As Sultan to Cyrene
Trip Start
Jul 26, 2010
1
12
60
Trip End
Oct 31, 2010
Cyrene, Shaḩḩāt, Libya
Thursday, August 12, 2010
We hit the road with the ambition of making Cyrene which is the best preserved site of Ancient Greek ruins located within Libya. The drive was pretty uneventful other than the guide (observing Ramadan) wanting to stop and purchase at every opportunity that he saw food. Obviously he was shopping with his stomach. We were starting to get a little annoyed, when he redeemed himself by saying that he wished to cook us a traditional meal.
We found our camp site, it had beautiful potential, it was on a mountainside amongst caves that had been carved out 1,000s of years ago by the Berber tribe, prior to the Greek or Romans. They had carved out rooms in the stone. The only major downside was the piles and piles of rubbish, which made our first camp site look like a pristine 5 star resort.
We left our guide to start cooking with the necessary equipment before we headed off to the ruins. He quickly grabbed two used 5L water containers amongst the piles of rubbish and used those to store water from Corrie to cook with. Dave popped an Imodium there and then.
We visited the ruins, which were amazing, but after Leptis Magna they were starting to become a bit mundane. We made the most of it nonetheless and enjoyed the sun set at the ruins. We returned to a quiet campsite with the guide tucking in to "breakfast". The traditional food was ok. The next downer came when someone drove past and hooted in celebration of Ramadan. It was then that our guide informed us that these caves are used by the locals for picnicking at night and the hooting will continue till the next morning.
Comments
David Great to see update in LA today friday 13 leave tomorrow midnight for Auckland. LA is a friendly relaxed town . Love Mom