Jenga

The day started well as I awoke to a sea mist covering the city:

This boded well for my planned day out because it was cool as I started my trek out to Tolmeita (the Greek city Ptolemeis), and Apollonia, and I planned to be out in the open for most of the time. I had my trusty Google map with me, so I knew that, even though the locals said the coast road was not continuous, there was a thick yellow line on the page showing this belief to be false. I reached Tocra without incident, and managed to slip off the main road onto a little-used minor road which did indeed hug the coast. You can see the mountains to the right, and the sea to the left, so a lovely drive:

Once I got near to Tolmeita, I asked for precise directions at a police station (it's becoming a bit of a habit), and not only did they give me directions, but two of them also jumped into my car to make sure I didn't get lost. Even I couldn't have managed that - it was straight ahead with no turn-offs.

We drove past beautiful beaches, empty of people, and blessed with fine white sand. What a beautiful place it would be to share some time with someone special, I thought to myself, nobody else who spoke English being to hand.

When we got there, I thought it looked very well kept, and there were people still living in the ancient houses, but it turned out that this was the new town.

My personal guides urged me onwards, and there was a collectiion of statues, and a few huts, one of which was the ticket office and museum - it was shut. Undaunted, I asked where the ruins were, and a local chap waved his hand in a generally southerly direction, saying: "Over there." So I went 'over there', to find yet more run-down huts, this time inhabited by animals. On further inspection though, I saw some rather older pieces of stonework up the hill a bit, so, Lonely Planet open at the appropriate page, I trekked the short distance to the old town. It was gorgeous, and I had the whole place to myself - no gates, no people, no fences....and no guides. It didn't matter, because it is an ancient Graeco-Roman site in miniature - only a very small proportion has been excavated, so it is all very accessible and discoverable.

A particularly interesting spot was the cistern (yes, I knew you'd be fascinated):

Underneath that flat piece of ground you can see is a honeycomb of water storage chambers, originally fed by springs supplied from the Jebel Akhtar. I dropped a stone down one of the vents, and waited for it to hit the ground - it wasn't likely that anyone would be down there, I thought. Then curiosity got the better of me and I looked for a broken vent which would let me have a closer look. Fantastic - I found one which even had steps leading down into the darkness. As I reached the bottom I remember thinking: "I'd better remember where I came in or I could be down here some time." As you can see, with the help of the flash on my wonderful Sony Cybershot digital camera, available at all good camera shops, it was great. What a wonderful place to hold a masquerade party, I thought, as I wandered from chamber to chamber, progressively losing all bearings. It was so quiet, as, indeed, was the whole site. It was also cool which was welcome because by the time I reached here, the sun was well and truly up. After some time spent exploring, I thought I'd better retrace my steps. Well, not a chance! I was like Hansel in the woods, without even a bread trail to follow. I did keep calm though, and eventually managed to find an egress, although not the same one as I had used for access, but I really didn't mind.

Back in the open, I continued my tour, next finding this lovely little odeon (not the original, I suspect, of cinema fame):

and then this villa, overlooking the sea, centred on a swimming pool. Oh, what I'd have given for a dip in that:

Tour completed, I returned to the museum which was now open, and paid my fee. By chance, the guide mentioned in the Lonely Planet book was there - he saw my rather dirty and crumpled bible in my hands. I should have asked him to sign it!

Right, I thought, I'll carry on now to Apollonia. All I need to do is carry on along the coast road, and I'll eventually pitch up there. How wrong could I be. There was a road, of sorts, out of Tolmeita, but it was a track for 4WD vehicles really. I thought it's bound to improve, so I pressed on. After a few kilometres of heavy going, I saw what looked like a Great Man Made River site, so I carried on towards that. Well, it wasn't the GMMR, it was a new road in the making, some of it metalled, and some of it still gravel, but it was flat, and straight, and it was following the coast, so on I went. Other than one of two diversions to get past washed-away stretches, it was pretty good, and I made good progress for probably about 10 kms. There were no other cars, of course, and the setting was perfect:

Then it stopped, and reverted back to the rough track I'd started on. I wasn't too bothered - a decent stretch of road would come along any minute. It didn't - it went from bad to worse. Eventually I was going along rocky wadis, down sheep and goat paths, amongst thorn bushes, worrying all the time that I'd punch a hole in the sump and be stranded miles from anywhere with my only hope of help being a mountain climb away. On top of which, my petrol reserves were running low from all the revving and skidding, so things were not feeling too good. Nevertheless, I was sure I'd get to a better stretch soon.

