Posted by I wake up in the morning because of my alarm I actually manage to sleep far enough away from the main camp so I could not hear anything from it. I pack my stuff and get ready to carry it back to the trucks. It is a lot easier this morning when I can actually see what I am doing compared to walking around in the dark with no clue to where I was. I make it up the first dune with no problem at when I reach the top of the first dune I congratulate myself on my foresight from the night before – the upper part of the next sand dune shows clear signs of use as the men’s toilet during the night. Not that anything would have actually hit me in the bottom of this next dune valley – but the thought of what kind of moisture which could have reach the bottom makes you think.
I get down for the breakfast – it is not quite as attractive anymore the bread has seen better days and is getting increasingly hard.
But things are looking to get better – tonight we will be in a major town settlement or whatever – with fresh supplies and showers and everything which belongs to what we use to call civilization. I can get through another day with old bread.
We start with the morning walk across the dessert up climbing a mountain and stuff – I went the long road with a few others who did not want to hang around camp too long in the cold morning. The target for the walk is a small arch just across from the sand dune we camp at. At this arch is some old carvings – and there it is the conclusive prove of how the ancient people in the Jebel Abcus Mountains used to hunt – there is a carving of a 4WD and we all know you hunt Libyan wolf using a 4WD.
At the little arch the 4WD picks us up and we start the day’s journey across the dessert. We stop at some old cave which actually does contain some paintings that appear to be somewhat older than the carvings of Toyotas.
We stop at several sights of paintings today but it is more of a scenic day today than yesterday. We get to see some great view over the area and off course around lunch time we see the daily camels. This time around it is a beautiful white camel with a couple of darker once tacking along – maybe it is the offspring’s I am not sure I have no clue how to determine if two camels are related or not.
When the evening arrives it is about time to leave the mountain area and go to our huts just outside the national park area.
It is somewhat sad to leave this area because it has been really impressive with the paintings, carvings and landscape – even though the paintings and carvings don’t really come out on a photo.
We get to the big town – which is in reality a collection of about 20 houses. But there is a campsite and we get huts – which mean sleeping in a bed with electricity – I need to recharge my camera battery – it did a good job and I did not have to use my spare – but I want it fully charged for the coming days. The designer of the huts could have given them some more thoughts before he did them – the octagonal design may have been a great novelty but he seems to have forgotten that you had to place two beds in each hut. The beds could not stand straight in the hut and had to be diagonal with one of them preventing the door from opening fully.
A little disadvantage with the campground is the fact it is the only place you can stay in a 200k radius unless you bush camp. Therefore the campsite is pack with Germans and Italians – the showers is packed as well by overweight Italians who think it is a proper camp dress to walk to the shower barely covered in a tiny towel. Ok I can’t stand the thought about having to wait in line for the shower – it got to wait until the next morning.
All those people at camp are a bit scary all my time in Libyan has been without other tourist around. At the hotel we were the only group and there would be no other foreigners in the hotel.
At the campsite we were completely isolated – the one time somebody else stole our campsite we just moved along and camped miles away from anybody else. But now there are people – and they may even speak English which is a bit worrisome you will have to think about what you are saying about them.
Well it is a campsite which means there will be a bar – and indeed there is a bar you can get beer. That will be non-alcoholic beer obviously. Well how bad can it be – and the correct answer to that question bad. Non-alcoholic beer taste nothing like beer at all I give up on beers for the rest of my stay in Libyan and go for a peach drink instead. You can trust peach drinks they taste exactly as they should – sweet and peachy not a big hit if you can get beers though.
Diner is on the way and we are looking forward to a feast.
After all we are in a big town – ok well we are at a collection of houses. The diner must be great – what are we having we can’t wait. The answer my friend is like always blowing in the wind. It is camel with couscous. Ok no big invention on the meat front – but the bread will be great for sure. No there is a bakery in town but is only open once a week – and it is not today. We will have to eat the bread they bought Christmas Eve. The bread is only eatable with soup where you can use the soup to change the consistence of the bread from timber to something you can actually chew. Somewhat disappointed we finish diner – but at least there had been plenty of chocolate cookies to the pre diner coffee and tea so we did not have any incidents back then.
FrejaTravels 