Nalut, Libya

Catchup Postage: Nalut

The wind has kept us company and threatened us with rain since breakfast. As we negotiate the switchbacks below the redoubt of Nalut's abandoned qasr, the gain in altitude exposes us to the full intensity of the wind's chilling embrace.

Amber is really ill now, having slept feverishly last night and waking weak and with a burning throat. She elects to shelter in the warmth of the bus, rather than accompany us as we file out to explore these wind-scoured ruins.

The ramshackle dun remains of Nalut's old town are piled in dissolving ruins around the feet of the still imposing qasr - the more than three hundred year old fortified granary that dominates the edge of the escarpment.

The four-pillared spire of the even older mosque rises on the brow of the escarpment's vertiginous face, against which the rushing wind is channelled upward to rent blue holes in the grey mantle spread above.

The granary's steadfast wooden door opens to an entrance tunnel whose mud plastered walls and arching ceiling are emblazoned with arcane symbols and scripts which whisper the identity and aspirations of those who raised this stronghold. The wind pours through the open door, an insistent hand upon our backs, pushing us into the ancient ambience of the qasr's sinuous alleys.

We emerge into a narrow defile whose sheer walls are pierced by myriad dark apertures. The wind is suddenly gone, leaving me in silent amazement.

The openings to the ghurfas - the storage chambers of the granary - extend from beside my feet to high overhead. The mud render of the walls reveals the motion of the hands that placed it, hands that also fashioned the stars, crescent moons and written names that adorn many of the chambers' entries. Flat stones project from the walls, providing precarious access to the higher ghurfas and embedded rough-hewn, weathered timbers occasionally dangle disintegrating woven baskets on fraying ropes suspended from pulleys now locked with rust.

As always, I'm soon separated from the group by my need to linger: To find a private perspective that draws my eye and fires my imagination. As soon as I find it though, I want to know if Amber sees it too. I wish she was here so we could share this wonderment, but the cold confirms she's done the right thing by opting for the shelter of the truck and resting up.

My private investigation leads me to clamber into the deeper nooks and crannies of the warren of storerooms and to my amazement, although now empty, they all still emanate the warm, sweet smell of grain and olive oil. The mighty mill around which generations of camels walked in endless circles lies not far away. In its anterooms still lie the woven grass concertinas and palm tree trunks that pressed the precious oil from the pulp, to flow in rivers across the floor to drain through twin holes into the amphorae placed beneath.

Each ghurfa held the wealth of a separate family and hundreds of them are stacked one atop the other and burrowed in series deep into the labyrinth of this ancient bank. Like any other, this bank had its manager: The man who held the keys to the mighty door and slept within the fastness of the walls. He knew by heart the contents of each family's deposit box and his tally was the final arbiter of any dispute over the deposits held.

One inconspicuous window, low down in a corner of the winding alley that circumnavigates the granary's prominence opens not to a room of grain cisterns and ensconced amphorae, but to a now blocked shaft which dives to the foot of the escarpment. It was by this secret egress that the inhabitants spirited away their goods in times of peril, emptying the granary and leaving the assaulting marauders empty handed.

Just like at Dougga, my time at Nalut is over all too soon and again I'm the last back to the truck, cementing my reputation as the lagger of the group. Amber is feverish again and George decides we should take her to the hospital when we reach Ghadames, the next stop on our journey south toward the sand.

The road to Ghadames dives deeper into the desert and it's not long before we see our first dunes, windblown outriders of the great expanse of the Saharan sands. As if arranged by a tour operator with an eye for detail, right after the appearance of those rufous dunes we have to brake for camels grazing the scant roadside vegetation...