When I reached a sheer cliff at the end of a particularly difficult stretch, after a steep downhill patch, my optimism was finally beaten: I was, quite literally, at the end of the road. I couldn't go on, so I had to go back - all the way back to Tolmeita, about 20 kms or more. Uphill, for the worst parts. And then I smelt petrol.

It's a good job I was on my own, I thought, because tempers would have been frayed otherwise. I had only myself to blame, and there was only one realistic solution to my predicament - turn round, and get on with it.

With the petrol gauge reading empty, I span the car round (reversing wasn't an option), and started back, by now shaking with....I don't know what....fear, stupidity, apprehension? Still, I just had to press on.

At one steep, rocky, and rutted point, the tyres would just not get a grip, and I threw up clouds of dust as I tried everything to manoeuvre the car over the boulders, knowing that if I made a mistake, I could fly off the side onto the rocks below. This really was the low point of my day, and I was beginning to think I was in real trouble.

However, after skilfully using my supreme driving skills together with my in-depth knowledge of tyre mechanics and momentum, I negotiated this obstacle, after which the remainder of the journey seemed almost relaxing. The petrol gauge corrected itself, the smell of petrol went away, the oil pressure light didn't come on, and my shaking stopped. I got back to the unmade road, and cruised into Tolmeita a much wiser and thoughtful person. The car survived remarkably well - a few scratches from thorn bushes, and a few dents to the exhaust but otherwise, nothing - apart from a thick layer of red dust inside and out.

Lessons? Don't trust Google maps, always believe the locals, keep the petrol tank full, and always drive a Mazda.

Apollonia? Well, I did start off in that direction via more conventional roads, but after a while, turned round and went home - I'd had enough excitement for the day. It'll wait for me - it's waited over 2000 years already; another week won't make any difference.

I had a bit of a bum day yesterday - one of my students walked out of my lesson. This has never happened before, so I felt pretty bad - and she wasn't very happy either; she didn't come in today.

The trouble was that I had questioned her on the sources of some of her answers to an exercise we were doing in class - her exam results were poor, but in class she seemed to shine, and I wanted to know why. It didn't go down very well.

On a more positive note, I found the attached article on the Internet. It's good to see Imogen's keeping busy in York:

Now that I've been in Libya eight months, I decided that it really was time that I paid my respects to the national hero, Omar Mukhtar, particularly since he is entombed only about thirty miles from Benghazi in a rural town called Suluq.

I found it with no difficulty having downloaded a map from Google Maps, and had a very leisurely drive there across a dead flat part of the Benghazi hinterland - quite a change from yesterday's trip. Once I got to Suluq, I asked a shopkeeper for final directions, and after I'd deciphered his broad accent (very Egyptian - he prounounced his g's as 'g', not 'j' as is more common in Libya - roundabout was 'gazeera' rather than 'jazeera'), I got quite close. Fine tuning was helped by a couple of Bulgarians I met, architects on a 5000 house site, who told me that Suluq was OK when the wind wasn't blowing, but because the land was so flat, even light blusters soon lifted up the sand into a gritty fog.

Once I got to the monument, it was locked, but I woke the caretaker, and he showed me around.

Having driven across such a desolate landscape to get here, it was no surprise to find the memorial and its situation so barren, but then I remembered that this was the site of the concentration camp housing 20,000 people. It was here that Omar Mukhtar was hanged whilst the camp inmates, to quote Lonely Planet, looked on "in eerily silent" witness. The defence lawyer at his show trial was locked up for being too sympathetic.

