LIBYA

August 2010

 

Libyan dinar exchange rates
Pounds, dollars and Euros can be exchanged into Libyan dinars at the border or just use the ATM machine. There's no black market to speak of any more.
There's an ATM machine at the border and another one in the car park at Sabratha and all surplus currency can be changed back into Euros on leaving at only a very small penalty.

Price of fuel
Petrol is about 0.20D/litre dinars. Diesel 0.15 LD/litre. (Fuel in Libya and Egypt and Algeria is about as cheap as it gets in the Sahara.)

Costs
With the visa/invite/entry costs Libya is not so cheap. Notes come in 10, 5, 1, half and a quarter with the numbers written in English as well as Arabic.

Useful languages
Arabic and English. Road signs names are in Arabic but the distance numbers are in Roman ('English') script. Nevertheless it helps to learn the ten cardinal Arabic numerals (read from left to right, unlike Arabic script which is read from right to left).

Visas and regs

2009 was a messy year for Libyan visa regs and so the following info may all look like a bit of a jumble. This is because Libya frequently changes the regs - you get the feeling 2 or more government departments are engaged in a bit of a power struggle. I try and keep up to date, while also retaining old info (crossed out) which you may have heard about from less up-to-date sources like guide books. It also makes it easier for me to reinstate it should they change their mind again!

Here are regs as understood in August 2010 and which may be clarified in the next few weeks. Check out this unusually clear website from a tour operator. I've not used them, but for important stuff it may well become more up to date than this page.

 

What about Americans?
The wait could be over.

1) Passport with at least 6 months validity after the end of travel in Libya and no Israeli stamp.
2) Completed visa application form.
3) 4 passport photos.
4) Proof of travel Insurance.
5) Hotel reservation.
6) Return ticket and copy of Itinerary.
7) Letter from employer.
8) Bank statement for the last 6 months. Some may still ask for this
9) A Invitation letter from Immigration Office in Libya
10) Arabic translation of passport details (see below)
11) You must provide fingerprints at the embassy unless you have a biometric passport which has the following logo on the front:


The visa is authorised from 10 days after submission. These visas are available at the Tunisian/Libyan Ras Adjir border, though it might be considered more of a 'collection' with an authorisation in advance.

The bilingual stamp in your passport, is no longer required as of 2010 for tourist visas, but they may change the rules back overnight. In London you can get the official UKPA-approved blank bilingual stamp (pictured right but filled out) for free over the counter from the Passport Office, Clive House, 70 Petty France, London. SW1H 9HD (just inside on the right, no need to queue) and maybe other UK passport offices too. Send your passport with a request for a stamp, and they will stamp and return it by special delivery free of charge within a couple of weeks.
Don't then simply expect matey at the Libyan embassy to fill out your details in Arabic onto the blank stamp for you while processing your visa app, even if it would take him 60 seconds. Once you have the stamp you can meet a guy from the embassy who will do you an 'official' trans for £30-50, although you'd imagine any writer of the right sort of Arabic could fill in the details. UK visa agencies are now charging an extra £100 for the stamp and trans service.

Getting a visa for UK citizens
In the UK the Libyan Consulate is at 61-62 Ennismore Gardens, SW7 1NH. Telephone 020 7589 6120 Fax 020 7589 6087. Here's the form.
Visa applications are accepted on Mondays and Tuesdays, between 10am and 1pm. The fee is £20. Collections are on Fridays only, between noon and 2pm. However, it may not be necessary to visit the embassy. Just apply for the visa with an agency, they get the authorisation from your embassy which takes about 10 days, and then with that notiofication of aspproval your turn up at the border within 45 days, get met by your escort and get the visa label put in your passport.

You must to travel with an escort costing around €35 per day in your vehicle - at least twice that in their own car (but see below). This agency employee is an escort, not a guide - an term that is commonly used, but one which I at least have long distinguished. In the desert your typically northern-based escort will be inexperienced and will need you to hire a local desert expert at additional cost. This Temehu page is commendably transparent about the difference between escorts and guides.

A 5-day transit visa can get you between Tunisia and Egypt along the north coast highway, but escort-free transit visas seem to be near-impossible to get these days, most probably because the Libyan tour agency who issue the visa don't make any money on the escort and so are disinclined to help. You can't leave main coastal road and officially you can't stop at Leptis, etc, as that would be classified as 'tourism'. You have to hand out photocopies of your documents at each checkpoint.

In other words, for a transit you may as well get a regular tourist visa which will be issued without delay, even if it's more expensive.

