LIBYA '2004: GHADAMES, UBARI, AKAKUS, MATHENDUSH

Desert: a point, a necessity, a dream?
"God has created water-rich countries so that people live there,
deserts, because there found its soul " (Touareg proverb)
But what will never be in a desert?: Silence, solitude, space, and summary, sun, stars, sand, stones, silks, but also animals, water, dawn, art.
Desert is enchanted in front of a rocky landscape, you want the coolness dell'oasi, it ', but we go by order.
The desert in Libya is not a rarity. Excluding the coastal strip about 200 kilometers wide and a few oases, 93% of the country is arid, and, given that Libya is one of the largest African countries, to the desert we have something for every taste and just as many may be routes. For us the choice was easy, was the first trip and then we chose the most beautiful, the most classic, in the Fezzan, a region in the south west but across the Jebel Nafusa (Mountain West).
Walk the 750 km, from Tripoli to GHADAMES, on a paved road and sliding. Any written, including the street names are strictly in Arabic, indecipherable. Beginning to move populous neighborhoods, people on the street, traffic calm. For a couple of hours either side of the road continuously flowing, workshops, laboratories, shops, restaurants, crops and waste, as long as there are houses. Then everything becomes barren and rocky, mountainous and flat first. Flanked the road imposing power lines. Overcome a flock, a stall with fruit and ceramics. Few countries, inhabited by Berbers. Only men in the street, many are completely wrapped in warm gard, a traditional white woolen cloth that serves as a coat. Dromedaries at pasture. A couple of short stops to stretch my legs my legs, but wind and sand it back immediately in the car. Some snowflake, who would have said? In the desert!
A couple of checkpoints, we stop, they are shown the documents, a loot and photocopies of certificates. Now it is night, the two Libyans who accompany us in our chat dense, is a smooth-spoken, smooth, quiet, that doze. Here at GHADAMES, in my opinion a city symbol of Libya today with strong evidence of the past.
Past that manifests itself in the black skin of many people and in the medina (declared World Heritage by UNESCO), now completely deserted. Gaddafi, in his desire to modernize, has completely eradicated the population by traditional houses. In 1984 lived in the old town more than 6000 people, four years after a single irreducible family. Now living in new neighborhoods, anonymous and unfinished. In summer the heat is unbearable and there are those who go back to old houses, fresh and more livable. But we know the processes of modernization are unstoppable and legitimate, and often the jump is too loud and piercing.
The medina of GHADAMES is like a dead body, not in the veins the blood flows more, no more voice and eyes, movement and thought. But even if the deserted old town is charming. Surrounded by walls with guard towers 2, 7 inputs, which were closed at sunset, one for each district. In the alleys, there is shadow, sometimes total darkness. The dominant color is white, often nell'intonaco is the imprint of a hand, is the "signature" of the mason. The wooden doors are stocky and massive, some bear the marks of those who were on pilgrimage to Mecca. In the squares, where he held the social life of neighborhoods (meetings, weddings, parties, birthday of the Prophet) are exposed to interesting craft items. Sellers are not facing, looking left and the bargaining is fast. Taher, our guide, tells us how it was organized life: by day the women lived mostly at home, even on rooftops, came out only early in the morning and at sunset. No limitation for men, but are grouped by age: youth, children, elderly people near the mosque. Even marriages are valid for classes, a tradition still in use, are among associates: original immigrants, former slaves.
The tour through the palace of Pasha, the well, then the public toilets with running water. And we come to the gardens shaded by palm trees, here you hear the flowing water, we are just above one of the channels that lead inside the medina. Water, precious, was regiment. An officer checked the well and reflected in consumption. In May there was a meeting of wise men of the family to arrange for use: sale, rent and payment of the one used.
GHADAMES, an important oasis and center of trade, was for centuries basic step for caravans carrying goods but also news, slaves and precious materials. From Africa to central Europe: gold, precious stones, horses, ostrich feathers, while the Old World arrived pearls and linen. The last caravan started in 1940, then there was the war and many families have been established caravan in Niger and Mali, and they stopped traffic.
The caravans are camped outside the city near the source, which now appears as a result of an earthquake is reduced to a desolate hole, with only some 'greenish water on the bottom.
The visit ends with a typical lunch in a typical dwelling equally. Some people, seizing the opportunities that tourism offers, are restoring and opening their houses for interesting visits. After the entrance, there is a short corridor, a steep and close to its living-room door. Street shoes on the floor there is a soft carpet and dozens of cushions on which to sit. Along the walls a deep and high level masonry acts as a bench and shelf. The white walls are decorated (by women) with stylized drawings red fire, a little 'yellow and green. Many copper bowls and mirrors are hung on the wall, to decorate and to reflect the light that comes only from a doorway and place the skylight at the top of the high ceiling. Around the living room, elevated a few steps to the bedrooms, almost niches - one bedroom with a canopy, was used the night of the wedding or in case of death of the husband to receive any visits. An opening leads to the "room" outside the roof terrace, where, apart from a small room for cooking, the rest is open. A space for drawing, dry, work, sleep in summer travel. Even today, despite the air Gaddafi, with the exception of Tripoli, it is rare to see a woman in public, the religious and social rules are very rooted and women are generally kept at home. Then the roofs of the medina, with the houses lean against each other, became theirs. I imagine the tightrope walkers twirl in a flutter of long colorful robes.
At least the view from up there is special, totally different from the narrow spaces of the city "low", the horizon is free, the breeze drying the sweat you, you can see the flight of doves.
And after this plunge into the sky let's go back inside where it is ready a good lunch, prepared by women and served by the invisible men: olives, Harissa, shorba, cus-cus of meat and vegetables, soft drinks or beer, but alcohol (in Libya are not permitted alcoholic), fruit and green tea to finish with mint.
Refreshed and refreshment, it's time to leave for the desert. Abandon the comforts for 10 days our streets will be tracks for home in the jeep, to the tent roof.