His body was buried here after his death, and the shrine was moved here from Benghazi in 2001:

If you look beyond the memorial to his hanging, you can get a real feel for the utter despair the prisoners must have felt when their inspiration and leader dropped to his death, but Mukhtar was quite sanguine about his fate. He said, when convicted, "From God we have come, and to God we must return":

Rather than waste a good day staying in Benghazi, I've been out to the east again, this time aiming for Qasr Libya to see the mosaics.

 

All was going well until I reached the Omar Mukhtar bridge, and realised I'd overshot Qasr Libya, so I thought I might as well carry on and see how far I got. Well, Tobruq was beginning to feel like a real possibility until I got to Derna, and by this time the sun was high in the sky and I was beginning to cook, so I refuelled, reoiled, and rewatered before setting off back, but along the coast road rather than through the mountains this time to see more of the sea.

 

Derna will, one day, be a lovely place to have a holiday, but it's very run down at the moment:

I accidentally turned left in Susa, where we'd been last week, so ended up going back into the hills - that means I have to go back to the coast road again some time to give it another try - but it did give me the opportunity to see the tombs at Cyrene again:

Using my infallible sense of direction, I headed north, hoping to get back to the coast, but I actually went west through Al Bayda - I realised this when I saw the OM bridge looming up around a corner! What luck, I thought, I'll get to Qasr Libya after all. I stopped to ask directions on the road, and a bloke in a truck said to follow him, and he'd show me where it was - only 20 kms. So, driving like a lunatic so I wouldn't lose him, we eventually fetched up in the right town. Then I had to somehow communicate what I was looking for: a Byzantine church with mosaics. He didn't speak any English, so I set out some stones on the road to explain what I meant. His eyes lit up, and off we went for another couple of kms. We turned off the main road, and went down a long and winding road till we got to my destination - a gravel depot!

 

Hmmm. What now? By chance there were some Moroccans living on site - building a road from Al Masr to Tobruq - 200 kms. They had some English but didn't know what I was talking about, but suggested I try the police in Qasr Libya. There was a village nearby called Olibia, and that might be the place. Before I left, they asked me if I wanted to have a sleep with them.....very kind, I said, but I had to press on.

 

Reaching the police station, they gave me directions to the Qasr - it was indeed just outside town. My Arabic stretches to a few numbers, left, right, and straight on, so I was able to follow their guidance, and there I was, bang on target. It was locked, but the caretaker, the local police major it turned out, let me in for my own private viewing:

Stunning. This country is full of gems that are just not seen in the normal course of travelling. I'm so glad I'm here before the tourist industry spoils it all!

 

After I'd had my fill of the mosaics and the basilicas, the major asked me if I'd like to have a sleep before I set off again. Yet another example of extraordinary Libyan hospitality - but no, I wasn't able to stay. I had to press on.

 

700 kms today, and I felt it when I got back - it's so hot now in the day. And it'll get hotter I'm frequently told. Just wait for the Ghibli!

I had a bit of unwelcome news this week - I'm being evicted!

Apparently when someone dies in Libya, or gets divorced, the house becomes the property of the husband or his family, and the furnishings become the wife's or her family. Since I carelessly lost both in a car crash, both families now want the flat and its contents back. The flat has been sold, and most of the contents have already been removed, so I'll shortly be homeless.

It's a bit of a bummer 'cos I'm quite settled - I know the area, where to eat, where to drive, and so on, but there's no such thing as a contract when this happens, so I have to go.

So, the weekend's been and gone, and I'm stuck back into work - I've been so busy in my spare time, it's a relief to be able to relax a little.

On Thursday, as  planned, I went to Akram's home for lunch. His father writes books on the struggle against the Italians, in Arabic only unfortunately, but he speaks excellent English having spent three years there as a PhD student. Akram was born in Exeter, and would like to return at some point so he's very keen on improving his English, but he has quite a bit of studying yet to do to reach his father's standard.

