Libya
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May 12th 2004 We hit the Libyan border to the tunes of the Chilli Peppers before 9am, safe in knowledge that our guide will be there to help us through without hitches…..no guide to be found ! Taking things into our hands and using our newly acquired Arabic tongues, we manage to enter Libya by 2pm. A record and history made. During a quick email pit stop, our guide manages to hunt us down and we follow the Daewoo Nubira with him and his mates, ‘the Boyz’, inside to the capital, Tripoli, during which we almost lose our Libyan friends to numerous head-on collisions. After a Libyan coffee off the Green Square, we continue on to our first night stop next to Med to watch a superb sunset drinking our ice-cold non-alcoholic Libyan beverages…. May 13th 2004 Kablis, the guide, unfortunately breaks down en route to fetch us and turns up in a cab (another Daepoo) with the Boyz an hour late…we eventually head off to Leptis Magna, the fantastic ruins of an Roman city built by Septimus Severus, circa 200AD. From here we travel the 1000km to Benghazi with little to see on either side other than litter and road kill mostly comprising of decaying camel, dog, cat, donkey, goat and sheep. We stop halfway to camp in the dunes on the Med with the Boyz camping 30 yards away. No surprises they have no torch to cook with and manage to get the Daepoo stuck in the sand….blatantly the Marx Brothers of Libya ! |
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May 14th 2004 After a morning dip/shower in the Med and a watermelon breakfast, we continue on to Benghazi viewing the further apocalyptic scenes of road kill surrounding the highway. After surviving the rancid smells of open plumbing, we enter the second largest city of Libya, Benghazi. Before a Turkish coffee and email check, we hop into the barber seats for a much needed beard removal under the watchful and ominous eye of the Colonel. The Boyz then escort us to the Friday evening market where we are accosted by all kinds of useless African salesmen flogging second-hand plumbing parts (blatantly stolen from the city’s sewers!), Arabic pirated DVD’s, fake Casio watches and pillows….one of which is now in Ranger’s possession. Next port of call is a delicious local seafood restaurant – unfortunately we never experience this local delight due to the Boyz’ dreadful navigational skills. We end up back at the same Turkish restaurant and manage to blow half of our Libyan budget on lamb kebabs ! We bush camp just out of town. May 15th 2004 The Daepoo fails to start. We leave the Boyz to fix it and have a morning body surf in the Med rollers and another watermelon breakfast before driving to Qasr (Castle) Libya to view the fifty mosaics from 500AD on display. After the pristine ruins of Leptis Magna, the ancient Greek cities of Cyrene and Apollonia had much to live up to. The hilltop backdrop of Cyrene and the blue bay of Apollonia, more than made up for the slightly less impressive ruins. The Boyz timing meant we reached the (padlocked) Commonwealth cemetery of Tobruk at dusk and after scaling the perimeter wall we had five minutes to walk the solemn but immaculate grounds. The Boyz then take us to our camp spot for the evening – within the French cemetery walls, 5m from the graves…nice one. Libya has been idiosyncratic: diesel at 6p a litre, police checks every 75km, portraits of the Colonel literally everywhere and no defined boundaries to rubbish tips, however the people remain incredibly friendly. Next visit will definitely include dune trekking to the Sahara in the South. Tomorrow morning we enter Egypt with hopefully few problems…… Total distance since London : 5000 kms |
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