africa-overland

12/08/06
Misurata (350km from Tunisia / Libya border, 1500km from Egypt)
We met our guide at the border as arranged, in fact we were 20 mins late due to having the same problem with getting the carnet stamped, in that they didn’t have a clue what it was, and the guide rang us to ask where we were! We quickly discovered the benefits of having someone who speaks Arabic because entering Libya took about 15mins with absolutely no hassle.
Libya is totally different to Tunisia, it much more developed and obviously richer. It is nothing like Western impressions of it. The people are really friendly, there are all the services you can think of and it generally seems like a wicked place. There are no Western tourists here but everyone accepts us and waves and says hi, it’s a really nice feeling.
Our guide is a very laid back guy called Youssef who’s a really good lad with a good sense of humour. Having him makes life so much easier because not many people speak English or French.
We visited some amazing Roman ruins at Sabratha yesterday and then stopped in Tripoli for the night. We met up with one of the students from Cavendish, Aymen, who is Libyan and with him, Youssef and his uncle we went into Tripoli. Tripoli is an amazing city. There was loads going on, we went into the old town and wandered around these tiny narrow streets with shops selling everything you could think of. We spent about 3 hours looking around the city and if it wasn’t so bloody expensive and difficult to get a Libyan visa I would love to come back and spend some more time here.
Today we went to the massive Roman ruins at Leptis Magna. They are absolutely huge, we had a guide and went around them for 2 hours and only saw about 75% of the place. The site has been designated a World Heritage Site and is an amazing place. Unfortunately we did this on the hottest day of the year so far, it was about 40degrees and even the guide was finding it hard!
We are now at a place called Misurata, which is quite a large town on the coast. We are slowly making our way to Benghazi and should be able to do another update from there.

Roman theatre at Sabratha, Libya

Roman Church in Leptis Magna

17/08/06
We are now in Benghazi in Western Libya, Haven’t got a huge amount to write because we haven’t been up to much really. We spent a couple of days in Misurata and then moved onto a place called Surt. If you were worried about us having to rough it in our travels then rest easy because we stayed in the same hotel that the president of Egypt uses when he comes to Libya!
Surt is when Qaddafi was born and that is immediately obvious when you get there. Compared to the rest of the country this place is spotless. The roads are in excellent condition, the street lights work and everything is very modern. It also the headquarters of the Africa equivalent of the EU so there are lots of very modern, large office buildings. It’s a pretty cool place though. Some of Youssef’s friends showed us around and as with everyone we have met they were incredibly friendly and generous. We stopped to get pizza (traditional Libyan food, we’re trying to experiment with local customs!!) and they wouldn’t let us pay. It really is staggering how kind and welcoming these people are.
After Surt we had a bit of a marathon 600km drive to Benghazi. The reason for that is that there is absolutely bugger all between the 2 cities. All you see for about 7 hours is barren desert, camels, dead camel road kill, the occasional tree and a fair number of police road blocks! It kind of brings home how large this country is. The coastline is 2500km long, and it’s pretty much a straight line.
Benghazi is a large city that seems pretty cool, we’re heading into town tonight to have a look around.

Some interesting (or not) facts that Youssef told us about Libya.
1) The average monthly wage is 200 dinar or about £60
2) When you leave school the government tells you what job you are going to be doing for the rest of your life (you can change this but only if you have friends in high places)
3) There is no such thing as car tax, MOT or insurance. If you crash you either pay cash or if you are lucky the other person lets you off because they are a good Muslim and it is In Sha’Allah (God’s will for it to happen)
4) Libyan men are not allowed to talk to Libyan women until they have met their family and are not allowed to go out in public together until they are engaged. If they go out before this they must be chaperoned at all times (or risk getting beaten up if seen by any of the girls family)
5) You can only buy 10 pieces of bread at once and it costs about 10p, you can’t get one piece.
6) They have no coins in circulation. Everything is done as a multiple of .25 dinar and the only notes they have are .25 dinar (10p), .5 dinar, 1 dinar and 10 dinar. So when we got 700 dinar changed we got 70 10 dinar notes and the wad of notes was about 3 inches think! At petrol stations they do have 10p coins you can use are petrol is not done in .25 multiples. However, these coins are only accepted at petrol stations and no where else.

Building outside our hotel in Tripoli

A remarkably complicated oil change in Libya, how many people does it take? Youssef would like me to point out that they are not Libyans doing it, they are Egyptians. Bandits apparently!

