We fly out of Tripoli aboard Alitalia to Rome in the afternoon, flying over the Mediterranean Sea and spotting both Mount Etna and Sicily along the route.
Our bus that meets us at the Rome airport is very deluxe: a Mercedes with lots of room (since several of our group left us in Tripoli to return home directly). We check into our hotel, the Grand Palazzo Carpegna. Our hotel rooms are tiny, but very well appointed. In retrospect, this turns out to be the best accommodation we have in the two week trip.
Before dinner a few of us gather in the hotel lounge and have a couple of drinks over stories of our Libyan adventure. These drinks are somewhat of an event, considering we have just traveled a week in a dry country. The strongest drink you could order in Libya was an espresso!
Our bus picks us up at 8pm this evening to take us to Castel Gondolfo for a tour of the Vatican Observatory.
This morning we pack, have breakfast, and check out of the Garyunis Resort. First stop is a walking tour of Benghazi’s high end shopping area and its Souk. Benghazi is relatively new, since it was badly bombed during WW II. Some of our group find a great fabric shop with some amazing patterns and colours on imported fabrics. Several women in our group buy lots of fabric to take back home. We have lunch at a Turkish restaurant, which serves us a very nice meal: salad, grilled ground meat (skinless sausages) and chicken chunks, and warm flatbread.
We were then driven to the airport and depart for Tripoli on a Buraq Air Boeing 737-200. We are staying at a different hotel this time: Bab Al-Bahr Hotel. I think it is a grade better than Al-Safina Hotel, where we were staying before. The only problem is that it isn’t close to the Souk, so several people in my group hire taxis. Personally, I’m not interested in more shopping, and decide to catch up on my blog at the Internet Café located in the lobby. Several clients in the Internet Café see me posting my eclipse photo, and want the URL to send in their email messages to their friends and family.
After lunch, we go to the Tripoli airport. It is controlled chaos, since we have to sort out our luggage, some of which was brought on a separate bus. Then we are all checked in as a group, since the tour operator holds all the airline tickets. The flight to Benghazi is on a Buraq Air Boeing 737-300. We depart on time, cruise at 460kt at 29,000ft. The flight is 90% full of Bestway Tours‘ three groups. At Benghazi Airport, we board our bus and head for the Garyounis Resort. We have a police escort the whole way – complete with sirens and flashing lights!
When we arrive my bag is missing, but it is found on one of the other buses. We have supper at 8:30pm, and afterwards Ralph tells us the eclipse camp arrangements have changed. Apparently our camp was hit with a sand storm, and the government had security concerns, so they insist our camp be moved to south of Jalu on the centerline. This is actually a bonus, since we would have had to be bused to the centerline in the morning from where we were to originally camp.
We leave at 8AM this morning on our bus headed to the Eclipse Camp, south of Jalu. After stopping to pick up some water and box lunches, we finally get underway at 9:30am for the long journey south to the middle of the Sahara Desert.
March 29, 2006 – Wednesday – Total Solar Eclipse in the Libyan Sahara Desert
Air Canada did a good job today. I have avoided flying Air Canada since 1967, so I have to say this is a pleasant surprise. My bags arrive as promised and undamaged; the flights are all on-time, and the in-flight service is quite good. I stay overnight at a hotel near the Toronto airport.
Route map – Victoria to Toronto to Milan to Tripoli
March 23, 2006 – Thursday – Toronto to Tripoli
Solar Eclipse t-shirt design
I had a good night’s sleep last night. I return to Pearson Airport, where I meet our leader Ralph Chou and the RASC Eclipse group. I have made t-shirts for everyone who wanted them (see logo to right), and give them out while we wait for our Alitalia flight to depart for Milan and onward to Tripoli. It is a long day – about 12 hours flight time and 15 hours elapsed time between Toronto and Tripoli, with a stop in Milan to change aircraft.
March 24, 2006 – Friday – Tripoli, Libya
The Tripoli airport is quite large, however as we expect, the entry process with the Visas is painfully slow. Once the official realizes we are all listed on a single Visa form, he finally checks us all off and we are on our way. Both Mahmood from Bestway Tours & Safaris and the representative from Numidia Travel (Bestway’s partner in Libya) are there, along with a very nice air conditioned bus. The warm Sun and 23°C temperature feel good after all the cold, damp weather we’ve endured on our travels from Canada. As we drive through the outskirts of Tripoli, we notice lots of families having picnics, one family under the shade of each tree. It is Friday, and until sundown, it is the Muslim day of rest.
After our arrival at the hotel, Ralph quickly assigns a roommate for those of us in the group who are traveling solo, and then we all disappear to our rooms to get some well-deserved rest after our long journey.
Tripoli is an interesting city: very large, very Arabic, and very well developed. The city and the rest of the country are interesting, mainly because so many cultures have historically occupied this area. Oea was the Roman name for Tripoli, and the Phoenicians were here before the Romans. The Ottoman Turks were also here for over two hundred years, however eventually the Arabs took the place over once they ousted those terrible Italian armies and colonizers! King Idris was ushered into power by the United Nations after WWII, and then 27 year old Mu’ammar Gaddafi seized power on September 1, 1969 without even stepping foot in the country. By the way, “The Man” is not talked about in polite company by Libyans.
