Ghat to Germa

Weds 30th Dec continued.
Ghat was a particularly dusty desert town. Especially as we seemed to arrive in a bit of a desert dust storm. We checked in at the campsite and Steve constructed a great long washing line for a record amount of washing to be done. The temperature had risen significantly changing from winter for our first night in the desert, to summer; it was just difficult to see how the locals could bear wearing so any clothes. That evening we headed to the local café for non alcoholic beers. It’s amazing how widespread non alcoholic beer is – and at 2 Libyan dinar it is one of our most expensive buys. We then headed next door to a restaurant run by an Algerian who spoke good English and did great soup, plate of rice, chicken and chips and coffee. The plate of rice which was nicely flavoured was a bit much on top of the rest of the full meal. John who now claims his stomach as shrunk from small meals was unable to eat much of his chicken. We then headed to the internet café where as usual we though it was the slowest internet. Kathy was hampered in her speed typing by the sticky keyboard.
Thursday 1st December
It took some time for the guides to get the necessary permits for the Akakus region and cars to get fueled up with a bit of confusion about how much fuel we needed. We all stocked up on food for our next remote stretch. Shopping around town it was obvious that not many people are Libyan here. One shop owner was from Senegal, the man in the vegetable shop was from Egypt, there were a few Taureg around, tall and elegant and a few others from Niger. Again the car mechanics spoke perfect English and were from Nigeria. We headed back to the Algerian restaurant for lunch. This was when we realized there was no electricity in town. This didn’t hamper the restaurant much but meant no more internet. We wandered around the old town of Ghat which sits just below the fort used by the Italians. This has partially been restored since it was partially washed out by a freak period of rain in the 1960s. There were many Taureg selling jewellery. John showed no patience for shopping and quickly escaped. Barbara bought a pair of earrings. It was then mid afternoon and it was time to leave. Ramadan was getting concerned that it was too late to leave. There was still no electricity so the petrol stations were closed. The final problem was that this meant there was no power for the water pumps so we didn’t have water, so we had to stay another night in Ghat. We checked into another campsite in Ghat which gave us some time to relax ready for an early start the next day. There was a cheer as the electricity went back on. But when we drove into town, the restaurant, bar and internet café still had no power.
Friday 2nd December
We filled up with water and headed south to the Akakus region. On entering Akakus, the scenery was immediately stunning with the craggy rock formations, dunes and surprising amount of vegetation. The photos have not done the area justice with the sun bleaching out some of the colours. We stopped for lunch and John went looking for scorpions. He found a small one. The area has lots of long side alleys and canyons for exploring which means navigation by GPS instead of a guide could be difficult – we just need to be the other side of the rock. The pace was slowed down and quite relaxing climbing to rock ledges and admiring the view. We saw a rock pool which looked to cold and cloudy to be inviting for a swim. Mohamed picked us a good camping spot in the shadow of some big rocks which Michael immediately took to climbing. Mohamed showed us a scorpion in a jam jar – we thought it was dead, but apparently just asleep. Unfortunately John missed the scorpion as he was in a bonding session with Dillon taking him for a long walk. He now thinks him and Dillon are best of mates.
Saturday 3rd December
We drove to a huge rock arch – pictured, but in the more scenic views without the tyre tracks it does not show its majestic height. We drove around the alleys looking at some of the rock art that the region is famous for, particularly the painting. This was really only discovered in the 1940’s and is up to 8000 years old. The paintings were mainly found under overhanging rocks, or flat lower faces. At lunchtime a Taureg joined us and helped our guide find more paintings and another rock pool. We set up camp early and enjoyed the late afternoon sun. Barbara was left abandoned with the picnic table while Lucas was off looking for the guides who were searching for firewood.
