This Is The Tobruk Page Of Libyan Travels

We arrived in Tobruk having just left  Barce, also known as Al Marj al Qadeem a few hours before.  We were in Tobruk to visit amongst other places the Military Grave Yards from World War Two and Rommel's Bunker. Tobruk, about 1500km east of Tripoli the Libyan capital, was the scene of ferocious battles in WW2. 

The town of Tobruk and the surrounding area, Marmarica, in eastern Libya was the site of many famous desert battles between The German Africa Korps led by Field Marshal Rommel and The English Desert Rats led by Field Marshal 'Monty' Montgomery.  We arrived in Tobruk in the evening and went to the Hotel Misery, actually Masira.  It is linked to the Hotel Gozltik in Misrata.  This is theoretically a tourist/ business/  three star quality hotel, which it is in a way: but it isn't. Smell of roach killer, sticky carpets, swimming pool with no water, that kinda thing ya know? It's nicely located on the Tobruk harbour which is pretty especially at night with the oil refinery lights shimmering in the distance and reflecting off the water but its all a bit run down and grotty and it is expensive at twenty pounds a night.  The receptionist was grumpy and not very helpful which is a shame as Libyans usually are friendly and helpful most of the time.  When we asked him in Arabic if he could recommend any restaurants in town he pretended not to understand.  When we quizzed him more he said nowhere open because of Eid, (the moon must have just changed phase so Ramadan had finished and Eid al Fittr had just started).  When we asked him again if there was anywhere open that was good he replied somewhat brusquely I thought: "Go town look."  We did but it took us ages to find anywhere open selling half decent, edible, hygienic food.   

First we went to the harbour to see if any fishermen had fish to sell and maybe a frying pan and oil and to our amazement there was a brightly illuminated restaurant with a modern sign outside.  I was so excited.  I thought to myself, almost ferverently,as we approached: "Please God just for once let this work out, no problem, no hassle, no palaver, no argument, no big debate, just for once let it be straightforward, let it be normal..."   I imagined the joy of being met by a guy saying: "Yes this is a restaurant and yes, we're open and yes we have food, tables, plates,"  and you know: all the typical restauranty things you expect at a restaurant.  We were starving having had no food for hours:  I mean really hungry, especially our driver who had been fasting all day.  But it was not to be.  The cook was asleep or rather had been asleep until we woke him up.  The place was closed and after a half hour of pretty fruitless discussions, the type of repetitious palaver that really irritates me, we established everywhere, all eating places, I can't in all honesty describe such places as restaurants, were closed for Eid.  As we were leaving he suggested we go to the fish market, buy some fish, bring them back and he would cook them for us.  This might sound rather jolly and though it was a good offer I was against this.  Firstly I didn't believe everywhere was closed and I had my heart set on a schwarma, (a small kebab made from lamb or chicken wrapped in thin bread), secondly, the fish-market would probably be, and did in fact, turn out to be, four guys with a table on the street with half a dozen old fish laid out, thirdly our volunteer cook looked a bit glazed eyed to me and I could envisage the whole thing turning into a dreaded big production, with nothing edible available for hours.  Anyway, I'm not that fond of fish.  So with thanks to the sleepy restaurateur we headed off to the souk to look for a place to eat but everywhere was closed or closing.

Whilst looking though we came across some very interesting spaghetti making machines the like of which I have never seen before.  It's not really spaghettis but more a sweet fine maidenhair vermicelli that is used in the production of middle eastern and Arab sweetmeats called knaffa.  You might have seen it in the UK.  In the food shop/bakers/ restaurant /food-place they have a large revolving steel plate, over six feet in diameter.  The plate is nearly red hot.  As it revolves a dozen spigots dribble on to the plate, through one-millimeter nozzles, a fine liquid like batter.  By the time the plate has done one revolution it is cooked and scrapped of and collected in large stringy bundles: Interesting yes:  fascinating maybe, but not really helpful in our food quest.