Day 66 Saturday 21/11/09

A day of disaster...... Today was anticipated as a long drive to make our way to the Green Mountains which would eventually led us on our way to Egypt for the continuation of our journey. Our Tunisian friends had warned us that Libyan drivers were crazy, yet we had not experienced any of the craziness until now ....
Near Tripoli, MC & EP narrowly missed being rammed by a green people carrier and his next target of success was JC, who was pushed on his motorbike by the impatient driver! But worse was to come. After a tasty lunch of soup, salad, pasta and chicken for £4.50, we headed to Zliten with Hussein leading, JC following, MC & EP bringing up the rear. All of a sudden, JC was stopped in the road, not going anyway, with traffic speeding past him at high speeds, MC just managed to swerve. MC screeched to a halt and ran back and found JC in shock having found a deep pothole and damaged both wheels and collapsed suspension – the motorbike was not going anywhere! By some miracle, JC was not hurt and several vehicles stopped to help him get the bike to the safety of the hard shoulder. The damage was serious enough to render the bike unroadworthy. After a 7 hour wait for a recovery vehicle, the bike and us were taken to a farm on the outskirts of Tripoli (33km to the east) where Ali kindly let us sleep.