Ghadames, Libya

Catchup Postage: Ghadames

I'm surprised by the sudden appearance in my viewfinder of a man pushing a bicycle through the covered alleys of Ghadames' old town. I'm concerned that I've taken his picture without asking, but my expression of surprise and apology apparently confuses him, leading him to think I'm unhappy he's walked into my shot. We say "sorry" simultaneously as he dissolves into the blinding outdoor light.

I lose track of time, unable to resist shouldering through random doors that loom in the dark passages of yet another extraordinary ancient city. The oasis of Ghadames is a Tuareg Berber town and for thousands of years was a major base for trans-Saharan trade. The Romans were here too of course, occasionally manning the garrisons at the edges of their far-flung empire.

The seven clans who dwelt here left for the convenience of houses with running water and toilets which were built by the government in the 1970s, but many return in the height of summer for the cool environment their more modern houses lack. The old town's water still flows cool and clear in the galleries beside the mosque...

I feel my way down a minor passage that disappears into darkness from the half-light of the main thoroughfare. A dry and splintered door hangs ajar, behind which light from storeys far above illuminates dust-filled mysterious voids where dimly perceived remnants of past lives linger still.

Crossing the threshold, I'm once again wishing Amber was well enough to share the wonders concealed behind this fascinating portal.

I negotiate the dust of years that pools on the steps leading toward the light. The staircase is overarched by a ceiling embedded with closely spaced whitewashed stones like seashells, interspersed with the occasional bright splash of ceramic shards.

The staircase turns and spills me into the ruin of a living room whose wall has tumbled, leaving me squinting against the sudden light that floods the chamber. The walls are adorned with intricate sepia monotone motifs, its alcoves still populated with the tools and trinkets of the former inhabitants. Scattered across the floor, floating in a sea of wind-blown dust is the detritus of daily life.

Careful negotiation of another flight of far less solid stairs brings me to the roof of the house and reveals the cause of the disintegrated wall. The house stands at the edge of a vast bowl of jumbled mud-brick ruin, the curving sides of which are pocked by the remaining portions of rooms now laid bare to the sun and wind. Furniture hangs overhead and shattered crockery and rusted iron relics are strewn across the crater's floor.

I've stumbled upon the site of the Atik, Libya's oldest mosque. Built in 666, the mosque and its surrounding dwellings were reduced to this forlorn wreckage by misguided B-17 bombers seeking to destroy an Italian garrison a kilometer or so away. Hundreds perished here in an instant. The ruin of this house and that gaping wound in the sea of roofs speaks volumes of the suffering of innocents caught up in other nations' wars.

By the time I've made my way back to where I started everyone has vanished. There's no use searching for them in the maze of the city so I wait in the square by the mosque for them to return. The wind is stirring the air of the sheltered passages by the time Ader cries "Here he is!" and I'm reunited with my no doubt exasperated friends.

We visit a restored home for lunch and are treated to a Berber meal under the watchful gaze of a youthful Colonel Gaddafi who, with his cocked knee and hand to chin strikes me as being in his Heath Ledger period. (I'm saving that picture for a later tribute post to the Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya - keep an eye out for it!)

As we sit drinking mint tea after lunch, my eye wanders over the rich decoration and accoutrements of the house. Ader tells me that the dyes for the red, green and yellow tracery that adorns the walls were traditionally made from pomegranate, egg yolk and green plants, but their screaming aniline brightness here suggests felt pen to me. Ader adds that red predominates as it's the Berber colour of hospitality.

The house is attractive and hospitable no doubt, but it's those forlorn abandoned rooms with their cracked walls, desert patinated staircases and sudden brilliant lightshafts that fire my imagination.

On the way back I deviate once more down a darkened alley and find the other side. A painted door this time, that opens on a home that obviously echoes to laughter in the heat of summer. An airy whitewashed space detailed in gorgeous pastel colour, the dust upon its floor only a season old. I move quickly through its three storeys, passing a hundred potential photographs - mindful that I've used up my mates' indulgences for today. The presence of the family that owns this place is strong and I can't help but feel an intruder, despite the door being open and inviting. I wonder if I shouldn't pull it to as I leave...

Outside the wind is howling and the sky is dun with airborne sand. By the time we return to the guest house where Amber is waiting visibility has dropped to fifty metres and banshees are screaming at the windows of the building's upper storey.

We were due to leave for Tripoli but the sandstorm obliterates the notion of a desert camp. George says we'll wait 'til four to see if it abates, but by three-thirty the banshees' dusty moans are demanding admittance at the front door. During a quick foray to the truck to get our cooking gear the wind blasts sand deep into my ear. I hear its tinkling cascade against the membrane of my eardrum.