Well, the day finally arrived - my birthday, that is. And the anniversary of the Revolution of course. I received many emails and messages from friends and family, so thank you all for those; they made me feel quite homesick. I wanted everyone to be able to share my day on the beach, so you were with me in spirit if not in body.
One of my students asked me last week when we celebrated our Independence Day. Made me think - independent from whom? Rome? Normandy? Scotland? Saxony? Answers on a postcard, please.
We're now well in to Ramadan, so the working day is much shorter for everyone. Today was a Bank Holiday, and as quiet as the grave - maybe it'll get noisy as the day cools down. There have been a couple of high profile visitors to Benghazi over the past few days: Berlosconi, apologising for the 1911 invasion and offering reparations, Evo Morales from Bolivia on his way to Iran, and Condi Rice is coming over later in the week, so it's not surprising that so much effort has gone in to sprucing the town up.
There are new posters up all over the city, mostly extolling the successes of the past 39 years - the Great Man-Made River Project, revolutionary thought, peace, and the oil industry:
Turf has been getting laid over the past days, and watered continuously to prevent it drying out in the intense heat. It's laid on a bed of 'gatherings' from farmyards, so is a little whiffy, but the place does look good:
As my birthday treat, I decided to drive west from Benghazi to see what beaches awaited my fevered splashings. I had been told that some of the beaches close to the city harboured some nasty bugs, so I drove about 40kms along the coast to a point which I thought looked fairly remote, and therefore relatively untouched. Then I went off-road, somewhat trepidatiously given my track record, but determined nevertheless to make good use of the day. I was rewarded at the end of a long rocky and pitted route with a vacant beach looking out over a cerulean sea. The sand was bouncy - the beach was covered with slivers of masticated palm leaves:
Very unusually there was a lifeguard station built a little way back from the water's edge. I'm in luck, I thought. There's bound to be a buxom blonde babe waiting with tensed muscles to run into the sea to save me. I thrashed, I shouted, I sank, and rose spluttering, but Pamela either didn't see me, or thought she'd leave me to my fate:
After that little episode, I drove off into the outback a little. I came across this area of rock which looked to me like an undiscovered ancient city. I'd have got out to have a proper look around, but there were some vicious wild dogs patrolling the area, so I remained car bound. If you look carefully in the picture, I'm sure you'll see the outlines of buildings and streets - or perhaps I was getting dehydrated. See what you think:
The sun was well up by this time, and, when in Rome etc, it being Ramadan, I wasn't drinking - I'm told fasting clears the soul and mind, and thought I'd give it a try - so I headed home across the billiard table which makes up the coast around here. Never liking to retrace my tracks, I chose a new route back to Ben, and relied on my supreme navigational skills to get me there - quite an achievement in these signpost-free areas. The tyre tracks did help me a little:
