@ChangeInLibyaMhalwes
Benghazi or Bust Part II |http://enoughgaddafi.com/?p=614 | Part 1 is a must read if you missed it yesterday - #libya #feb17
By Sofyan Amry
Follow Sofyan @TheyCallMeSof
We drove into the sunset, an empty, sandy highway ahead of us. The red and orange rays of the sun danced on the brilliant blue surface of the Mediterranean. As we left civilization behind and drove into the Sahara, I thought, “Well I can just crash. I’ll take my 2 remaining Nyquil gelcaps and wake up in a free Libya. This will just be a boring drive through the night, into the desert.” Nothing could have been further from the truth.It hit me as soon as I realized I had left the Nyquil in my rented apartment back in Alexandria. “I’m going to be awake for 13 hours”. I thought, “Well its ok, what’s the worst that can happen.”
Then the car started to shake violently from the poorly paved roads. My orange soda spilled in my lap. A bad omen indeed. Apparently outside of the city limits, the Egyptian government didn’t invest much into their highway system; another reason for me to hate Mubarak and greedy dictators like him. Not long after, the guy in the passenger seat rolled up his window, lit a cigarette and turned up the radio to ear-shattering volumes. I tried to close my eyes and ignore the guy’s loud, off-rhythm clapping, the blasting radio, and the guys behind me screaming at one another, attempting to carry a conversation. It wasn’t happening. So I sighed, buckled my seatbelt and stared out the window to watch the last rays of the sun disappear behind the sandy hills in the distance.
Two characters made the ride unforgettable. The guy in the passenger seat. For the sake of my close friends and family, I’ll call him “PlayaFly,” and the driver of the second car who I’ll call “Cantgetright.” Playafly was a short, tan, foul mouthed, man with blood shot eyes. In Alexandria he would randomly roll down the window and provoke cab drivers with a variety of Arabic curse words. He generally made references to the victim’s mother’s body parts (for those who speak Arabic I’m sure you can figure it out). He had a fondness for smoking with the windows rolled up and singing off key to really loud music. “Eccentric” doesn’t do his behavior justice. Sometimes he was obnoxious, other times belligerent.
Cantgetright is…well…lets just say he could never “get it right.” I don’t know how many times he delayed us or even made us turn around for him. We lost an hour in Alexandria looking for him, at one point I heard the driver say “The sea should NOT be at your left”. Because that clearly indicated that he was going east (towards Gaza). Six hours later in the middle of the night/desert the guy runs out of gas even though we stopped plenty of times for gas. And it was perfect timing too because we were at least 200 Km from civilization. So the genius starts to withdraw gas from our tank. I step out of the car and into the dark expanse of the desert, and on my way back I see that Cantgetright has a bottle of gasoline in his hands and a cigarette in his mouth. I didn’t think he could top that but once we got to the Libyan border he almost got us all into hot water.
So here we are on free Libyan soil. A young freedom fighter is checking the van when he finds a large GREEN rag in Cantgetright’s car. A scuffle breaks out near the car and one soldier pulled out his gun thinking he’s caught himself a Gaddafi loyalists. Cantgetright insists he uses the rag to clean the windows, etc., and the dirt and grime on the rag corroborate his story. One guy breaks the tension by setting it on fire so I took a picture and yelled ALLAHU AKBAR, only to be joined by the entire border guard. We went on our way and it wasn’t until later we discovered Cantgetright left his passport at the border so we had to turn around …..again.The last few hours flew by and as we approached Benghazi it began to rain. I can’t explain the smell of the desert in the wee hours of morning when it rains. It smells of….life, and relief.
We drove through the “Green Mountains” too quickly. It was an oasis in the middle of the desert the likes of which I’ve never seen.
The sun was rising as the driver pulled into the harbor. I was the last one to get out because I really didn’t have anywhere to go. My family is trapped in the west of Libya. “This is as far as I can go,” he said. The courthouse. Now the nerve center of the resistance had been strategically blocked off from traffic. I walked the harbor, with my bags strapped across my shoulders. There wasn’t a person in sight. All I heard was the wind and the waves crashing against the boulders in the harbor. Independence flags were everywhere. I was in unfamiliar territory. But I knew I had