Don't get your hopes up as an overlander for a 'transit visa' if applying in Cairo. I heard of two guys who have been here waiting on the papers for over a month now. One finally got the visa, but he's traveling via public transportation on a Taiwanese passport (it took him a month of waiting, though). The other fellow is a Brit who, after waiting for over four weeks, has finally decided to hire a guide to take him through. If you want to try your luck without an escort, it may be better to try somewhere other than in Cairo! Alberta, March 08.

Border costs with vehicle in 2010
• €40 visa / person
• Up to 30 LD a fortnight for insurance.
• 150LD' fixed charge' per car/4WD, motorcycle 75LD.
• 15LD to rent an Arabic number plate with a 100LD refundable deposit
• To buy a local carnet is only €30 or US$30 for a motor bike and €50 or US$50 for a car/4WD (so clearly cheaper in dollars...)
• Around $45 / day for the guide in your car
• The tourist police in their own car. Required for groups of 5 or more.

This company also wanted another $45 a day for a desert guide to Waw Namus and Tazerbu.

Libya now accepts foreign carnets, but if you don't have one you simply buy the local permit which costs as above less than buying the smallest 5-page carnet just to cover Libya from the RAC/FIM in the UK for £185 (€225). Of course if you're going right across Africa you may as well get a proper FIM carnet. See this thread.

Another quote I got in 2009 for 5-day transit of 8 cars from Tunisia to Egypt added up to €2900 including the following:
• visas
• 8 cars entrance at the frontier
• tour guide
• two policemen
• transportation and accommodation of the guide and policemen.

This lot also quoted me €1800 for a 10-day desert tour (on top of entry fees). Finding a reliable Libyan tour operator is tricky; they seem more interested in making a quick buck than offering a professional service. www.fessano-w-tours.com have been recommended recently, as has www.almuheettours.net, and Temehu's moderately transparent web page linkied above seems to inspire confidence.

Border formalities
Show green form and passport. Rent number plate (around 100LD with a 50LD refund on return) and buy local carnet (€/$50 cars, €/$30 bikes) in the hanger on the left and insurance (about €24 a fortnight) at another hanger further up. Allow at least two hours. You can change money at the kiosk in the hanger or use the ATM.

Within 3 days (no great urgency but certainly before you leave) you must get registered and stamped at a police station in any town for around 10-12 dinars. Usually your agency escort or hotel does this for you. Leaving at Ras Ajdir for Tunisia, get your local carnet stamped, fill out a green form again (in Arabic, you may need help), get a passport stamped and return the number plate and receipt for a 100LD refund (which you can change back into whatever). All pretty straightforward, even without a helper.

Leaving Libya for Egypt
About 100km from Tobruk, the road forks with English-language signposts for the first time. Take the right hand fork, signed Musaad (Ahsaad on the maps). Drive through Musaad (about 130km from Tobruk). Just before you get out of town, look out for a building on the right-hand side of the road with flags flying and several cars parked outside. You MUST stop here to return your Libyan plates and get back 100 Libyan Dinar. When you do this, give them the group of 3 papers that were issued with the plates on entry. They take the top 2 copies and you keep the bottom, larger copy. Nothing is stamped, but it was all accepted by customs at the border. Note that if you miss this, you may end up having to return after already being stamped out of Libya, which is what happened to us and another vehicle we saw. Outside of the town of Musaad, you have to drive along 2 stretches of ragged road before you reach a checkpoint. Stop before this checkpoint and get your Libyan local carnet stamped to export the car. Go through the checkpoint and the immigration kiosks will be obvious ahead of you (choose any, but it's worth getting out and asking at one of the kiosks in order to avoid getting stuck behind a taxi of numerous people). Get your passports stamped here and then go through the checkpoint where you'll need to produce evidence of your plates being returned (aforementioned slip of paper) and your passport. There is a second checkpoint after the 'Duty Free Shop on the right. Passports again.
Then you're through, into a short stretch of No-Man's Land before the Egyptian checkpoint (Sallum).

Desert pistes
The main area of interest is the fabulous Fezzan in the southwest, and particularly the amazing Akakus mountains east of Ghat (rock paintings - sadly nearly all vandalised in 2009). The engravings of the Wadi Mathendous are also worth a visit. The piste over to the mosquito-ridden crater at Waw el Namus is also popular as is a visit to the dune lakes in the Erg between Ubari and Idri.

The piste to Madama in Niger from El Gatrun was closed to tourists in 2006 although tarmacing commenced at this time too. Eastern Libya is a bit more off the map, less scenically interesting and in places with a risk of landmines. Jebel Uweinat on the Egyptian/Sudanese borders is the focal point here and well worth the visit if it's allowed.