Touggourt's covered souk is one of the liveliest places in town and a good introduction to Saharan trade goods. Dates are the headline — sacks of plump Deglet Nour, the local speciality, alongside the harder, drier varieties used for cooking. Spices, sheepskin, and rough wool blankets fill the smaller stalls.
The most distinctive things on sale are the desert roses: cluster crystals of gypsum and sand that form naturally in the surrounding desert. They range from fist-sized specimens to elaborate multi-bloom pieces and are sold for a fraction of what they fetch in Algiers.