Then, on Friday, it was a class trip, sadly sans ladies, to Jebel Akhtar and the coast, eastwards. Starting off at crack of dawn, we almost retraced my steps of last weekend, but travelled the old roads, so seeing another side of Libya. Whilst the Turks were here, before the Italian occupation, under the control of the Karamanli family and their acolytes, amongst others, castles were built to keep the locals under control; this one is on the plateau of Jebel Akhtar:

On we carried till we dropped down into the valley over which the bridge I visited last week sits. We stopped for breakfast beside the original Omar Mukhtar bridge which features in the film Lion of the Desert (a must-see for all budding Libyan explorers):

It was in this valley that al Mukhtar and his supporters hid whilst they were fighting the Italians, and where he was eventually captured. He was tried and executed in 1931 in front of 20,000 Libyans, and has since become a defining character in the Libyan psyche.

After being sated on olives, harisa, and halva, we travelled on to the enormous city of Cyrene, after which this province, Cyrenaica, is named. Originally Greek, it was absorbed by the Romans into their empire. In the absence of an official guide, I took it upon myself to explain the significance of the place and its history to my students - one said that he was ashamed it took an Englishman to explain his country's history, but I was pleased to pass on my knowledge. Only 9% of the city has been excavated, so we can only imagine what still lies beneath the surface waiting to be shown to future visitors. It was in a fantastic position, built on and into the hills, and overlooking the bay.


After trawling round the ruins, we went off for a swim to cool down. The sea here is so clear - I remember it from my last visit in '73, swimming around the ship whilst moored outside Benghazi. I vowed then to return, and am so pleased to be here again.

Having spent a very long day travelling the back roads, we rounded the day off with a picnic/barbeque back in the woods near Cyrene:

and eventually got home at gone midnight. Luckily I was being driven - the road we took was the one on which my landlord, his wife, and his sister-in-law had all been killed just after I moved into the flat, so it needed an experienced local eye to keep us all safe.

The Institute is just beside the harbour in Benghazi, opposite what was the largest cathedral in North Africa at the time it was built. It's in the process of being converted into the local stock exchange .... moneylenders, temple, expulsion ...

Late last night I had a visit from my estate agent and one of his clients, an Austrian who is looking for flats. In the course of the conversation, it turned out that he, the Austrian, will be looking for English language teachers for his new business here in Benghazi - his workforce is universally monoglot in Arabic. So, maybe there could be an opening here for a new language school, servicing companies directly from a base in Benghazi.

I'm back on-line at home again! It's not a megaspeed connection, since it's only GPRS, but it does mean that everywhere I go with my Mac and mobile in the Maghreb, I can be in contact with the outside world - even up in the mountains. It also means that if I ever trek off somewhere new, like overland to Jordan or Syria (only in the planning stages at the moment) I'll have maps and guidance at the touch of a keyboard. What fun!

Petrol has jumped in price here by 12% - it's now 7.5 pence per litre. It came as a bit of a shock when I filled the tank and it cost me over £2, I can tell you. I'm not letting it get me down though.

The interview has hit the newsstands - it wasn't on the front page, but it did cover almost half of page 6. Here's a pic:

I'm afraid I haven't got a translation, although I'm reliably informed that it accurately represents what was said. The other people featured are Salem (the Institute Director) and Aurelie (the other 'native' English speaking teacher - she's actually French, but you'd hardly be able to tell from her accent). If you want to read the rest of the paper, have a look at www.quryna.com. The caption on my photograph names me as John Cola - when asked my name I had said Coker as in Coca Cola, and they misunderstood! It should have been ﺟڡن کڡکا, not ﺟڡن کڡلا

I was getting a little concerned that my social life had gone into irretrievable decline. However, I needn't have been concerned - I've been invited out to lunch on Wednesday by a student, at his parents' home, and on Friday the class is taking me out to the Green Mountains and beyond. The bridge I saw last weekend was indeed Omar Mukhtar's; had I carried on another 50kms I'd have reached Cleopatra's bathing pool, so that's our target on Friday.

