We decided to head out at 9am again on the second day, since once again it would involve quite a bit of driving. The plan was to take the airport road south out of Tripoli, stopping by the ruins of the Qadaffi compound on the way, and then heading to the Nafusa mountains and the town of Garyan.
The former Qadaffi compound (known as the Bab Al-Aziza) sits on a roundabout on the airport road on the south side of Tripoli, right before you leave the main part of the city on the way to the airport. It used to sit on several square city blocks, taking up a huge amount of real estate. NATO airstrikes did quite a number on this place, but ever defiant, one of Qadaffi’s sons sneaked out through its network of underground tunnels and actually gave a press conference at a hotel on the other side of the roundabout. Eventually, near the end when Tripoli fell, revolutionaries burst through the gates and pretty much took anything that wasn’t bolted down. Now, the entire site is a huge heap of rubble more or less.
The remains of the main headquarters building:
