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Libya dates001

PJ O’Rourke, the acerbic American writer, was at a Kim Dae Jung political rally in South Korea when the kid standing in front of him bit off the tip of his finger and wrote “Kim Dae Jung” in blood on his white ski jacket. That was “the first time I ever felt like a foreign correspondent,” O’Rourke wrote. “I mean here was something really ******* foreign.”

We travellers all long to feel that way at some point on our journeys, don’t we? But it’s hard, these days, to go places and get that delicious shock when you realise you have ended up somewhere totally foreign.

So, we keep on searching. For that we put up with economy class, bad airports, stupendously incompetent officials, embassy grillings over our visa applications, all in the hope that when we get there we are off the map, so to speak, surrounded by things and sights unsullied by McDonald’s, Lonely Planet or the Internet.

Not many of those places left, Voyager (some – such as various of the former Soviet republics – have earned their isolation and are welcome to it). But, there are places where you might have a PJ O’Rourke moment. My most recent was Libya where strange delights – usually, the little things – are all around, starting with a box of fresh, sweet and soft dates (photo above).

Libya stamp veggies001

There were sheets of commemorative revolutionary stamps for sale in the Medina (spot the veggies gushing out of the pipeline) …

leader wall

The Leader, on billboards, everywhere …

Libya ruins

… a fabulous, complete Roman amphitheatre at the edge of the Mediterannean Sea …

Libya bokkie

… a shivering bokkie and a ghastly red love seat where couples and families might have their portraits taken …

Libya mosaid camels

… a lovely mosaic of a camel caravan at an oasis, spotted inside a restored caravanserai (hotel) …

Libya book proverbs001

A book of proverbs found in a little bookshop in the heart of Tripoli, filled with useful things to remember such as “The camel does not see the curve of its neck” and “The low donkey is prone to be ridden by everyone”, and my personal favourite, “He stayed one night in the tannery and became a water skin”.

It really is the little things that count.

Related posts:

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Comments

 

John Buxton

November 13, 2009 at 11:42 am

A friend of mine recently visited the Darien area in Panama. Very inaccessible and very, very wild. It’s the only gap in the pan-american highway, and uninhabited except for a few indigenous groups, due to the harsh environment and the colombian narco boys hiding from their govt army. He had to charter a plane to get in, take all his stuff with him plus a couple of guides. The really interesting thing is that there a lot of abandoned mine workings from a nineteenth century attempt to set up a silver mine. By the Scottish I think. Terrain was too harsh for the jocks – maybe there wasn’t enough whisky. Tempted to read Nostramus again.

Most travel is fun provided you don’t end up in Frankfurt when there’s an ‘r’ in the month. I always get a buzz from driving my Landrover from London to Hungary – here is my Discovery at our place near lake Balaton.

 

John Buxton

November 13, 2009 at 11:45 am

…er IT skills not up to attaching a pic … sorry

 

Kate Nathan

November 14, 2009 at 6:54 pm

You are absolutely right – Libya must be one of the last bastions of the truly unfamiliar and exotic for Westerners. South Africans like their beer and might be slightly put off to know it’s a totally ‘dry’ country – no alcohol at all, not even in five-star hotels. But it’s worth it! What an experience to walk through the sleeping 2 000-year old Roman ruins of Leptis Magna and Sabratha – and no seething crowds, just a few small tour groups in the distance. Leptis and Sabratha are unquestionably the most important part of the Tripoli trip – but, do take in the Jamahiriyya Museum and a morning in the Medina. Great for a two-night stopover en route to Paris or London or anywhere else in the network of Libyan airline Afriqiyah which flies into JHB twice a week. I say go now, while it’s the undiscovered jewel of North Africa – before the tourists get there.

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  • About

    Stories of highways and airways, rails and boats, life on the open road and stretched-out days on the occasional beach. By day, I am deputy-editor of Sunday Times Travel & Food.

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