Sunday 4th December
We carried on further exploration of the valleys and paintings and another arch. The rocks have some great unusual shapes. At lunchtime we had just reached the top of a slope which John immediately recognized as the cover of the Chris Scott book – 2000 edition. Kathy and I agreed that the cover photo did not do this scenery much justice, and the vehicles in it only made it worse. Kathy and Steve made a much better picture. Meanwhile John and Lucas decided to climb one of the highest rocks for a better viewpoint I washed my hair in the warmer lunchtime heat – and unfortunately I’d let the hose drop on the water tank to empty a sufficient quantity of water in the front of the car. Fortunately John was high up on the rock at the time, when Barbara pointed this out to me. On John’s advice that the rock was easy to climb, I gave it a go, but had a bit of a fright as one of my hand holds slipped. The view from the top was great but a bit of a worry about how to get down. Just beyond this rock was a well which was fortunate and allowed us to replace the lost water. We then headed on to another arch formation – this one with columns like bones or elephant trunks. John decided to try a spot of rock climbing between some columns looking at caves. It looked more frightening working out how to get down. We then set up camp for the night. It was Kathy and Steves wedding anniversary so they opened up a box of red wine and shared it around. It had now been a couple of weeks since the Tunisian Chateau Mornag! It was also the eve of the Dutch Santa Claus and Karin and Michael sang a couple of Dutch songs. Karin is a particularly good singer. I think the rest of us could be in trouble in comparison. I think we’ll just have to resort to playing Steve’s Christmas CD. This turned out to be a really late night for us and we retired just after 10:30 – the latest for a Libyan camp spot!
Monday 5th December. As we got our of bed we found ginger and maple syrup biscuits in our shoes from the Dutch Santa Claus – very nice. We then left to set of towards Wadi Matkhandush, famous for its rock carvings within the area of Messak Settafet. The guide Mohamed was not keen on the drive and wanted to take a longer detour using some tarmac road, but we were keen to avoid the tarmac. Mohamed and Ramadan were also saying that stones on the road were like knifes. We explained that we could go very slowly and even pump some more air into Mohamed’s tyres. He never changed his tyre pressure. Later on in the trip I did see him blow up his tyres after the dune lakes. In the morning we saw a few giraffe paintings along the way and some motorcyclists playing in the dunes and headed back to the well which was a checkpoint where we needed to check out and Mohamed found useful for a shower. We then headed on towards Wadi Matkhandush. There wasn’t much evidence of the knives. The scenery was getting much less spectacular and we camped in a much colder, windier gravel area which meant there was no life around the campsite at 9:00.
Tuesday 6th December
The next day I was surprised that there was some interesting scenery with green patches against the backdrop of dunes as we crossed the Hamada when I glanced up from my book, the Zanzibar Chest and tore myself away from events in Somalia. The area is criss crossed by straight batches of gravel road from oil exploration. After lunch the tracks did become like knives in places and the pace slowed to walking, although I didn’t bother to get out and do this. We reached In Galguien at 4 and where the wadi was filled with a pond of water. On the north face of the wadi were big carvings of elephants and with the sun reflecting of the rocks it looked quite a good place for a swim. John kept throwing dried up gourds (like large tennis balls) into the water for George and Dillon to fetch but they didn’t want to get further than sticking their nose in the water. John decided to go in and carried George in who swam straight back to shore. Lucas also went swimming and diving off the rock face. Dillon was not keen on going in the water and was agitated by a rock in the water which he kept barking at. However that night, the guides and Steve heard a noise coming from the water which was enough to make Mhmod sleep in his car and not outside. Maybe it was Dillon that first identified the Wadi Matkhandush monster and John, Lucas and George had lucky escapes.
Wednesday 7th December
Today we abandoned the car for a few hours to walk a few kilometers up the dry wadi bed to Wadi Matkhandush. It was great to be doing some exercise instead of the passive shakings from sitting in the car. We saw a couple of carvings along the way before reaching the site, marked by a bar and souvenir stall in the distance. There was an impressive alligator, lots of giraffes and some strange fighting meirkat animals, and a number of Italian tourists. The walk back was more tiring in the heat of the day and we thought we’d look at the other side of the wadi which proved to be a lot sandier underfoot. Most of the carvings we saw were on a rock face back near where we camped – many cattle, giraffe and a giant hippopotamus. We then had some lunch before setting off to Germa. The guide Mohamed proved not to know this area quite as well and after a few changes of direction trying to find the right way, crossing a dry sandy wadi bed which gave more opportunities for digging and pushing cars, we reached the rocky Hamada where we stopped as we ran out of daylight. Not such an impressive campsite, but warmer and less windy than the gravel pit like place two nights ago. Mohamed was pleased as he got a call from his brother on his sat phone – he’d been let out of jail in Algeria. He also told him we were taking the wrong route so we’d have to retrace our route across the rocky Hamada and sandy wadi bed.

Thursday 8th December
We left the Hamada quite early and arrived at Germa and on to a camp site near the start of the route to the dune lakes. The guys were busy readjusting their vehicles, taking out some of the extra load for the more difficult driving in the dune lakes. Steve and Kathy were relaxing choosing to rest instead of coming on to the dune lakes. I retired to my bed with my first African migraine.