My obsession with Libya continues….wish they’d quit adverstising it to my fellow Americans!

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Lifting the veil on Libya
By Laura Bly, USA TODAY

LEPTIS MAGNA, Libya — Under the rule of Libyan-born Roman emperor Septimus Severus, the amphitheater of this coastal city reverberated with the roar of lions and the din of 15,000 spectators.

Nearly 2,000 years later, a lone tourist picks her way across the weed-choked stage where gladiators once battled. The only sound is an eerie, high-pitched buzz: waves from the nearby Mediterranean, amplified by an afternoon breeze swirling through ruins smothered in sand until excavations began in the 1920s.

"Can you imagine this filled with Americans?" asks 23-year-old tour guide and CNN fan Musbah Ramadan Elkot, squinting through his designer sunglasses toward the empty seats of one of the world’s largest and best-preserved Roman sites.

"I dream of it. And I hope we can leave everything in the past, to begin on a new white page."

Shunned by most Westerners for decades, Libya and its flamboyantly mercurial despot, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, are coming in from the cold. The man Ronald Reagan once branded the "mad dog of the Middle East" is dismantling weapons, talking with American oil companies and hoping to lure intrepid Yankee tourists to a terra incognita of ancient outposts and Saharan landscapes lifted from a T.E. Lawrence fantasy.

Since President Bush ended a 23-year-old ban on most U.S. travel to Libya last month, at least half a dozen American companies have scrambled to offer tours — despite a starkly worded State Department travel warning. But as Libya’s estimated 40,000 foreign visitors a year have already learned, a vacation in Africa’s fourth-largest country (about the size of Alaska) makes most other adventure tours look like bus trips to Branson, Mo.

Five years after the suspension of United Nations sanctions for the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, signaled tourism’s gradual return, the fledgling, cash-only industry remains both rigidly controlled (think pre-glasnost Soviet Union) and bewilderingly chaotic. For the moment, anyway, Americans must apply for a group visa of four or more and be accompanied by a Libyan tour guide.

While road signs and other official communications are restricted to Arabic, an increasing number of Libya’s 5.5 million citizens speak at least some English. But much is lost in translation: A brochure for Assaha, a nearly deserted Tripoli "fish food restaurant" with pink tablecloths and Kenny Loggins background music, claims to be "the best place where you can taste the best sea males in Tripoi." (Perhaps, though on one recent evening the selection was limited to a fried fillet of undetermined sex and origin.)

In the lobby of the opulent, year-old Corinthia Bab Africa Hotel on the capital Tripoli’s waterfront, wheeler-dealers from Cyprus to San Antonio huddle under potted palms and a massive portrait of Gadhafi (aka "the Great Leader&quot, whose chiseled visage is ubiquitous.

Elsewhere, however, accommodations are considerably more Spartan. One recent visitor opened a window at the optimistically labeled three-star Waha Hotel in the ancient Saharan oasis of Ghadames to hear a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer, and was joined by a stray cat convinced that her tattered carpet was the perfect spot to deliver kittens.

At the bring-your-own-pillowcase Rabta Hotel in Gharyan, a hill town famous for its underground Berber dwellings, a broken elevator means a four-story hike to a dimly lit room and permanently flooded bathroom floor.

"Our bush-walker friends would be up for it, but Americans used to luxury would be absolutely horrified," note recent guests Victor and Barbara Noden of North Sydney, Australia. Here as part of a seven-week jaunt through North Africa and eastern Turkey, they rank Libya among the most challenging places they’ve visited.

And one of the most rewarding: "The ruins are magnificent, and the warmth of the people has been a saving grace," says Barbara, tucking into a breakfast of stale bread and thick Arabic coffee.

Indeed, foreign tourists — even the Italians, who invaded Libya in 1911 and whose descendants were expelled after Gadhafi took control in 1969 — are treated with courtesy and a reserved curiosity.

Libya is a conservative Islamic country where alcohol is banned and most women are covered from head to toe. Signs posted in English above the computers at a Gharyan Internet café inform would-be users &quotolitical and pornography viewing strictly prohibited."

But Westerners practicing a shaky salaam aleikum, an Arabic greeting meaning &quoteace be with you," are frequently met with smiles and "hello" (or, in one memorable encounter, a cheery "howdy, pardner&quot. And in sharp contrast to their Egyptian, Moroccan and Tunisian counterparts, jewelry makers and carpet salesmen in the claustrophobic passageways of Tripoli’s medina ply their wares at fixed prices, with no high-pressure tactics.

