infloting tyres at Tekerkiba fixed camp,Bkai, Mohamed and Bubakr are leaving us with the kitchen car, along the road on 30-10-2008

In the area of Sirt taken pictures is forbidden because of Millitary base. This morning we woke up at 8.00 and had breakfast, then I sat on my balcony and used my sat modem as I did yesterday evening to make phone calls with Toine and Victor and to send messages and pictures to our blogspot. Toine and Victor noticed this morning after 217 km driving that our car was leaking out off the cardan; they lost a ........."dop" (in Dutch); no spelling control and no translation program in English on this small notebook to save space. In a small village just after Misratah they found friendly people to help them finding a new "dop"and to fill up with cardan oil. At 10.00 A.M. they continued to Sirte (an other 250 km to go) to pick me up. I sugested to leave me in our hotel in Sirte to wait for Toine and Victor and begged Khaled, Ibrahim and Mahmood to leave with the others to Bengazi as they did at 11.00 A.M. Our guide and cooker wanted me to come with the others, but I could convince them that I would feel absolutely happy to stay on my own, also in Libya, to wait for Toine and Victor. I can take over driving and we will find our way to the hotel in Benghazi because we choose this hotel during desktop roadsurvey at home so all details and waypoints are in our roadbook and in our GPS.

30 October 2008 Ubari sand dunes to Sirte

Yesterday evening we had a fantastic Arabic barbeque in the Sahara sand dunes nearby the Ubari lakes. This last night, sitting on ground, our cooker Bkai served our last diner in open air. First a delicious soup then the best hamburgers (meat of cows) I ever had, prepared with special herbs and spread over with fresh lemon. Under a sky full of stars all our Arabic men started to make wonderful music and they also sang together. After a good sleep under this beautiful sky we woke up at 7.00 had breakfast and left the sand dunes at 8.00. After a stop at Tekerkiba all inflated the tires for the drive on tarmac to the coastal area. We had a lang drive today of about 770 km. First the road were in bad condition, lotst of potholes, later on they were bad and sometimes very bad with a lot of dust and sand blowing over the road. The scenery was beautiful green in the beginning to grey and very bouring in the middel part. When we reached the city of Hun the roads were much better and also the scenery changed into mountain views for a while. I drove this long driving day in good compagny because Terence offered my a seat in his car this morning. We talked a lot and have listened to wonderful music. We were hold up at a special police check point and arrived at 6.45 PM in our hotel in Sirte. It is very strange to stay in hotel again after 10 fabulous days in the Sahara desert. I got in contact with Antoine at about 8.30 P.M. and heard that our car was ready this evening and that they will leave Tripoli tomorrow early in the morning to catch up with us. All together we can continu our Trail to Benghazi tomorrow around 11.30 A.M. 

29 october 2008, wednesday, Tripoli repairday

 Got up at 07.15 and had breakfast at 08.15 on the top floor in the open air with a fantastic view!. After that at 09.00 Hadi came to us, because we had to go to the Landrover garage. So Victor and I took the Landrover and followed  Hadi in his Discovery V8i. We went to the outskirts of Tripoli. A lot of car drivers were pointing at our left front wheel, which looks very odd because it makes a strange angle to the ground instead of almost beeing upright. Nice peope to make that clear to us. For the rest the traffic here means war. After we reached the garage behind a junkyard for cars, we had to wait for someone to open up. After all it was only 10.00. This is the time that everybody starts to work in Libya. Once it opened up we could see the garage: an open space with only shelter for the tools. A lot of motor blocks, axles, cars and parts of cars were scattered over the ground. There were a lot of eucalyptus trees, which give shadow and can hold lifting tools. But nevertheles it seems to be a good garage and the owner is related to Khalid our guide. After a while when everything was arrranged and the time scedule was set, we were brought back to the hotel. Hadi went to his office and booked our hotel for the second night. Tomorrow we will see. We did some email and went into town to the museum. That is only opened in the morning Victor heard from the tourist police. So we wandered through the city centre and had lunch on the Green Square. After that we searched for the Fergiani bookshop, which was wrong indicated in Loneley Planet. I bought a book about Libya. Then we looked at all the shops in that street: a lot of shops with clothes like mini skirts and evening dresses. Sometimes women come out of these shops, fully covered except for the eyes and jeans underneath their clothes. We had so many eye openers on this trip, that we had to change the picture we had from the country's we visited so far. Also when going to an ATM, to get some money, the people behind you come to stand besides you to help. Nothing criminal! We are not used to that. Stealing does not seem to be a problem here and you.can also park your car anywhere without problem.  We feel very safe here in this country. At the end of the afternoon we had something to drink on a terrace near the sea, where a lot people were smoking their waterpipe. It was against 18.00 that we went back to the hotel through the busy market streets for "normal" people. They sold everything: shoes, spices (very nice smelling), all kind of clothes, birds, watches, suitcases, etc. Victor bought a pair of shoes, the same as Khalid. We went to our room and hd a drink. After we rested a while we went for dinner on the 10th floor. Then it was time for the day report. Victor sleeps already.

