Why don't you learn Arabic?

Misratah is not much of a town. It’s our second stop in Libya, one day’s ride on from Tripoli last, and, without wanting to sound too harsh, it’s got the ambiance of an extensive truck stop. We’re off the tourist trail. I’m not looking to debate the pros and cons of the various world religions, but I’d have to say a town suffers from the complete absence of women from the public arena. Women have a calming influence, and they’re also nice to look at. Everywhere here is just dudes, the cafes are filled with guys, the restaurants are just a bunch of bromancing couples. I have to admit that the hostility levels are responsibly low. When I compare it to late night nightclubs where all the females have evacuated, my only source of comparison, the air is remarkably clear of testosterone.

Driving here is fundamentally absurd. It’s like a race, and everyone else on the road is a competitor. When we first entered Libya, Mahmoud, our guide, said that driving here is not like in Australia. I kind of suspected that would be true, so I didn’t really consider what he meant, but driving here is done according to a different rule-set. Ostensibly they have the same road rules as any country, but almost none of these are followed. Instead, a new rule-set has emerged, similarly to the spontaneous emergence of a new creole language. I’ll give you a few examples. There are no real lanes. Vehicles will position themselves almost anywhere on the road. This facilitates the opportunistic overtaking that goes on continuously, when vehicles of any size will try to move around you any way possible, on the right or the left. Tailgating is given a greater sense of urgency when some vehicles not only tailgate but continue forward until you are effectively shunted out of the way. On single lane roads (one lane in each direction) cars will overtake at any point, forcing oncoming cars onto the shoulder. Cars will also drive into oncoming traffic when then want to cross to the other side of the road. We’ve had to slow down considerably a few times to prevent a head-on with people coming from the other direction wanting to pull into a plant nursery or hardware store on our side of the road. To clarify, they are driving towards us on our side of multi-lane highway for some distance. There is a way to deal with this. To announce that you’re not going to stop no matter what, you flash your highbeams. I’ve seen a few cars when approaching an intersection flashing their lights emphatically. They mean it, they’re going so fast there’s no way they could stop. To enter traffic from the shoulder you just speed up and slowly merge into the traffic flow. You can’t wait for gap in the traffic on the outside lane because there are no identifiable lanes.

In addition to this are the potholes, some of accident-inducing size, and the detritus occasionally strewn on the road. There was one almost Hollywood moment when Matt was riding in front of me and rode over a flattened cardboard box at speed. We were probably travelling around 130 kph, and him driving over the box picked it up and flung it into the air. From behind him I could see the box boomeranging about 3-4 metres up, and then come slicing back towards me. Very “Twister” or “Final Destination”. I turned my head in some futile attempt to avoid it, and it crashed into my knee. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.
Driving is basically a full time occupation. You can’t really sight-see, or drift off thinking about other things. You are focused on navigating the road. Enough about driving,

It feels like this trip has gone through the looking glass, so to speak. It just keeps getting harder, and we’ve gone from delirious to strange. I guess with every trip you change. Matt and I have often mused upon this, the ‘reverse model’ holiday, something so taxing that a return to normal life is a sweet and calming relief. It’s something Dad has implicitly espoused all our lives, and now we could well be permanently cast in that mould. I contemplate the tasks for our days here, and focus not on the seemingly out-of-place ‘enjoying ourselves’, but on preserving concentration, breaking down the distances and times. For Libya we’ve been required to have a guide to take us through the country, and now our trip’s a little like a standard tour: he takes us to restaurants, checks us in to hotels, and takes us to tourist venues. The last point is the most strange. Wandering around the ruins of a Roman settlement doesn’t feel like it would be on the itinerary of a relentlessly gruelling trial. Makes me think that perhaps the gruelling nature of the trip is more a matter of perspective.

It was Mohammad’s birthday yesterday, the night we were in Tripoli. They celebrated that with many amateur fireworks that made the town into a mini war-zone. We also saw a few kids playing a bit of what we used to call urban warfare, chasing through the city streets with water bombs, and the occasionally mass shootout in some side street.

A man asked us why we didn't know Arabic. After all, apparently 25 countries spoke Arabic, and only 3 countries he could think of spoke English: England, South Africa, and Australia. I felt a bit of pride thinking Australia made the top three of English speaking countries, but Matt felt obliged to remind him of the US, which he conceded was also an anglophone. I had never considered it from a numbers angle.

That’s all for today,