For now, such UNESCO World Heritage sites as Leptis Magna and Sabratha, ancient Roman cities within a 90-minute drive of Tripoli, are often all but devoid of visitors. Absent belching tour buses and flag-waving guides, it’s possible to stroll Leptis Magna’s imposing streets in slack-jawed wonder, marveling at such archaeological stand-outs as the Hadrianic Baths. Rivaling the finest in Rome when they were inaugurated in A.D. 126, their notable features included hot and cold plunge pools and a communal toilet that seated more than 50, complete with underground pipes to whisk away sewage.

Equally empty for most of the year is the medieval outpost of Ghadames, another UNESCO World Heritage site about 400 miles southwest of Tripoli via a well-paved (albeit rubbish-lined and occasionally sand-enveloped) highway.

The old town’s thick, mud-brick walls and spooky, covered passageways sheltered about 7,500 people — and kept indoor temperatures around 70 degrees, even during the blistering summers — before a modernization effort prompted a large-scale move to new quarters in the early 1980s. These days, Ghadames guide Mohamed Ali Kredan shepherds small clutches of tourists through the labyrinth, clambering across the connected rooftops, stopping to inhale the improbably soft scent of a nearby, unseen bush, and winding up at a local home for a traditional meal of couscous and camel meat.

But Ghadames’ biggest appeal is its location as a desert crossroads, close to the Algerian and Tunisian borders. For centuries, vast camel caravans carrying slaves, gold and wild animals stopped here en route to the Mediterranean. Though they are long gone and many Saharan camels have been supplanted by SUVs, a sunset romp through 50-foot dunes near town remains an otherworldly experience.

This evening, about 30 Italian and French visitors — and one joyous American — kick off socks and shoes for a terrestrial wade through towering, shifting waves. Sinking up to their knees, they squeeze their eyes and cover their mouths against the relentless onslaught of blowing sand. And they listen: to the winds of change.

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Advice for the adventurous
After 23 years of pariah status, Libya is back on Americans’ travel maps. But anyone hoping to visit should brace for plenty of detours and wrong turns.

Ancient city: The stone amphitheater at Leptis Magna, begun in AD 1-2, is one of the oldest in the Roman world.
By Laura Bly, USA TODAY

Americans must apply for a Libyan visa at least a month in advance; early visitors have discovered that regulations are in flux and subject to constant change.

Pending the anticipated opening of a Libyan embassy in the USA later this year, Americans can obtain a visa through Libya’s embassies in Canada (libya-canada.org or 613-321-0707) or Britain (011-44-207 589 6120). Since individual travelers must have special permission from Libyan immigration officials to enter the country (along with an invitation from a Libya travel agency), the easiest route is to apply as part of a group visa through a tour operator.

Among the U.S. companies planning Libya trips (prices are per person):

Adventure Center
adventurecenter.com or 800-228-8747

An April 24-May 1 tour includes Mediterranean ruins, Tripoli and cliff-top villages; land-only cost from $1,210.

Distant Horizons
distant-horizons.com or 800-333-1240

An Oct. 2-16 cultural tour includes two nights in London; $5,540 including round-trip air from East Coast.

Geographic Expeditions
geoex.com or 800-777-8183

A Sept. 2-18 tour includes Tripoli, Mediterranean ruins, and such desert outposts as Ghadames, Sebha and Ghat; land-only cost from $4,575.

Mountain Travel Sobek
mtsobek.com or 888-687-6235

Co-founder Richard Bangs will lead an April 23-May 5 exploratory hiking trip to the southern desert near Ghat; $4,150, including airfare London to Tripoli.

Travcoa
travcoa.com or 800-992-2003

A 10-day "Classical Libya" tour, including Tripoli, Benghazi and ancient Mediterranean sites, departs May 7; land-only cost $4,995.

Universal Travel System
uts-travel.com or 310- 393-0261

An eight-day tour, departing April 30, includes three archeological sites and Tripoli; land-only cost from $2,750.

For travel advice and background, the most comprehensive source is Lonely Planet’s guide, some of it available online at lonelyplanet.com. Other Web sites include LibyaOnline.com and Libyana.com; the U.S. State Department’s consular information is at travel.state.gov/libya.html.