Aldeyafa Hotel Tripoli

... waste and a sad part of our history. Then on the bus to Cyrene, the site of an ancient Roman city on the coast. The ruins are spectacular there. We visited the temple of Zuess and then the city. The following day I went to Appolonia wich was just as amazing. A 12 hour bus ride took me from Benghazi to Zliten and the following day I went to another ancient city Leptis Magna. - Amazing! The best part ...

... a red and gold colour theme, all the women were totally dressed up, think Oscars dresses but add a heap more sequence, glitter, lace and matching heavy makeup, they looked beautiful. The first part of the night was lots of singing and dancing to very loud Libyan music, the dancing being incredible hip shaking a bit like belly dancing but different. Late in the evening the Bride arrived ...

So here are some pics of our new house and new dog!! Sorry Meg for this taking me so long to upload. New house was due to a giant mosque which now overshadows our old one and the new dog is because the poor thing was dumped on the farm. Mohammed found him and brought him to us covered in tics and fleas and starving. He said we should keep him as having a dog will keep away the rats and mice - (much to Mohammed's disgust he only ...

Mum and Dad came to visit in November last year for 2 weeks. We kept them busy with trips to Leptus Magna, Sabratha, markets and our kind Libyan friend organised a 2 day tour of the medina! We also had an unfortunate incident with the police, they thought dad was taking pictures of ...

... 3) The pickled camel foetus section 4) The 'Letters to Gadaffi' section, a bit like Jim'll Fix It I think. 5) The mosaics - absolutely fantastic There is a cinema just by my hotel too. I was very excited till I found out what was on. Universal Soldier (the sequel I think) and US Marshalls. Not exactly what I fancied but ineteresting to note what is cross-culturally relevant. We are a sad little race. I do like Arab telly though ...

... feel. The local women wear traditional clothing with headscarves but we didn't see any face veils - the men in long tunics and pants. We had dinner at Eric and Cynthia's house with 4 of their friends - Dutch and Germans. They were interesting to talk to and the German couple spent 6 years living in Oman and continue to go back there to go 4WD and camping so we picked their brains pretty hard. There were plenty of war stories between them all - life is no piece of ...

... incase men would ever see them uncovered, shame because they were all really dolled up. At 12.30pm dinner was served which included sheeps testicals covered in glitter - not brave enough to try them but the other food was nice. Aparently the groom arrives at about 3am but we couldn't last that late. It was a fun but noisy night. This was a more modern Libyan wedding I'm hoping I can also get invited to a very traditional one in the future and also find out more about the wedding traditions.

Here are some pictures from the Medina. I have a different experience in the medina every time I go in as I get lost in a different part, sort of feels like it takes you in then spits you out when it feels like it. There is a map you can get, which would be best to use if you only had a short time to visit the city but i'm enjoying exploring by chance. Weather and day of the week also makes ...

... it looked like through the ages. We had a quick coffee, an Arabic one, one where your spoon stands up on its own, finished up and went to lunch. Walid the Lab said he would take us to a locals retaurant. In we went. He was disgusted. We ordered cous cous and legumes and camel on the side. This was more like it. I was loving it. He couldn't believe that we were enjoying it. After that, we then moved on to the largest Mosque in Tripoli. Once upon a time, there was a ...

No Name Hotel Tripoli - not sure of the cost per night as it was bought as an expensive tour package! - tour booked over the web - HUGE twin room with balcony. Could have swung an elephant! - breakfast included - bed linen included - very clean - air conditioning - scammed free wi fi - very clean bathroom bigger than our entire flat! - hot water - 15 mins walk from centre of Tripoli - view over mosque construction next door - staff friendly enough