Severus Hotel Al Khums

... 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 ...

On the weekend I was very lucky to be invited to a local wedding (the female gatherings) and also to be dressed in traditional bridal dress complete with gold everything! It was my friend Faisels brothers wedding and the most extravagant one I have been to. On Thursday night my friends (who I was told to invite as it was "my brothers wedding") and I drove across town to a beautiful ball set up ...

... grasshoppers and chews on all the plants he recently put in) I offcourse said we should keep him because he is just so cute and needs a home. So I cleaned him up, took him to the vet and named him Sydney. And because to get him back to Oz will mean a 6 month stay in France for quarantine. :) He hangs out with me around the house and adores Lance for some reason - maybe because he actually crawls into his doghouse with him!.

... but he was actually taking pictures of an overloaded bus and they just happened to be in the background. luckily after some tense questioning at the police station he was released! note to any other tourists in Libya, be careful your not taking pictures of police or police stations!

... where is big fish?". Of course I didn't understand the answer but it was either: a) "It escaped over there out of the harbour." (good news) b) "We killed it and put it in that boat over there." (c'est la vie, I'm sure it didn't suffer) or c) "Can you believe this ignorant westerner? He doesn't even know that whales are mammals." (I dooo!) Tripoli, or Tarabulus as the Arabs call it, is a cool city but perhaps not as cool as it ...

... to sweep all their rubbish to the end of the street and leave it there, or pile it up on the seashore. In fact they seem to generate a HUGE amount of the stuff, most of it seems to be construction leftovers from the omnipresent building work. Day 80 - Along the Coast Aside from the 10km or so of beachfront fortifications (mentioned above) around Derna the drive along to Benghazi, via the two Grrek/Roman sites of Apollonia and Cyrene, is a beautiful one ...

... made for a slow start. We traveled East for around an hour to the ancient Roman city of Leptis Magna, which is a world heritage site I think (the notice was a little confusing and didn't mention UNESCO, but the 'community of nations'). This is billed as being one of the most impressive Roman cities outside Rome and it was truly magnificent, awesome and other big words. To quote the LP guide 'It's a testament to extravagance with abundant examples of lavish decoration ...

... alcohol! everyone gets high on sugar... not really my style but i gave it a go. At about 10.30 we were served macaroons and sweet camel milk that had a marzipan flavour which really helped get us in a party mood. There were about 250 ladies attending - no men at all and me the only blonde. There was a very noisy arabic singer, she was so loud my ears hurt and the water glasses vibrated. All the girls got up to do their shakira dancing and then got us up and stood around us clapping while we ...

Now for something different. I have this crazy friend, B (B, B , pass me the ball), and he tells the worst jokes you have ever heard (well, not quite as bad as mine which tend to be very long and drawn out and disappointing in that they don't ever really have a punch line). But anyway, back to B (B, pass me the ball). So while we were younger B (B, pass me the ball) had this stupid prawn joke that was his absolute favourite and he was forever telling ...

... photographer. I do not have one maybe two cards. I have shitloads because Lucy and I shoot loads of photos, but I left them all behind, so after I yelled **** it, Yousef chucked a u-turn, and back we went. Luckily for us, it is Friday, the prayer day for Muslims, and the roads were empty, so back we went. Lucy ran up, grabbed the cards, and away we went again. I decided that as I am no longer drinking coffee of any sort, that I would sleep, and I dropped off straight away. Upon ...