pa0r

Thursday,  November 30. .

7:30 Breakfast. We have been packing last night and the truck which will take our bagage to the airport will come 8:30, Insh Allah.... We will get our passports back at the hotel desk when we return the key to our room. The bus will pick us up around 9:00.

8:00 I have my passport, with a nice visum and plenty of stamps. Nothing can stop us from going home now.

8:30 No truck...

9:00 No truck, no bus. We wait outside,the weather is sunny again.

10:30 The bus arrives and we have to pack all stuff in the bus as the truck won't come.

11:15 We arrive at the airport. We unload the bus and find enough bagage carts to wheel everything into the departure hall. First bagage check, everything goes through the Xray scanner.

11:35 We put all stuff together in the arrival hall. Andy collects all tickets to check us in as a group, as we would completely block the check in counter.... We wait. The plane is leaving 14:10, so we have plenty of time. I am starting to get hungry, but where we are there is nothing we can buy. We change our money back into Euros.

11:50 We get our boarding tickets. Lufthansa opens a special counter for the bagage and it works out fine...

12:00 The bagage is on its way to the plane. We gather our hand luggage and proceed to customs for a passport check. We merge into the queue.

12:10 Mitch,VE6OH shows his passport. The customs officer looks at it, and types the name into a terminal. He tells Mitch to "wait a few minutes" and puts the passport aside. Mitch looks irritated and waits.

12:15 It is my turn. Mitch is still waiting a few minutes. The guy types my name into the terminal and says: "wait a few minutes" and puts my passport aside. I wait too.

12:20 Adriano, ON5GA joins us.

12:26 Franz, DK1II joins us. We now form an awkward block for the queue. The other expedition members have taken the other queue and wave at us. "We won't leave without you", Andy jokes. Mustapha tells us it is probably our own fault, we should not have harassed the customs people. I am not aware of any harassment. The customs guy asks us to sit down but there are no chairs.

12:45 I ask the guy what happens. He says something like "name check". Obviously he does not speak any language other than arabic. Meanwhile 4 seats are empty and we sit down and wait.

13:40 First call to board the plane to Frankfurt. We try to talk to the customs guys but nobody will tell us anything. We don't know what is wrong. We need an interpreter but nobody there who can help us. This is getting scary. We have no passport, and any policeman can put us in jail for that. Adriano has a connecting flight in Frankfurt and his bagage is checked through to Brussels. We don't fancy spending another day in Libia, and certainly not in this airport.

13:55 Last call for the plane to Frankfurt. We try to communicate with anybody in customs, but we have no luck. Haytem, an operator of the 5A1A club station appears. He talks arabic to customs and into his phone. He tells us to be patient.

14:10 We don't know if the plane has left. Haytem has disappeared again. Nobody tells us anything. We wait, there is nothing else we can do. If the plane leaves without us I will have to call home that I won't come and they will be scared too.

14:25 The Lufthansa station manager appears. He is on the phone to someone and tells us that the plane is still there, but it will not wait longer than 20 minutes after scheduled departure. And no, they won't have to unload the bagage as we havechecked in as a group.

14:35 We get thumbs up... The station manager tells us that somebody has given the green light for us to leave.

He explains that if your name is on a certain list, the terminal will go yellow when the guy types your name. And then there is endless checking and phoning, and we are lucky someone has given a green light.

14:40 I am the last one to get my passport stamped. We run to the Xray machine. Franz is still there, he has a radio in his hand luggage. My 2 laptops get through without problems. We run to gate 7. The door of the plane closes behind us.

14:45 The plane starts moving, we made it out....

We still don't know what happened. There was no explanation, and no apoligies. The secret service has had our names month ahead of the expedition.They have followed our steps metaculously during our stay. They have reported our every move during our operation. So why this 'monkey theatre'? I think Lybia is just not there yet, and despite all friendly speeches about peace and friendship ("you are always welcome here") I won't come back until the country is civilized. In other words, to me Lybia still sucks...