pa0r

I was picked up on the 14th around 5 o' clock PM at a fuel station near the German border, not far from Aachen, by Alexander, DK8FD who would join the expedition 1 week later. We got to Frankfurt airport around 19:30 and started looking for the 5A7A crew. We started at the group checkin, desk 314, but the lady at the desk told us there was only two of us, and that was no group. And moreover no groups were scheduled for checkin that evening. We tried the mobile phone. Andy, DJ7IK's number was either occupied or mailboxed.

Anyway, after half an hour we got through and were directed to counter 532. And indeed, part of the group was happily waiting for things to happen.We met Dave, K3LP, Krasi, K1LZ , and most of the TS7N participants of 2004, including Pirmin, HB9DTE, Franz, DF6QV and Guenter, DL9CB. And about half the equipment, nicely divided across about 20 bagage carts.It was a big hello, and everybody was glad to see the others. It was a bit like coming home.

Checkin was at counter 314. The whole process was rather slow, but all overweight kilograms disappeared into the bagage system. Lufthansa had even provided a special pallet for the oversize packages like antennas etc.
We were also able to check in, and there was an invitation letter from Lybia and a list of passport numbers. Mine was not on it. I had been forced to buy a new passport because the old one would have had its validity date exceeded by more than 6 month. Oh well, at least I had a boarding ticket...

We went to Alex's home, had some beers and I went to sleep on the couch. Alex promised to keep the owner of the house, a siberian tomcat, quiet. Like so many snow-white cats it is deaf, and makes a terrible noise when necessary.

Early rise

after a short but nice breakfast we made it into the car at 6:30 AM. Dietzenbach is only 30 minutes away from the airport and we had planned to reconvene with the group at 7:00 AM.

Now the whole crew was there.... and we restarted the checkin, shoving another 400 kg overweight into the plane.

The rest was child's play. I had to show our Lybian invitation to the airline rep. and I could even show him my name was on the list of passport numbers. Unbureaucraticly (how do you spell that?) they let me through, just in time to board the plane.
During the quiet flight to Tripolis we had our last beers and champaigne... it took us 2 and a half hours to fly down to our destination. Weather was nice, and we had some stunning views of the alps on the way. We flew over 9H3 and IG9, and soon hit the 5A coast.

Getting in

After boarding we were hoarded to a seperate spot in no-man's land where we had to pay 80 Euros for a visum (well not exactly only for the visum, everything would be included, including the fun social programs during our stay). The passport/visa checking took about 1 and a half hours, with many meetings and deliberation... our baggage arrived from the plane. They took our passports away. Then suddenly we were allowed to move the baggage out through customs. There were no checks and every piece was Xrayed 3 times. After some 2 hours after getting off the plane we were in the arrival hall waiting for a bus and a lorry to take us to the hotel. We also bought some Lybian money, as credit cards are not used in 5A The ride down to the hotel took us through the suburbs of Tripolis to the Janzour village, where we entered the hotel complex through a well guarded gate. We certainly would not have worry about security during our stay.

Getting a room

The hotel had 5 single rooms and 13 double, where we had ordered 5 double rooms and 13 single. Unfortunately it was fully booked, and no more single rooms were available. After 1 and a half our of negotiations everybody had what he/she wanted, and we could happily move into our rooms and start building up 5A7A for the big pileups...

(...)