors are pounded and kicked as they refuse to open, lights went on and off, people scampered up and down the corridors, hands in the air, uttering oaths, and two striped-waistcoat staff flicked the fuse switches up and down, and joined the scampering.
Staff explain, present a candle to the grumbler, and the door closes again.
Later, rinse, repeat. And in the tented restaurant, glowing with heat, a man old enough to remember the ark plays chirrupy music, and grins and nodsnodsnods every time you catch his eye. It's cold here, icy cold up here, with mountain winds whooshing around. The town looks hot, with the long pink tinged streets, the dust, the expansive tourist hotels, but it's some five thousand feet above sea level, and wide open to the elements. And it's just a staging post for us.