28 october 2008 Al Awaynat-Tripoli car transport

 

 

 

29 October 2008 Ubari sand dunes

This morning we woke up in the sand dunes of Ubari and had breakfast. The hole I needed in the morning I had to dig with my hands because I travel very basic without our car.  After arrival in Tekerkiba camp at 09.00 Khaled, Mahmood and Heert-Jan started to inspect Heert-Jan and Atske's car. They had to change the air spring at the rightside in the back because this broke down yesterday during dune driving. A couple of hours later and several phonecalls Khaled discussed the program for the rest of the day with me and I informed the others. Our cooker Bkai prepared his last lunch in the Tekerkiba fixed camp for us which was very tasteful again: fresh salade of tomato, cucumber, beans, tuna, olives, french fries and lovely fresh baked African bread. We had a shower and could relax in the shade. I made a phone call with Toine and received and send some email by satalit modem. This modem we bought this year just before our departure is so very usefull to keep in tough with the rest of the world when necessary and/or for sending pictures and messages to our blogspot. In the afternoon when the light is OK we drove in the dunes again and found our self a good place for the last overnight stay under the stars; we will miss this very much. Tomorrow morning we leave the desert part of Libya to drive to Sirte which means back to the coast.

28 october 2008, tuesday, Al Awaynat-Tripoli alternative route

 After 4 hours of driving on bad tarmac roads with a lot of potholes and ridges, we stopped for a rest. Our driver stopped in the town of Awbari at a (truckdrivers?) house where we could sleep in a room with only cushions against the wall. Someoe brought us blankets and we slept for 2 hours. Then the driver had a shower. Later on we had mint tea and biscuits outside. We took a bottle of water, the Libya map and the computer out of the Landrover and we went on. Through Germa to Sebha. A lot of agriculture along this route. Strange contrasts between green furtile parts and right next to it the dry desert parts. We are able to communicate a little bit with the driver in French. Sebha is the birth place of the great leader our drivver told us. Between Sebha and Brak the road is "under construction". The arrea is very dry here, you could call it a desert. For the road construction they use here a lot of Caterpillars. Then we went on to Brak, where our driver lives. He is desperately looking for a ddiesel fill up station. In Brak we found one at last. In a little village a bit further we  stopped and our driver bought uus some breads with liver of .... From here on it is an empty open space with  bllack or brown stones or hard sand. Every now and then there lies a dead camel next to the road. We alsso have regular police checks (all with Ford F150 pick-ups), specially with a truck loaded with a European car. We saw the same Belgian cars as a week ago at the petrol station near Germa. And also a lot of German cars: the real big ones like MAN, Mercedes and Unimog. The sky is clouded now when we reach the coast.Also a lot of abandonned, empty and burned out wrecks (cars, busses and trucks) next to the road. We stopped several times for diesel and to stretch our legs. When we reached Tripoli, I called Hadi to ask him where to meet. Khalid was calling the driver. So we had a lot of contact and afteer a while and several phone calls we met our touroperator Mr. Hadi Bkai. He brought us to a garage to get our Landrover from the truck. That did not fit. then we wennt to a viaduct, bur the neighbours did not want it. A lot of quaralling and hard speaking people. Then there was another viaduct, which fitted perfectly to the backside of the truck and I could drive the Landrover from the truck. We payed the truck driver and Hadi brought us to our hotel: Alokhwa. We parked the car at a guarded parking and brought the luggage to the hotel. Checked in and had a shower. After that we fellled asleep, because we were tired and it was midnight.