19/8/06
Benghazi was another amazing city. All the shops are open until after 12, there’s people milling about everywhere, music playing on the beach front, hundred on stalls selling freshly cooked meat, people dancing and generally enjoying themselves. Admittedly we were there on a Thursday night and because in the Arab world Friday is the equivalent of our Sunday, everyone was out.
After leaving Benghazi we headed for a town called Albayda. There’s nothing particularly special about the town itself. The best thing about going there is the drive. It was the first time that we saw scenery other than flat, barren desert. We began to rise into the Green Mountains, the Jebel Akhdar. These are a spectacular range of mountains that run almost due north from the Sahara until they hit the Libyan coast. There are all made of sandstone and have therefore been dramatically shaped by the action of water over the last few thousands years. There are huge dry valleys with enormous caves cut high into the valley sides. We spent a long time here just looking at the views and taking loads of photos.

Once we left Albayda we stopped at some more Roman ruins at Sha’had. However, having seen quite a few ruins by this time we didn’t bother with a guide so I know bugger all about the place. It is very nice though!
That night was the first that we were able to camp and it was one of the best nights we had. We got to the campsite early and so Youssef and I went swimming. The sea was crystal clear and very warm. In the evening we cooked Youssef some English food. He was intrigued by Heinz soup, liked tuna paste but couldn’t stand Bovril or Marmite, shame.
Perhaps as goodbye present from Libya, or perhaps because the next day we were going to visit the Tobruk war cemeteries, the only thing that I really wanted to see in Libya, I started the day by being massively and spectacularly sick from the top of the land rover! The result of this was I spent the 300km journey sitting in the back of the landy alternating between shivering and sweating and generally feeling pretty ropey. When we arrived in Tobruk I went straight to bed and slept for about 18 hours. Thankfully I felt fine when I woke up but it meant that we didn’t have time to go to the cemeteries, bloody typical. So we're off to negotiate the legendary tricky and bureaucratic Egyptian border, will write more about that on the Egyptian page. Before I do I’d like to say some of my final thoughts as we prepare to leave Libya.

All the people we have met have been incredibly friendly. They have all done everything they can to help us, from buying us drinks to giving us free internet access to simply driving us and guiding us around their cities. They are an incredibly proud people who are keen to show off their country and keen to get more tourists to visit them. A surprising amount of people spoke enough English that enabled us to get by without speaking any Arabic, even though they only started learning compulsory English is schools 5 years ago. Large numbers of people have taught themselves English off their own back. They are convinced that Libya and Libyans have a lot to offer the world and really want to be able to do this
However, this pride in their country etc does not seem to be matched by Qaddafi. The country obviously has a lot of money, the diesel and petrol are ridiculously cheap, the Great Water Project that Qaddafi constructed that draws fresh water from the desert aquifers (bit bizarre that) to the coastal zones where everyone lives costs billions of dollars to set up and maintain and Libya funded all of it. Because of all the oil money Qaddafi was able to shun the west for 20 odd years, even with all the sanctions imposed on the country they were still makings millions of dollars, they simply didn’t need tourists to fund them, unlike many other African countries. However, this money does not seem to be being spent on the people who actually need it, the Libyans themselves.

Theatre at Leptis Magna

The average wage is £65 a month and most of the people are very very poor. They do not live in abject poverty like many other Africans but compared to the wealth in their country they could and should be earning much more money. Qaddafi has recently embarked on a campaign to unite all of Africa into a United States of Africa (that’s what he calls it). Next to many of the roads there are signs that say things like:
“Only through unity will we defeat poverty and disease”
“African will not live on the charities of G8 any longer”
And many more expressing similar sentiments. To support this Qaddafi has given billions to other African countries to ensure their support. On the surface this idea of a united Africa seems like a very good idea. However, we sensed much resentment among Libyans regarding this because they feel that Libya has many problems of her own that need to be sorted out and the money that is flowing out of the country should really be flowing into it. They feel that Qaddafi actually wants the Libyan people to remain poor because then they will not have the means to revolt against him. There may be some truth in this because the headquarters of the African Union is in Libya in Surt. We spent 2 days on this town and it was the only town we visited where everything worked. There was no litter, no potholes, all the street lights worked. The place was like any other modern European city. It was in better condition than Tripoli. Locals feel that this is because whenever any foreign dignitaries visit Libya they come here and are shown a model city that actually masks what the rest of the country is like.

Amy looking glamorous outside Benghzi beach. Me looking .... well , we'll just leave at that shall we.

It is such a shame that things should be like this. The people are amazing, the country has got everything tourists would want (admittedly it could do with a bloody good clean up, they have similar, if not worse, attitudes to litter that the Tunisians have), amazing beaches, blue seas, mountains, deserts, ruins, museums etc. If the president wants it the Libyans have the capability to really modernise the country, I don’t feel that he does though because he is paranoid this will mean he loses his vice like grip on the country. He won it in a coup and fears he will lose it that way also. Lecture over!

Piczo