Libya is basically a low-humid desert, which preserves historic buildings and tracks in the sand. Put an Arkansas arrowhead hunter like me there, where relics from at least two world wars are scattered over the countryside as if the soldiers had left last week, along with thousands of items from various civilizations, and you have an amateur collector's paradise. At least I thought so.

It had only been a few weeks after Vertis arrived when we did our first driving trip away from Benghazi along the coast road northeast to Cyrene. I bought a Fiat 500 when I arrived, the least expensive car on the market. It was OK for short trips to the downtown Esso office where I worked, but at a height of six feet two inches, I was cramped driving it, to put it mildly.

In the Gospels there are mentions of Simon of Cyrene as the man who carried the cross for Christ. Cyrene is about 120 miles from Benghazi. Several of the Americans I work with had been there, and they encouraged us to make the drive.

Libya was originally settled by Greeks who established five cities that were taken over by the Romans during the expansion of the Roman Empire. Cyrene is one of them. We managed to get out of Benghazi without hitting a camel, which is sometimes difficult, and took the coast road as it continued up in elevation. The temperature dropped 15 or so degrees, and the vegetation changed to more temperate-climate trees.

We soon approached what seemed to be the center of Cyrene, where numerous buildings had been excavated and restored. The new town was a half-mile or so away.

We parked and started walking. Along the way, we attracted several teenage boys. One of the boys pulled out an antique Roman coin and, after a little bargaining, I traded him an El Dorado House department store ballpoint pen for it.

At the end of the street that we were following, one of the buildings had a sign in English: Museum.

No one was in the one-story building, which was no more than 25 by 50 feet. Yet the collection of ancient Greek and Roman artifacts was breathtaking. I was especially taken with the life-size white marble statures of three scantily clad arm-linked young women titled "Three Graces."

We were about to head back toward Benghazi when we happened to walk to the edge of a rocky ridge. Below the ridge looking out toward the Mediterranean Sea, about a half mile away, was the ancient Harbor of Appolonia, the port of Cyrene. Off we went down a steep old road, still grooved from chariot wheels, to the harbor.

The Italians, when they controlled Libya, had excavated and restored quite a bit of the harbor town, including massive temple columns that we could see from Cyrene. We had stumbled into a bonus that we had not planned on seeing.

It had been a breathtaking trip, and we talked about it with enthusiasm as we drove back to Benghazi.

I knew right then we were going to put a lot of miles on our little Fiat. That trip to Cyrene would be the first of dozens we would take over our two years in Libya.

Email Richard Mason at richard@gibraltarenergy.com.

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