Yefren in the Nafusa Mountains

Yefren, probably one of the nicer towns of the Jebel Nafusa. And definitely worth a visit (and a blog entry). Sitting majestically on the edge of the western mountains, overlooking the plains that lead to the coast. The town is very hard to spot form the plains, but once you are up a pleasant countryside feeling sweeps through the streets. There is also a small hotel with a restaurant. We were just a bit unlucky, because when we visited the town, they had all the local big shots for a lunch over. This led also to the situation that when we wanted to leave, half a dozen of cars blocked our way out.
There is also a small old revitalised house with a typical berber mansion to be visited. Guilhem (see photo) helped out with tea cooking. The owner of the house, who tricked us into his home by promisingto show us the way to the Roman ruins took about an hour to cook tea. Luckily we managed to continue to the Roman mausoleum, about 20kms to the east of town (in Yefren they told us: 3-4 kilometers), because otherwise we would have missed another wartime memorial with loads of old ammunition and ammunition boxes. We could have taken away all of the ancient Roman stones, but were denied an empty RPG box.

Beach retreat of Gadaffis sons

If you have visitors these days, you must show them all the treasures of Tripoli. This includes also fallen treasures, or sights from the revolution. One of them are the beachhouses of the sons of Gadaffi in the former foreigner compound "Regatta".
The poshest of them is one directly on the sea, with an own little bay, an infinity swimming pool and lots of amenities, such as Gym, etc.

I do not remember anymore if it was Saadi's, Hanibal's or Muatassim's villa, which anyhow does not matter anymore. It is a spooky atmosphere, as the house was burnt down and hardly any other people are around, as the whole compound is closed for the public.
One can see the remainders from more glorious days, I am sure some of the revolutionaries still had fun driving around with the jet ski.

New time schedule Austrian Airlines / Lufthansa

With the change of Libya´s time zone to Central European Time (and the adaption of summer time as of coming spring), airlines also had to change their time schedule for flights to/from Libya.
Hence find in the following the new time schedule for Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa.
 

Benzinkrise

Da war aber noch etwas... Ach ja, die Benzinkrise, die eigentlich gar keine war.
Eines Tages (eigentlich kann man das ziemlich genau sagen, es war vergangenen Samstag) beschlossen ein paar Dutzend Bürger aus Zawiah, eine der Geburtsstädte der Revolution, die Raffinerie in ihrer Stadt zu besetzen. Der Grund? 150 Verwundete und Versehrte aus der Revolution sind durch den Rost gefallen und haben nicht von der grosszügigen Aktion der Regierung, diese Personen nach Europa zur Behandlung zu schicken, profitiert. Gefordert wurde, dass diese unverzüglich zur Behandlung nach Europa geschickt würden. Man hat sich einen neuralgischen Punkt ausgesucht,  denn die Aktion machte sofort die Runde in Westlibyen und binnen kürzester Zeit bildeten sich lange Schlangen an den Tankstellen. Die Bevölkerung fürchtete, dass das flüssige Gold versiegen würde, solange die Zu- und Abfahrten der Raffinerie blockiert sind. Die Regierung verlautbarte, dass die Reserven für mehrere Wochen halten würde, bis dahin sollte man eine Lösung parat haben.

Ein kleines Gefecht zum Wochenbeginn

Das hat es ja schon länger nicht gegeben: So ein richtiges kleines Gefecht mitten in der Stadt. Dabei ist das ja so eine willkommene Abwechslung im trüben Büroalltag: Da knallt es wenigstens wieder einmal ein wenig und man braucht dann auch schon ein paar Stunden um herauszufinden was wirklich los ist. Wo man besser nicht hinfaehrt das hört man ohnehin, und wenn man zu nahe ist, sperrt ohnehin die Polizei die Zufahrten ab. So ein wenig wie in Hollywood, wenn eben gerade wieder ein Film gedreht wird. Auch diesmal brodelte die Gerüchteküche: Von einem Gefangenen, der freigeschossen werden sollte, über zwei Milizen die durch einen Zufall begonnen aufeinander zu schießen bis zu den üblichen Hochzeitsfeierwerken war diesmal wieder einiges "drin". Das ganze spielte sich ca. 500m von unserem Büro ab, weshalb die Lärmentwicklung und der Hall relativ laut waren.  Aufregen hilft da auch nichts, denn einen halben Tag später war alles wieder vorbei. Selbst während des kleinen Gefechts (es kamen auch RPGs - Raktene zum Einsatz) sassen nur zwei Strassen weiter Tripolitanier ungestört bei ihrem Capuccino und beschwerten sich wahrscheinlich über den Hintergrundlärm.

Visit to Zintan

Bored during the weekend ? Why not go to Zintan ? About two hours easy drive away from Tripoli, Zintan makes a great excursion destination. Passing Ghariyan, the first settlement in the Jebel Nafusa (Western Mountains) one imagines why the troops of Gadaffi found it so hard to take the territorry. I was surprised how few checkpoints there were, the only majour one we encountered at the entrance to Zintan itself.

There a young men saluted us and wanted to chit-chat with us. (Us: a group of European colleagues)

Of course we were shown the Zintah museum, with some impressive paintings, and a lot of old ammuntion, weapons, tanks, etc.
A colleague asked if we could see Seif - but the response was just a laugh.

At the end we managed to see one of Gadaffis buses. But it seemed to be an old model, a bus that he might have used in the 70ies or 80ies.

Land Rover and Jeeps on the beach near Khoms

"You should not take your Landrover to the beach!" I will write this 500 times this week. Or maybe I should keep trying, until one day it works ? Anyhow, it is a bit frustrating getting stuck every time I go on the beach. And yes, I did let the air out of my tires. But the electronic in this ultra modern car, combined with a weight of nearly two tons, does not make it the ideal vehicle for Libyas beaches.

Luckily, within one hour, many friends came and tried to rescue us. It was a trial, at first, because you cannot pull out a Landrover with a Jeep Liberty. No way.

At the end, a Cheep Grand Cherokee with a 4,7l Turbo engine saved us from having to sleep on the beach.

Thanks Nasr !