The Libyan Mountains

This weekend we decided to venture out of Tripoli and head south to Jebel Nafusa, or what I call the 'Libyan Mountains'. Being a well known desert country, Libya does not exactly strike you as a country with mountains, so I was quite surprised when a Libyan colleague suggested to go down south to the mountains for a day trip.

So a British colleague and I equipped ourselves with maps, detailed road instructions, food and petrol and headed down south to Gharyani... a little town on a mountain plateau.

One of the vegetable vendors standing proudly next to his merchandise...

We thus drove down south following the instructions carefully to the well known pottery town of Gharyani..... with some diversion....realising that we've gone too far when we bumped into an in the middle of nowhere market....., and quite coincidentally, we found the town. The town was not really impressive, and neither were the mountains. I've seen nicer mountains but the landscape was still amazing and breathtaking..... the reddish/ brown mountains in Jebel Nafusa were quite similar to the Sinai mountains in Egypt in color and shape, though small in size and spread apart (I guess most desert mountains would look like that). The rock layers, though, were much more apparent than the Sinai ones, which gave the mountains a nice peculiar colour.

The beautiful view of Libyan Mountains

Gharyani is quite well known for its pottery. One can find stalls packed with all sizes and shapes of clay pots, bowls and statues on the highway just before the town.

Pottery stalls on the highway

Apart from that, Gharyani is also known for its still intact, though abandoned Berber homes, built underground as shelter from the intense heat, which, though exaggeratedly made up, were still interesting to see. You can actually imagine 8 families living in this little underground compound a couple of hundred of years ago.

Entrance to the underground Berber House

Inside the house

Courtyard view from ground level

Having seen enough of Gharyani, and unable to find somewhere to eat, we headed off to Yefren. We unfortunately didn't have directions for this, but with our lonely planet, map and directions from people we stopped in the street, we found our way. Libyan people are extremely nice and friendly and would go through anything to help you, they would repeat the instructions over and over again until they are certain you have understood!!

The little village though described by the lonely planet as 'one of the more appealing towns in this mountainous region' did not strike me as much, nevertheless the scenery was still spectacular, the highlight of the village being the Berber old city, which looks like an old mud brick oasis city.... and, though in rubbles, was still interesting to walk through. You could close your eyes and go back in time a couple of hundreds of years and you could actually imagine a lively bustling city in all its glory. Luckily we met an old man, who spoke english quite fluently (he apparently was working with a german company many years ago) and proudly showed us parts of his old town... showing us where he used to live and telling us why people have moved out and the city is in this state.....

Yefren old city (the white building is the 1st Mosque of the village)

Another part of the old city with a view of the 2nd Mosque built...

After a little picnic of bread and cheese, while taking in the breathtaking view of sunset over the red mountains we headed off to the capital, Tripoli, or more widely known by Libyans as Tarabulis.

The night ended with a nice Turkish shawerma, where I met another group of Maltese, and sheesa.... and a ride home which this time did not take us more than 30mins......

After having seen Egypt, Libya, as a country, strikes me as quite plain, however, the trip was pleasant, and the scenery beautiful and relaxing...... and definitely a break from the monotony of the camp. I now have a better understanding of Libya, Libyan culture/history and Libyans who are extremely nice and friendly people. I definitely know that there is much more to see and explore and I can't wait to do it!!