The view from the wall of the old city
Getting back to Tripoli I set myself a little challenge I want to go somewhere I have not been before - can it be done? Yeah it seems like it. I start walking from the old town - ok nothing new there but I head towards the modern part of town through a busy bus area where people are friendly and ask if I am heading somewhere with a bus - but they easily takes no for an answer.
Then I walk along a street and I come to a pretty cool mosque - and I wanna take a photo of it. I grab my camera but a man shots at me - no photos I guess somebody who speaks English comes along and tells me that I can't take a photo off the mosque because there is a car park in front. It is an official car with a blue number plate - it looks like a police car but there is something with the number plate which means this is not just an ordinary police car.
Mosque where a car with blue number plates were parked
It is some sort of special unit - kind of a secret police perhaps but the blue colour of the number plate kind of gives the secret away. A well I give up on the photo and walk into a parking lot - I can actually get a much better shot at the mosque from there - I take the photo in the exact same direction - but I cant see the car with the blue number plate anymore hence nobody complains.
By now I head towards the beach. A beach around the Mediterranean next to a major city is generally not a good place to go swimming - so it is a good thing I got no intention about trying to go into the water this time of year. But down at the beach you will have a great view of the new part of town and it is fairly peaceful compared to other parts of Tripoli.
Modern Tripoli from the beach
After the beach I head back to the centre and the old town - I walk into a big market in the outskirts of the old town. It is a market with all sorts of foods to buy. But there is also pet shop - or I assume it is pet shop given they are selling budgies and canaries and that sort of birds as well as turtles and dogs. But they also sells rabbits and duck as well as chickens - I start to wonder if this is a pet shop or a shop selling really really fresh meat. Not a good thing to think too much about so after having a good look at the market I head for another part of the new town to see the new mosque which seems to be a everlasting construction project - they have been building on it for years at they still got quite a bit to do before it will be finish.