 

In two days across the Hamada al-Hamra, the Red Rock Desert, a cold area, a flat plateau where the wind runs smoothly, a cold area. The first days are hard, hard for the temperatures, both day and night. We eat with gloves and hat and the morning you wake up with frozen ice inside the tent, before getting up is expected that the sun warmed a little 'air.
In these two days we have come a little busy - usually the tours, to save time, go further east on paved road - but we have preferred not to linger and leave for AKAKUS following a track parallel to the border with Algeria . On our right, a few miles, the oil wells in Libya and Algeria. During the day you just noticed it at night and saw a glow.
It 'almost evening, the pace of the two Toyota slows down, our guide is the place trying to field the first. It will be a small tree to keep them. A small depression, some bushes, a little 'of dead wood, is all we need.
The machines are placed close to L, so as to seal off the wind. In short curtains are mounted, the mat and pillow are already lying down, dinner is almost ready, the fire is lit and the first sweet is ready for the heat.
The clothes are still clean and still for a little smell of laundry, but we think the smoke, which rote everywhere, giving us the typical odor of nomads. There is no possibility of escape and in spite of the movement always pulls on your side, we can remain still and let the smoke come into the eyes, used to purify. Then I close them until tomorrow.

Eight in the morning, waking up is hard, not sleeping, the night is long and you sleep a lot, but for the cold.
The light is still the dawn, but the breakfast is ready and can no longer linger. The others are all sitting on the mat. Out. To turn it warms your hands on the providential fuocherello. Toast, jam, honey, Nutella, eggs, cheese, tea, coffee. Arriva also Mula Mula, bird mascot. The day's starting well. Meanwhile check the sun. A few chat then packed tents, blankets and luggage, you load everything on the car and we start towards the many landscapes of the desert expanses of red sand or stony black, pointed rocks or Tozzi cones, or flat endless narrow valleys.
As soon as possible, in some places that the guides know, you stop to collect dry wood, as it is for some days.
Today the area is initially flat, then the plateau breaks, there is a valley, we descend to the bottom of cliffs and pinnacles around. The track at certain points is marked by piles of stones, if they even see the top, the edges of the canyon. To mark the road, a little 'how to do it to us in the lagoon, you use what you find: old tires, sticks, carcasses of cars, rusted cans.
We arrive at Gar-Mellen where there is a well, a cistern, 2 cabins for two families. Just stroll down unwary, but Ahmed, our guide, warns us not to go further, there are families, there are women who can not be seen. We must learn the discretion to look, but without invading. Scrap around, pigeons, goats, the desert. Three bins bottomless protect unique plants, two small figs, arugula and tender of a few miles of the plant.
Wells so it does not meet most, are usually isolated, there is a small building with pumps, a reed, a pool. The well is also a meeting point, since that is the load of water is useful to exchange some information with other teams: the condition of the track where you were or where you're going.
The Hamada (rocky desert plateau) that we are taking is covered with black gravel on top of a red layer, which arises only where the cars pass. The plain fact is a tangle of lines parallel to the horizon are lost.
On the left, a group of camels Bruca what little there is.
Every now and in the distance is a lake or an island with palm trees, a mirage, which is short. Very practical is the car the fuss that goes before us that, for games of the wind, sometimes gives us a few minutes and completely remove the profile.
Noon arrives early and the parking is also long enough to allow drivers to rest a while 'from driving, which looks like a rodeo. We need experience, expertise and energy to keep a car launched at speed to avoid bogged, but avoid large stones, or any power to overcome a steep dune, stopping almost poised on the thread crest, and then down without capot . And this all day, maybe even having to repair a puncture or some other non-rare break in the engine.
In the evening, after having assembled the tent and arranged luggage, waiting for dinner, the opportunity to do some 'moving around and if there's any relief, better if a mountain is natural salirci above. Touching the rock, the fantastic shapes of prehistoric animals, rocks squamosa, black inscalfibile. Instead it is only appearance and what seemed a hard material, is actually volcanic flexible sandstone, black on the surface as a result of oxidation, but from the heart and red ocher. Ben knows that the wind grain after grain corrodes, digs and scattered this docile or paving material accumulating at will.
The view from the top doubles, triples, and the stunned disbelief nailed in front of stunning landscapes enhanced by the flame of the sunset that turns red and then become all the gold. Unfortunately, the light suddenly falls down and you soon.

