Tunisia & Libya - 2 October 2010 (1)

There was an early start today as there was a border to cross.  My start was even earlier, not helped by the call to prayer which drove me into the shower.  I had breakfast at 06.00.   Caroline went a bit later.  When she got back into the room, she said that there would be a bit of delay as Werner had overslept.

In the end, we missed our 06.40 set off time, but not by much.  We drove on a new road, but there were speed traps – not that Hammadi would think of speeding.  We stopped for a coffee and continued on our way to Libya.  Most people slept and I chatted to Lotfi – about tourism, the desert and dates.  We started to pass through security checkpoints.  At one, someone came on board to check our passports.  There was a bit of a problem at the final checkpoint because the officers misheard "Australian" as "Israeli".  Once the confusion had been resolved we passed through with no problems.  Lotfi and Hammadi had to hand over their ID cards to pick up when they came back.  They were given visitor passes instead.

We drove very close to the border and then stopped.  I gave Lotfi our tip and someone gave one to Hammadi and we said our goodbyes.  The bags were unloaded and we walked off to be processed.  Ruth took our passports, but we had to go up one by one to get them stamped.

The sun was very hot as we walked across to the Libyan side of the border.  Mahmoud, our border to border guide, was already there to meet us.  He took our passports and disappeared while we waited in the shade.  When Mahmoud came back, we walked to the bus.  Again, it was a full size bus, so there was a lot of room to put our suitcases in the back.  A passport control officer came on board and handed us our passports one by one, making sure that they all had the necessary stamp.  The whole border process was very quick and efficient and over in a very short time.  After all that worrying, there had been no need to prove that we had sufficient funds, so I gave Caroline her dollars back pronto.

The next stop was to change some money.  Ruth recommended an amount from her information pack.  I changed €150 and the rate was €1=D1.69.  As we set off, with the sea to our left, Mahmoud chatted to us, giving us some background on Libya.  He seemed to be very pleasant and quite chirpy.  His English was very good and it was not long before he had told us that he had studied it in Leeds for six months.