US travel agencies offer tours of Libya
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Khaleej Times 29 March, 2004 Warming relations between Washington and Tripoli are giving US travellers a chance
to see some of the worlds most stunning Roman ruins, which had been off-limits to Americans for more than two decades under a US-imposed travel ban.
From the sere sands of the Sahara to the rose-tinged remains of Sabrathas amphitheatre, US travel agencies have added Libya to their menu, serving up a glimpse of a country that was long a pariah state. There's wonderful world history thats been off-limits to Americans for the past 23 years noted Tom Stanley, president of Newport Beach, California-based Travcoa, which is offering its first trip to Libya May 7-16.
"Some of the finest Roman ruins in the Mediterranean are there," he said, adding that scores of people have expressed an interest in the May trip and another, longer tour of Libya the company is offering in October.
In addition to taking in the Roman ruins of Sabratha and Leptis Magna, Travcoa tour-goers will visit Tripolis Jamahiriya Museum, with exhibits spanning the Phoenician, Greek, Roman and Islamic periods, and tour the Greek cities of Cyrene and Apollonia, which to this day still has some underwater ruins.
Relations between Washington and Tripoli began warming in December, when Libyan leader Muammer Gadhafi decided to abandon his quest for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Washington, in turn, decided to lift its travel ban on February 26, allowing US citizens to use their passports to travel to or through Libya and spend money there. However, US nationals must still carry out their transactions in cash, as they are barred from using credit cards and checks drawn on US banks during their stay.
"There is always this fascination where people want to go somewhere thats been off-limits," said Carolyn McIntyre, regional director for San Francisco-based Geographic Expeditions, which is offering its first trip September 2-18.
Noting the 'pent-up demand' for visiting Libya, McIntyre said "there is an element out there where people want to go. Its been off-limits, they know that there's something worth seeing, and they want to go now. Plus, we get a lot of people who are concerned that places will ultimately close down again," she added.
To meet this demand, she said the company was considering offering two trips for 2005 - one in the spring and another in the fall.
"Our clientele likes to go into places that have been inaccessible," said John Sugnet, Geographic Expeditions marketing director.
"We've had people who are already signed up and want to go to Iraq as soon as it's safe," he said. "So I think it was sort of a natural thing, and I think there were clients in the wings who were ready to say yes as soon as we were able to ... field a trip."
McIntyre said long-forbidden locales like Libya, nestled along the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara desert, remain largely unspoiled as a result of being less traveled.
"It's like a lot of other places that have not had a lot of tourism. So in some ways, that works in fortuitous ways, because a lot of what they have gets preserved and it doesnt get - for want of a better word - commercialized in the same way," she said. "Even the desert areas are quite spectacular."
Geographic Expeditions' tour includes three nights of camping in the desert, where the sand dunes tower up to 500 feet (150 meters)' and, according to the company's website,take on different hues throughout the day -- from pale gold at dawn to fiery red at sunset” "It's great to camp out in the desert," said McIntyre, who travelled to Libya several times in the 1980s. "It just kind of gives you a sense of the remoteness, I think. I always think people feel very humbled in the desert. You know, you're sort of surrounded by a fairly unforgiving environment, and so I think these are always great hits with our clients."
Other highlights of Geographic Expeditions tour include a visit to the medieval town of Ghadames, as well as tours of Tripoli and the Berber villages of Jebel Nafusa.
For the past 23 years, American travellers wishing to visit Libya had been required to obtain a special dispensation. US-Libyan diplomatic ties were severed in 1981 two years after Washington recalled its diplomats from Libya after demonstrators ransacked the US embassy. Washington introduced the travel ban and other economic sanctions in 1986.
The UN Security Council lifted international sanctions against Libya last year, after Tripoli wrote to the council accepting responsibility for involvement in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed all 259 people on board and 11 others on the ground. The US travel agencies met the rapprochement between Tripoli and Washington with delight.
"We used to offer Libya 24 years ago, so it's a chance to get back into a destination that we had offered in the past," said Stanley.
"It's always good to be able to go back somewhere - and things do change", said McIntyre. "That's the nature of our business now. One day, you've got somebody who's not an ally, and then the next day, they're an ally again."
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