Day after day we approach the spectacular rocks dell'Awiss and then all'AKAKUS famous for its cave paintings.
Again, these mountains have strange appearance and do not need much imagination to see profiles of turtles and Indian faces of baboon or two that you kiss, eyes of iguanas, rhinoceros skin. But towers, boulders poised, mushrooms, pinnacles, teeth, needles.
At times, color aside, it seems more familiarly to be on the snow fields of Fanes or Pordoi. Incredible, even the walls are similar.
And in this labyrinth of valleys and valleys that in 1955 an Italian archaeologist, Fabrizio Mori, began to study what is considered one of the most interesting and richest galleries of prehistoric art in the world. Sites surveyed in 1300, thousands of rock paintings, the oldest dating to 12,000 years ago.
Various ages are shown: "the great wildlife," "round heads", "pastoral", "cabalino" Camelina. The cycle is the most interesting period of "pastoral", 6000 - 2000 BC, almost the saga of two tribes: the battles, hunts, dances, rituals, even a marriage.
Six days in the desert and then we arrive at Ghat to attend a festival. The town is inhabited mainly by Tuaregs. For them is starting a change in lifestyle and in spite of that, for a Tuareg "the house is the tomb of the living" many of them, from nomads become sedentary. This is certainly due to the introduction of rules and boundaries on the part of states, which complicate the lives of peoples who for centuries have moved freely within their territory. Rules difficult to meet for a nomadic, however, additions to commercial and social changes, are rapidly transforming their culture.
Ghat, 16,000 inhabitants. The oasis is animated, the opportunity to leave the women, but veiled. The old town, only for these three days of the end of the year, we revived the sounds, activities and businesses.
Several groups are performing in folk songs and dances. Nell'intrico of the alleys will be caught by the music, follow the narrow passages and outdated, you will enter into courtyards where groups of beautiful women, without veils, faces intense show, mostly blacks, dressed in brightly colored clothes, jewelry traditional and special hairstyles, play and sing with great skill and naturalness.
At the evening concert in the stadium. Participation is very high, and a real crowd. Men and women separate. For our part a certain disorientation, with 5 or 6 other tourists were the only whites, but our embarrassment was due primarily to the fact that even we women in the area reserved for men. But we have not noticed any gesture, no look of disapproval towards us.
The beauty of the evening, the real spectacle was to be in the midst of all those people so different and colorful, participate in the game of empty seats that occasionally passed over the heads moved by dozens of hands raised, to recover a place a little ' later, to perceive the tone of rebuke of the elderly to young people too rowdy, feel how much expectation there was little boy in front of us that with only a shirt on him, trembling with cold, patiently awaited the start of the show. Twinkling eyes like stars, some aimed at blacks as the night. A real bath of humanity.
The last of the day here is like another, midnight arrived without arouse any interest and we were the only ones to exchange a handshake and a quiet "good wishes".
We start again from Ghat and views of the carousel. In front, a strange mountain, looks like a castle, is inaccessible KAF el Djenoun, where they live powerful and fearsome spirits, best not to approach. After a few hours, a "sea of black stones" and the pace is reduced to walking pace, then a series of dunes and a two-color that resembles a flat Asian steppe, we come to MATHENDUSH, another art gallery.
Twelve miles of stone carvings, or the whole range of wild animals that lived 12,000 years ago but here in environmental conditions very different from now: elephants, zebras, crocodiles, ostriches, monkeys, large size, made with a technique and an art very refined. Surprisingly, perhaps because of distance, in a place so beautiful we have not met anyone, we instead we have to walk all 12 miles, always with eyes lifted to the search for scattered engravings on the walls more solid and smooth, stopping to admire the most beautiful, until you get to the famous and enigmatic "cat mom".
We leave for Germany, stop at the gas station, as the wells are a crossroads of meetings. Many jeep Italian crews are still neat and well ironed, instead we have tried the clothes for many days of wandering, but soon we will make a bathroom.
Now our journey is coming to an end and after the visit to the ruins of the city of Garamanti, dominant population to the arrival of the Romans, the unique lakes of UBARI, in the desert, surrounded by palm trees and a spectacular crown of gigantic dunes; resume the paved road and into a "sprint" to get 8 hours in Tripoli.
Pass small villages. The low houses sprout green roofs of mosques and minarets, rising like giant pencil thin tip green. Green, the color of Islam, the color preferred by Muhammad. Around the small farming villages. Children returning from school. Men only.
It 'also the time to greet Ahmed, and Mohamed Ibrahim, in Tripoli we will not need them. After having left for a few hours the emotion and the sadness of things beautiful ending lets us all be silent.
The visit to Tripoli will be fast and then some 'superficial, but enough to capture some strong contrasts between the compact core of the old town and the gigantism of the new, between the traditions of the suburbs and the initiated globalization of capital.
Let the beautiful Libyan sun to return full of clouds and grigiume padano, but with eyes filled full of beautiful landscapes and memories.


For information and / or contacts
Maria Grazia Brusegan
mariagrazia@arcam-mirano.it
to see some photos www.arcam-mirano.it
heading "Culture People Travel"