Articles > Between a Rock and a Wild Place

“Everything you imagine - everything you can’t imagine” is the convoluted claim of a classic poster depicting rippling sand dunes. It is one of a slew of slogans dreamed up by the People’s Committee for Tourism since Libya’s relations with the West normalised in 2003. They highlight just how embryonic the industry is in this otherwise modern, prosperous Islamic nation.

But what they do not communicate is the apparent contradiction between the name Libya - with its instant connotations of the Western bogeyman, Colonel Ghaddafi, in his signature aviator sun-glasses - and the name Sahara that flashes visions of oases, caravans, bedouins and, yes, sand-dunes. Against all the odds both aspects fuse seamlessly in the Fezzan, Libya’s fabulous, little known south-western desert.

One of the reasons for the Fezzan’s low profile is access. Getting there, for the moment, involves coping with unreliable domestic airlines or eight hours by road from Tripoli to Sabha, the desert gateway. From here to the oasis town of Ghat, just 40 km from the Algerian border, it is another seven hours or so of monotonous sand livened up by brilliant splashes of verdant crops, an unexpected result of tapping underground water.

Once in Ghat, holed up in a ramshackle hotel of the characterless new town, remoteness sets in. Mobiles don’t work and the few Westerners are mainly Italian - Libya’s former colonisers. Otherwise the population is an incredible mosaic of Arab and African, as Libya’s oil wealth has made even the Fezzan an immigrants’ paradise; Algeria, Niger and Chad are all within spitting distance and their poorer citizens flood over the border.

Above all though, Ghat lies in Tuareg country. These self-dubbed Imashaghen or ‘noble and free’ were the original nomad-warriors whose camel caravans traipsed back and forth across the Sahara’s 8.5 million square kilometres from Mauritania to the Sudan. Although nany settled in the oasis towns, a process which accelerated after Ghaddafi’s 1969 revolution, their livelihood often still depends on the humped beast - there are even Tuareg versions of mounted police.

For the non Arabic-speaking visitor, life is surprisingly straightforward. Ask the hotel receptionist for a taxi to the old quarter and he’ll call over a friend lounging in a squishy plastic sofa (local heaven) who simply gives you a lift. Search for an acceptable place to eat and you will find one (of a choice of two) where plump, juicy chicken is barbecued day in, day out with ever-multiplying smiles - and rice or chips. Soup comes automatically and, like everywhere in Libya, alcohol-free beer is the tipple du jour - it’s a dry country in more ways than one. This may be tough but, sign of the times and of Libya’s increasing opening to the world, an internet cafe is tucked between the food-stores, and Al-Jazeera, the CNN of the Arab world, alternates with English football on TV screens. Arsenal is as big in Ghat as in Highbury.

Ghat is by no means an end in itself, despite a striking Ottoman castle - empty inside - and a 1000-year old medina. Abandoned after a freak flood in the 1960s and left unrestored, this labyrinth of mud-brick and stone exudes an unexpected eeriness. The walls of the slowly crumbling alleyways still glow lime-white under the Sahara sun, the inner courtyards display empty niches and sandy floors once covered in rugs look naked. A gust of wind blows up the sand, then the wail of the muezzin from the nearby mosque kicks in. At the medina entrance, a handful of Tuaregs sell silver jewellery, daggers and leatherwork to the few tourists who stop here en route to the real star of the region - the Akakus.

This magical, monumental mountain-range stretches 250 km from north to south. You first see it when a sheer escarpment runs parallel to the road before reaching Ghat. Ridged foothills look like wrinkled elephant’s skin, offset by smooth banks of pearly-white sand and the odd lone acacia in the wadi (dry river-bed). Sometimes the crest of the sandstone - a deep charcoal-grey due to mineral action under the merciless Sahara sun - is so geometrically chiselled that it resembles chimney stacks, crenellations or towers. More prosaic, but with their own poetry, are the rusting carcasses of wrecked cars, their shattered windows glittering like jewels in the sand - Libya’s driving standard is another story.

About one hour south of Ghat, after waving permits at the last checkpoint of Wadi Ayada, the road dwindles to nothing to enter the undulating dunes of the Jabal Akakus proper. Our 4WD seems to revel in it. Sublime scenery explodes into a vast, almost circular canyon surrounded by striated rock eroded into every possible shape and size. This is Libya’s version of Ansel Adams or Edward S. Curtis territory - minus the Native Indians and plus a few grazing white camels. Later we spot two young Tuareg goatherds genuflecting to Mecca in the middle of a vast sandsea; faith runs deep even without the muezzin.

Suddenly there is a roar and, like some extraterrestrial invasion, a convoy of 4WDs bounces over the dune, roofracks rattling with firewood and jerry-cans, passengers invisible behind their all-enveloping Tuareg turbans. The Italians have arrived. This is our reflection as we are the same, en route to listening to the wind, watching billions of stars and sleeping in near zero temperatures. Not least, we shall see the extraordinary rock-art of the Akakus - the Fezzan’s other secret.

Painted and etched onto the rocks between 2,000 and 10,000 years ago, these are no mere stick-figures, as there is movement, proportion and narrative and some are over a metre long. Humans are drawn in domestic, hunting and erotic scenes, while wildlife ranging from oxen to bison, giraffes, elephants, camels and horses is proof of how a lush savannah underwent radical climate change. As the images are scattered across an immense area, only a handful can be covered on our short trip, but seeing such ancient art close-up with no ropes or ‘don’t touch’ signs is both raw and powerful.

Many are located around Wadi Ti’n Dede, an area of mindboggling rock formations where pinnacles, stacks, crags, mushrooms and honeycomb erosion fire the imagination on all cylinders. There is even a 60-metre high triangular opening rising out of the sand like some kind of primitive triumphal arch. And when your 4WD eventually finishes its circuit of the Jabal Akakus and you re-emerge onto the main road, there is a distinct sense of having experienced something unimaginable - or was it imaginable?

ESSENTIALS Visas are still necessary for tourists to visit Libya and are obtained only with a letter of invitation. UK tour-operators will arange this. Cox and Kings (020 7873 5000; www.coxandkings.co.uk) run tours and 4-night breaks to Tripoli and nearby Roman sites and can arrange tailor-made trips to the Fezzan.

A version of this was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.

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