The first time I travelled to Libya was in July, 1959.
Right after graduation, my father picked me up from Alexandria, and we drove the 2500 km of coastal road to Tripoli, where Dad had started working with a Public Works Construction Co.

I was not in an appreciative mood at the time. I had just declined a scholarship to the
US for post-graduate studies, we were leaving my beloved Alexandria for good, and the future looked hazy.

Libya was completely uknown to me. Apart for name-places like "Bardia",
"Agheilah", "TobruK", synonymous with the great battles that took place there
a few years back, the country itself had just started to emerge as an Entity. It had gained independence in 1951, was a Kingdom and the Oil Boom was about to happen.

And yet, forty years onwards, what I remember most from that long drive is the infinite expanse of sand on my left, and the deep blue of the Mediterranean on my right. It was the first time I had a glimpse of the real Sahara.

In Egypt on the fequent times that I had ventured away from the Nile Delta into the Egyptian part of the desert, it was always within sight of the Great River. But this was something completely different.

I was to know the Desert quite well in the subsequent years I stayed in the country. I learned about its nomadic Warrior Clans or "Kabylas" as they are called in Arabic, ( the Tibus in the South, the Tuaregs in the S.West and the Bedouins in the East), its mysterious hidden treasures and its wild and cruel beauty.

It would take me years and many volumes to relate all my experiences in this wonderful country. Sufficient to say that I will never forget it nor its lovely people. But, as the old saying goes, " a picture is worth a million words". So, I will let the pictures talk...

The magnificent Sand Dunes
They drift, they whisper, they hide and expose, they are Magic.

Oasis
Both the above photos are © Libya on Line. Used by kind permission.