FAQ / Questions Réponses

As people ask me questions on our trip, and I am able to respond in writing, I will try and post here both the questions and the answers for the benefit of our visitors:

Question 1: I noticed on one of the pictures you were eating some kind of leg meat. Was that lamb or goat?

A: The meat you see on the grill is chicken. It is part of a feast that the guides organized for us on the last night in the desert. The bread you see in those pictures is Touareg bread coocked directly on the warm charcoal in the sand. The meat we ate every day was camel meat. One of the pictures on the Road to Ghat shows the front of a butcher shop with a Camel’s head hanging indicating he has fresh camel meat. Our cook bought some on the first day of the raid in the desert and hung it during the night to let it dry. As a result it lasted a week without going bad despite the fact that we had no refrigeration equipment. Also, keep in mind it is winter there and the nights are actually quite cold (about 3-5 degrees celsius in the north near the coasts and about 5 to 10 in the desert).

Question 2: I also noticed that you guys seem to be wearing coats a lot of the time, and the sky seemed overcast a lot. Was it cold there?

A: It is cold in the desert at night even in the summer. During the day temperatures in the desert would hit a comfortable 25 degrees celsius, which is quite nice to visit a desert. The fire at night was nice but also frankly quite necessary.

Question 3: Did your guides speak French or English or did you all communicate via sign language?

The guide and the translator spoke French and a bit of English. But that's because we chose to be accompanie by French people when we booked the trip. You can get English, German or Italian guides and translators to go with you. Note that You can only visit Libya with some sort of official sponsor, usually a travel agency...

Question 4: How does one even conceive of such a trip?

My wife likes adventures… Frankly, everytime we go on one of these trips I spend the previous two months worrying about security issues. With all the trouble going around the world as a result of the pictures printed in Northern Europe just before we left, I was wondering if we wouldn't be taking a bit more of a security risk then we usually do. (During our Guatemala/Honduras trip last year, in my opinion probably a trip in which we pushed security a bit over the top, I had never seen so many assault rifles in my life, and often they were pointed at us...). But in truth, during our trip in Libya, there was not one single instant when we felt in any way at risk. The people there, Libyans, Bedouins and Touareg are just the kindest people we have seen just about anywhere we have been.

Around the camp fire I insisted that we should all eat together as usually the guides and drivers eat after the tourists. On the first night when the cook handed me my bowl of soup, I passed it on to the river who was sitting by me. He hesitated a minute and before he could refuse I grabbed a second bowl and handed it to the second driver... From then on we all would eat together and chat for about three hours every night around the fire. We would talk about everything, including religion and politics. They would also talk very loudly among themselves for hours debating on issues with passion. Most of the time the debates they had were about nature and animals! Which is really quite funny given the level of passion we could detect in the conversations.

Question 5: Organisation?

For the trip to work, you definitely need to get professional help in organizing it. During the eight days in the desert of Akakus we were always more then 350 Km from any water point or even any small village. One of the trucks (with the blue tarpolin over the top) was the kitchen truck. That truck had 250 liters of water tanks in the back. Also, each truck had two gas tanks of 80 liters each, so 160 liters per truck. The kitchen truck also contained a full 250 liter barrel of gas as spare. You also need to get government authorization to enter most of the areas we went to and that can only be done by locals.

We used a travel agent called Nozha Voyages who are dedicated to this kind of raid in the desert and also to more quieter trips to Libya... They work for all nationalities including Americans. Note however that all nationalities can get visas to visit Libya but tourist visas for US citizens have been temporarily suspended for the last 8 months, although we understand that will be lifted in the next few months. I think the US suspension is a reprisal for the trouble that all foreign nationals including French and obviously Libyans are having with getting US visas right now (the fingerprinting and

requirements for biopassports etc... which is making it very difficult for anyone of any nationality to travel to the US right now...)

Question 6: How do you keep food safe during the trip?

The trick to keep things like meat, butter and cheese from spoiling was to leave it out to get cold during the night, and then store it between the water containers in the middle of the kitchen truck packing so the heat of the day wouldn't get through to it in time before the next night.