If the atmosphere in Algeria is —as I described it in a previous article—soporific, there is only one apt description of the ambience in Libya today: catatonic. There is nothing more bracing to drink than orange juice, nothing more interesting to read than the Koran and an occasional Arab daily, nowhere to socialize except hotel lobbies, and no women to gape at except some round figures in white sheets mysteriously weaving through traffic jams, their faces totally obscured. The authorities, as if they had the visitor’s best interests at heart and would spare him an untimely end from ennui, make entry difficult.
There are more traps than there are Arabs; a specially insidious one is the January 1, 1973 Libyan visa law. Let me expalin . . .
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