27 october 2008, monday, Akakus-Al Awaynat

Got up at 06.30 at first beams of sunrise We packed, washed a bit and had breakfast at 08.00. We were camping here in a u-shaped canyon. You  could hear a lot of echo's. The crew was busy cutting wood with big rocks. I offered them my machete, but they did not need it. After breakffast we splitted up: Maria, Victor and I went to Al Awaynat with Khalid and Bubakr. The rest of the group went with the rest of the crew to see rock paintings and carving. That was 25 km to the SW. After that visit they came back via the overnightstay to Al Awaynnat, another 120 km. So for us in the cripled Landrover it was only the 120 km. We drove smoothley through an astonishing scenery, changing all the time: rocks, mountains, sand, bushes, trees, gras, camels, etc. It was a beautifull drive through the northern part of the Akakus. At 12.00 we were in Al Awaynat at the fixed camp. There we had a shower first, after 4 days in the desert. Then we had lunch and Khalid was busy arranging the transport of the Landrover to Tripoli, where there is a Landrover garage that will fix our car. That is fitting a new front axle, left front drive shaft, perhaps the rear differential and 2 other spare wheels.

We were sitting on the terrace of the fixed camp, whhile the others came in at 16.30. They had a drink with us before they had their refreshing shower. Then we had dinner prepared by our own crew. Ater dinner our truck shouls arrive at 19.30. At 20.30 he was there and we went to place where we could drive the Landrover on the back of the truck. That was a little slope which was usable after some digging and a lot of stones that were put at the back of the truck. After an hour the Landrover stood on the truck. Then we went back to the fixed camp, where we had to wait for the necessary paperwork for the transport. Unfortunately there was only one (very sick) man in Al Awaynat that could sign the papers, which was done at 23.45. Then we diappeared into the darknes towards Tripoli, a 920 km drive.

28 Octobre 2008 Al Awaynat to Ubari lakes

During the night of 27/28 October Toine and Victor left us in Al Awaynat at midnight. They were picked up by a truck driver, arranged by our guide Khaled, to transport our car to Tripoli (930 km). Toine and Victor are going to stay in Tripoli until the car is ready to continue. We will meet probably in Tobrouq before the Libyan/ Egyptian border.

I slept together with the others in our Rondavel in Al Awaynat and left there this morning at 09.15. My lugage is in Terence car and I had the pleasure to sit in the car of Khaled, guide, together with Mahmood, our tourist police and Ibrahim, our doctor. I had a fantastic drive very pleasant compagny. It was difficult to find diesel because there are few petrolstation in this area and then sometimes they are out of diesel. When you find one with diesel mostly there are a lot of cars waiting already. Until Tikerkiba camp, where our cooker Bkai prepared us a great lunch, we drove on tarmac. After lunch I tried to get in contact with Toine and Victor and did not succeed, but now I know they are about 100 km before Tripoli ;you will here more from them when they have setteled down in a hotel in Tripoli. This afternoon we drove into the sand dunes to visit the Ubari lakes. It was so very exciting especial for the divers because Sahara sand dune driving is realy difficult for beginners. Khaled and the man in thee pickup like Mohamed, chauffer of the kitchencar, Bubakker, the co-driver, and Bkai our cooker learned and helped the european drivers and the argentinian driver how to drive. Now we are camping under the stars again.      

after car damage car is transported on truck to Tripoli

 