One quick aside: Gibraltar, as I'm sure any fule kno, was once ruled by the Arabs, at the same time as they were big in Spain. Gibraltar is actually a contraction of Jebel Tariq - the Mountain of Tariq. Bet you didn't know that!

Interesting week - I've been interviewed at the Institute for an article which will be syndicated throughout.....Libya! Yes, I know it's not quite the Guardian, but my fame is spreading - first national television, now the national press. I'll post a cutting once it appears - you wouldn't want to miss my gems (or germs?) of wisdom.

Now that the weekend's here, I've been able to get out and do some exploring. Where to start, I wondered. So I jumped into the car and just headed east, knowing that if I got to a border crossing I'd gone too far. I haven't bought a map yet, and think it might be a good idea - I don't know where I went, but it was beautiful anyway - the Green Mountains. On the way I bought water and fruit in my best Arabic - it's really coming along, although it is still just a series of nouns not joined together by verbs or anything as complicated as that. I shall now make a determined effort to get stuck into the Linguaphone programme.

As you will see from these pictures, the mountains really are green:

The picture above might be of Omar Mukhtar Bridge, but since I was guideless, I don't know. It spanned a massive gorge, about a thousand feet down - at least that's what it felt like when I walked across:

It looked as though there had been a river flowing through it at some point, but it is wooded all the way down to the floor now. Maybe I'll return in the winter and have another look.

It was about ten degrees cooler than on the coast, so was quite a welcome change. Temperatures are rising now towards the high 30s (well over 100 F) we can expect next month, but Benghazi gets a sea breeze, and winds from the mountains, so is always a bit cooler than Tripoli. It seems I've made a good move! Except for the Ghibli - the hairdrier. I'm looking forward to that experience.

Here are a couple of pics of my flat - inside and out. Most windows seem to have bars on them, not only mine. I'm told that the 'gardens' will be landscaped eventually. We'll see.

Off now to explore the alleys of Benghazi - sans guide again. It's the only way to do it.

I've managed to find an Internet cafe which connects at very lazy sloth speed, so slightly better than slug, but it's a bit of a drive from home. Still no luck with getting set up there just yet, so investigations continue.

Anyway, this is a bit of a catch-up entry:

Flying back to Heathrow three weeks ago, I landed at the infamous Terminal Five. That bit was OK, but when I caught a taxi to Amersham (20 miles maximum), I was stunned by the cost....£80! I'll walk next time.

Still, the journey was worth it because I met up with Mother, Tim, and Jeff for a lovely meal:

Afterwards we went round to Jeff's for a nightcap - and very substantial it was too! I think I'll give my liver a rest now that I'm back in Lib.

On Sunday, I went for a walk round Virginia Water with a friend, and we stopped for a meal - very relaxing and enjoyable. Azaleas and rhododendrons were all in full bloom, and I was reminded of the happy weekends we used to spend there with the kids when we lived nearby. I always enjoy going back.

On Monday, I dropped off the visa forms at the People's Bureau, and went to see God of Carnage - by Yasmina Reza of Art fame - really good. So rewarding to be able to enjoy some theatre again - I'd forgotten what it was like. There's nothing like this in Libya, although I've been told that Benghazi is the Libyan centre of culture, so I'll be looking forward to imbibing some of that when it appears.

On Tuesday, I drove to Shrewsbury to see my boys. We started off with a meal at a place of their choosing - outside, which was very pleasant:

And then we moved on elsewhere. It was a very, very, very late night - we had loads to talk about, and I can remember every last morsel. Ben brought his girlfriend along:

Before heading back south, I dropped in to see James's dog, and my ex:

She looks more like her mother every time I see her.

Then I had a leisurely drive back to Penn through the English countryside. It's so green, and I miss it.

The following day it was back to Tripoli. I picked up my car from Salem, packed all my belongings, and met the landlord to finalise handover details for the next tenant - a Berlitz employee who is being 'placed' in the flat - not sure what he'll think, but if I were him I'd probably get on the next flight out!

