20-Mar-2006 -- After the very successful trip to Libya in 2005 (visiting confluences 26N 18E and 25N 18E), we wanted to come back to this interesting country. From Switzerland, we drove to Marseille, and crossed the Mediterranean Sea on the ferry to Tunis. Driving towards the south of Tunisia, we arrived at the border of Ra's Ajdīr and spent a couple of hours until all the formalities were completed and customs let us enter the country. In Libya, all the tourists must be invited by a Libyan travel agency and also must be accompanied by a guide.

Our group of 5 friends travelled with 3 Land Rover Defender TD5, each one fully equipped with diesel, water, food, mechanical equipment, GPS, and satellite maps on the laptop for navigation.

The roads towards the south along the Algerian border lead to Ġadāmis, and from there, the real adventure started. Mainly along the 11^th degree of longitude, we had to explore our way to the South, in very rocky areas. In the heavy terrain, we had two flat tires on the first two days, and on the third day while finding our way through the impressive sand dunes of the Erg Ubari, one of the cars had a hard landing after a small but steep dune, which resulted in a broken rear window. Also the roof carrier was damaged, but the whole team worked together and towards the evening, the car was ready to continue the trip.

While approaching the first confluence point 27N 11E, the countryside was very beautiful and changing, with sand dunes, rocks, and flat areas with gravel. But to reach the exact position was quite hard, the rocks allowed only very slow speeds up to 3-5 km/h.

On the point, we took pictures, marked the spot and while driving on towards the South, we discovered a much easier way out following a dry river valley. In the evening, the clear and bright starlight in the sky over the Sahara created once more the most special atmosphere for our night camp. The team discussed about the chances to reach the next confluence point 26N 11E.