26 october 2008, sunday, Akakus

Got up at 07.00 after again a night under the stars. we had breakfast, packed the cars. After that a few of us practiced dune driving, but that did not work out well. Maria wanted to take her first dune and launched our Landrover, who landed to hard. No personal damage, but a lot of damage on our car. Front axle bended, 2 wheels broken etc. We needed a lot of time to repair the car, but Khaled did a magnificent job. He managed te make the car runnning again. So we started late this morning: 11.30. We started with soft sand and all went well, until I came over a dune and the car landed again to hard. More damage. Good lesson. Khaled repaired the car again. After that our criple car could still run. We went on a little further and reached the Akakus mountains. There we had lunch at one of the arches in the mountains. Stunning scenery. After lunch we left our Landrover there and were guests in the cars of Terence and Khalid. Also in this part a beautifull surrounding. And a really big arch where we played around with the cars. Khalid drove with all the cars over there. He does that with ease, he danses with the cars over the sand. We went back to our lunch place and took our Landrover again to go to our overnight stay. it was not a very long distaance. When we arrived there we talked with Khalid, our guide and Ibrahim, our doctor, about the plans for the next days. Our Landrover has to go on transport to Tripoli to replace the front axle and the rear differential. But first we will leave to Al Awaynat in the morning. Khalid our guide will accompany me with his car. The rest of the group will visit the rock paintings and graffiti in the Akakus. Later on they will go to Al Awaynat too. The plan is to repair the Landrover in Tripoli after putting him on transport on a truck and join the group again somewhere on the trail.

In the "Taddraad" is Touareg name for Akakus

 

filling up before the start

 

sleeping under the stars in the Murzuq sand sea

 

a new driving day in a fabulous senery

 

25 october 2008, saturday, Ghat-Germa

Got up at 07.00 after a wonderull night under the stars. We had no tents to pack. We removed the stone protector of the radiator and the 4 extra headlamps of our car. This to improve the cooling capacity. We had breakfast and left at 09.00 after deflating the tyres. We drove along the sand dunes to the south.  magnificent view those big sand dunes of Murzuq.After some time we went west to go to Massak Mesteffet. There were a lot of big stones. Difficult terrain to drive. It was there that we lost our cooking car or the other way around. We waited a while and went to search him. We took another route to reach the Massak. That took a lot of diesel and time. Time is not the problem in Libya, but diesel is as we know. After a while we had lunch at 14.30, after having found the cooking car again. Our guide was not happy that the cooking car had taken a different route. After lunch we had hard sand, soft sand and rocky parts. The scenery was beautifull, all table mountains. Later on we got only soft sand, where we got stuck, but we managed to get out on our own. Later on some others got stuck too. But it was all no problem. The last dune ridge was nasty one. There was our camp site. We unpacked, worked a bit on the cars and talked with Khalid about all sort of things. We had drinks and nuts. Later on we had dinner. The starter was soup. The rest is still a surprise. But now I know that it is spaghetti. The first time in weeks! The crew had a nice camp fire.

Wadi Mathendous to our overnight stay in Sahara dunes

 

Germa to Wadi Mathendous

 

24 october 2008, friday, Murzuq Sand Sea

Got up at 07.00. Breakfast at 08.00. We left at 09.00 and went south in the direction of Burjuj. We immediatly climbed to a high plateau of hard sand. This could easily be driven, if you paid attention to holes and ridges. Enormous wide plains without ending. One guy from Argentina got stuck and Heert-Jan and me winched him out in minutes. Thanks to our instruction we got at the Landrover Experience Centre at Laarbruch under the fabulous leading of the allknowing Joop Barten. At 13.30 we reached Wadi Mathendous, after driving very slowly through the black rocks. We met a few other cars out there. After 30 min very slow driving we reached the place where we parked. There we first went to the rock carvings. Amazing. They were beautiful to see. all kind of animals: rhino's, elephants, buffalo's, ostriches, etc. After seeing that we had lunch for some time. Luis gave us a lesson in Argentinian history.

At 15.30 we went on the road again and drove the first 30 min through the same black rocks again. After that we had only 25 km to drive on the wide sand plain and we were on our spot for the overnight camp. All of us got stuck 20 m before we reached our camp. We had to lower tyre pressure, low gear, diff lock, dig the car out, etc. A nice way of ending the day. After we reached the camping place we had a drink on he edge of a dune. We watched the scenery and the sunset. After that we had dinner and we are going to sleep under the stars tonight. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

23 October 2008, old city of Germa and car check up

 

 

23 october 2008, thursday, Germa

Breakfast at 08.00. Lovely morning, impressive sand dunes are our decor. After packing we went to Germa to the museum. I was a very nice museum about the history of the town of Germa. The history of Germa goes back 3000 years. In the museum there were a lot of artefacts, pictures, english text next to a lot of pictures. After the museum we went to the old city of Gerrma. There was a guide who told us something about the excavations over there. There was a castle and a few restaured houses. The old small track railroad they used for excavating is still there. After this we had lunch prepared by our cook. There were a lot of handcraftmen selling their goods over there. They all started with "my dear friend" or "do you have a minute". They even sold (real???) prehistoric axes.

When we finished our lunch at 15.00, we went to get fuel for our cars before we left to the desert. The petrol station in Germa had no diesel and no petrol. Next station: the same. So is the next one. We ended up almost one hour back to Sebha. We had to wait there in long lines to get fuel. We bought some cans with cool fruitdrink. We handed them out to the rest of our group. At 17.00 we were ready and went to our hotel in Germa: the Dar Germa hotel. We had a shower and after that we had a nice cool beer outside on the terrace. We had dinner at eight. After dinner we made the dayreport and did some email. Tomorrow we will go to the Murzuq sand sea.

22 october 2008, wednesday, Germa

 Got up at 07.00. Did all  the morning excersises, packed evrything and had breakfast in a beautiful scenery. You can look at it all day! Big craws were flying above our heads. We started at 09.00 in the soft sand. That was a thrill Everybody was playing around in the sand. Our guide made this part extra long for us.This sandy part was a joy to ride and to see. There was also a herd of camels. This part was between the rocky cliffs and the sand dunes. It was full of palm trees, bushes, hills,  etc.

After a while we reached Idri, a small town. There was a lot of garbage. The area between Idri and Brak reminded us of Bolivia: poor and a lot of rubbbish laying around. After a while we came to Sebha, a nice city in the centre of Libya. From here on the road improved and we could speed up because it was already 14.30 and we wanted to reach Germa before dark. We now came into an area where there was a lot of agriculture. There were table mountains along the road. After some time we reached the place where the fixed tent camp was. two of those camps were full, but the third had some tents left for us. Tents with shower and toilet. Again something different from the desert, very luxerious. We installed us in the tents and had a drink in front of the tent of one of us. At 20.00 we went for dinner on the terrace in front of the retaurant. At 21/00 we all went to our tents, because everyone was tired. Maria and I did the usuual email and blogspot things. Went to bed at 23.30.

Sanddunes nearby Idri on our way to Germa

 

Fw: 21 october 2008, tuesday, Ghadames-Awbari sand sea

After a night of more or less sleep we got up early at 07.00. First we dug a hole for one of the first needs of the day. Maria and I did send some emails and updated the blogspot. Then the breakfast was ready and sunrise began. After breakfast we packed and folded the tents, matrasses etc. We drove a long way on the high rocky plain. On our way we met 2 groups of 4x4 who were coming the other way. Just after midday we reached the edge of the plateau. Magnificent view! You can see the sand dunes of the Awbari sand sea. We went down and took a side track to have a very good lunch. There began the soft sand already. After lunch we took the main track again and after a while 3 cars went left and 3 went straight on. It took a while before we were together again. After that we got in a fabulous landscape of sanddunes, palm trees, bushes etc. The driving went well, Victor was the driver. This landscape is so beautiful that only pictures can show how beautiful. After some time along the mountainridge we came through an oasis with a few houses. Khalid our guide his family originates from here. On a big sand dune we installed ourselves and had a drink (non-alcoholic) together. I wrote the dayreport. Now it is time for dinner.

 

 

Ghadames into the desert to Idri