In the morning, I loaded the car and set off for Benghazi, 1000 kms east.

I didn't bother sourcing a map - it seemed straightforward enough - just keep going along the coast till you get there. And that was pretty much what happened. I did stop for a short snooze about half way - it's important to concentrate on this road 'cos other drivers take enormous risks, but I just kept to a steady speed, and kept focused on the road ahead. Just in case of breakdown, I had plenty of water and two fully charged phones - I had been warned about the dangers of the journey, so made some efforts towards minimising the risks. I wouldn't like to do the trip too often, but it was an interesting experience.

I stayed at a hotel in Benghazi whilst looking for flats, and in the end moved in to the first one I'd seen. It's smaller than the Tripoli place, so more suitable for a single person, it's carpeted, has air conditioning, and has plumbing which all feeds into the drains without any leakage issue. It's also 'European', which means it has a fitted kitchen, and a three piece suite. It cost rather more than I'd hoped, but it's in a decent area, and not too far from work.

Outside it looks like a Russian block plonked in the middle of some wasteland, but the neighbours are all very friendly, and the shops/takeaways are all just across the road.

I got home one evening, and one of the local children told me that someone in one of the flats had been killed in a road accident. I said how sorry I was, and started on the stairs to my flat. Then the caretaker told me that someone had been killed on the road, and it might have been suicide. Again, I said how sad, and went into my flat. The following morning, Yusuf, my estate agent, came into work, and told me that my landlord had been killed, with his wife, in a road accident the night we'd signed the lease for the flat. So that really was a shock - I hadn't connected the deaths with my flat until then. Road deaths here are very common, so perhaps I was a little foolhardy driving from Trip.

The day after I'd moved in to the flat, my car broke down. I'd stopped at a supermarket to stock up with essentials, and when I tried to leave, the battery was dead. Now, in the UK, I'd have called the AA, but here, not only had I lost my mobile phone, but also I didn't know who to call. So, I went back in to the shop and asked for advice. Not a problem, I was told, we'll bump start you, and then you can get home. This done, I got home, and then went round to a local garage. They diagnosed and fixed the problem (worn out generator contacts, in case you're interested), and I was back on the road within 24 hours. All negotiations were carried out in Arabic and hand signals, including agreeing a price for the work - £6 labour, £12 parts. Good job I bought a Mazda - they're ubiquitous here.

Work's fine. Luckily, although Dorothy, the senior teacher, has left, the other teacher, Aurelie, is still here for another two months, so she's showing me how things are done. It's smaller than Tripoli, and the Director is more accessible, so things seem to run very smoothly. All the teachers teach the same class all day every day, so it makes planning very straightforward; plus, if there's one topic you want to cover in more depth, you can overrun and not worry about poaching time from other teachers. It's quite demanding work - the classes are smaller, only about 8 or ten students - and the breaks are shorter than in Trip, but everyone is very friendly and helpful.

I did have to cover the rights and wrongs of exporting weapons to other countries in one lesson - we were discussing national boundaries, imports and exports. One student extolled the virtues of the IRA, and told me that Libya was right to sell them arms because they were freedom fighters, so I asked him if it would be OK for Britain to sell arms to freedom fighters in Libya. Well of course not, he said. I also asked him if it was OK to sell arms to gangsters, drug pushers, and people traffickers masquerading as freedom fighters. Definitely not, he said. You understand my point, I said. Yes, he said, and we moved on to oil prices, and the opportunities for selling sand to the Europeans.

Today I asked why I couldn't marry a Muslim woman, given that there are so many attractive Libyan women around, whilst it was OK for a Muslim man to marry out of the faith. It's just the way it is - the Koran says so, I was told. There was, however, a simple solution - I could just become a Muslim. I wouldn't need to pray five times a day if I didn't want to - that would be between me and my God. So I'll put some thought into this plan - it could have a very postive outcome.