Into Libya

Saturday 6th October 2007 New Restaurant Grounds.
We headed for Benghazi, the most westerly place Dad Karg had got to in the war. It is a huge city, second biggest in Libya.
We walked around the market and there are 100s of jewelry shops and clothing shops there. The women apparently wear lots and lots of jewelry hidden under their black outer clothing. 100% of Libyans are Muslem and if anyone breaks Ramadan by eating or drinking during the daytime, they are shunned, called liars, and not trusted thereafter, apart from it being a very bad sin.
It is well laid out with an extensive network of roads and modern flyovers.
It is also just west of the fertile, cultivated area of the "Green Mountain" where they grow wheat, apples (the sweetest we have ever eaten), peaches, grapes, and farm honey. The lands are beautiful and flat at an altitude of 600m, and looks a bit like the Freestate.
West of the town starts to look more and more like the Karroo with little shrubs and shorter trees. The whole area is short of rain. The towns have desalination plants for water. Libya has found a huge underground water supply 1000Km inland, the volume is equal to the whole of the Nile flowing into a hole for 200 years. They are busy making 2 X 1000Km long artificial rivers to bring this water towards the coast.
The roads in Libya are very good, not as good as in Egypt, and much more traffic which drives faster and more aggressively. Diesel costs 75c/l and 90c/l in Egypt. 1Dinar (Libyan) = R5.00, and the price of goods is about the same as in SA except bread which is much cheaper.
The most common car is the Merc Vito. The taxis are old Mazda 323 and we get recognised as foreign and greeted with a hoot as there are not many foreign cars in Libya.
Again we have been accommodated in a back yard free of charge. This time in the grounds of a new restaurant with a hot shower, kitchen and near an eating place for Saleem to do his Ramadan thing.

Friday 5th October 2007 Hotel Grounds Camp
During the night the wind got up, and as you know, sand dunes move!! We had these horrible thoughts of waking up under a sand dune. It wasn't that bad, but there was sand everywhere! We dusted off and headed for Cyrene, explored the ruins of Monepolis at the beach, the temple of Zeus and the Greek tombs and the old city. The Romans were here just before AD and the Greeks soon thereafter and left their marks of temples, acropolises and amphitheatres like those in Rome and Greece, (now without the tourists).
The Libyan’s are very friendly and hospitable people, offering tea, food and hospitality all the time. That evening we camped in the hotel grounds (free again)

Thursday 4th October 2007 Tobruk - sandy dune beach camp
Woke up anticipating a day of hell getting ourselves and the Landy out of Egypt and into Libya. We got to the border at 7am and had to wake up the first man as he had been awake all night due to Ramadan. The Muslems eat breakfast at about 6pm then dinner at 7pm then another meal at 3am. Then prayers and fall asleep at 4am expecting to sleep till 10 or 11am. The first man then sent us to the licensing department, a big empty building where we walked around shouting Hulooooo and Sallaaaaam for a few echoing minutes. We were wondering what to do next and I started to knock loudly on the counter window and nearly jumped out of my skin when a blanket on the counter came to life and out poked a sleepy head. He was so groggy with sleep that he could only grunt, snort and point. We got the message and handed over the number plates and license and were through the border having paid R7 in total and in only 30 minutes.
Our guide for Libya, Saleem was only expected at 9pm, and although it was slow, we got through the border and into Libya without incident and headed towards Tobruk where Dad Karg had escaped from the Germans in WWII.
We saw the excellently kept war memorial and drove around the nice town, then headed west to find a campsite for the night. Saleem was required to hand in an itinerary paper at each check point, but missed one. We were traveling along merrily when we were pulled over by security and we thought we had done something wrong. He requested the form, and was very friendly and offered Saleem Ramadan breakfast with his family and directed us to a sand dune next to a deserted beach to camp. Just what we were wanting to do.

Wednesday 3rd October 2007 Near Soluum Beach
We proceeded west to Soluum. More and more fig trees planted indicating how drought resistant this variety is as there are 100s of Ha of them. Nearly all the main roads in Egypt are double highways and are in excellent condition which makes for very easy driving. After reaching El Soluum we drove up to the border post to see when it opened the next morning – open 24 hours a day. We then found a camp spot near the beach with the approval of an official. We didn't set up camp in anticipation of being told to move and sure enough two army guys came along and told us, big problem, and politely told us to move to the other side of the road, which we did.

Tuesday 2nd October 2007 Noisy Quarry
Left Merza Mertruh and headed west along flat countryside next to the sea where the land had been cultivated for crops in preparation for the rainy two months Nov and Dec. Palm trees and olive trees had given way to the odd fig orchard. We found a campsite next to the road behind a quarry as we didn't want to camp on someone's cultivated land.