Cleopatra's Tomb -- on the road to Cherchel

High on a hill looking down on the Mediterranean, the Mitidja plain and mountains beyond, is this massive round "pyramid" known everywhere as Cleopatra's tomb.

Not that Cleopatra. Supposedly it is the funeral monument for the Cleo's daughter, the wife of Juba II, but maybe not.

At any rate, it's an incredible structure that makes you wonder how the builders got all those giants blocks of stone up the big hill.

That it is still standing is also incredible. French colonizers fired canons at it, which is why so many stones are tumbled down around the bottom, particularly on one side. Terrorists used to hide inside it, so that the inside leading to the crypt in the center and once open to tourists is now closed off and wired shut.

Tourists make due now by walking round the mausoleum, climbing it, snapping photos of it and the surrounding countryside and lounging among the fallen blocks.