What they lack, of course, is a drink. Libya is uncompromisingly dry (in terms of both rainfall and alcohol).
The Romans knew how to manage a scant supply of water, and with skilled husbandry turned the Libyan coastal strip into the “Breadbasket of Rome”. Those skills have been lost now though, and the country only produces a tiny proportion of its agricultural needs, in spite of a bold project – the “Man-made River” – to channel water from deep beneath the Sahara to the coast. It’s a great idea, but neighbouring Egypt and Chad are concerned about their own lowering water-tables.
Tourism is the great new hope, and to this end, grand new hotels are being constructed – classy hotels, for the Libyans don’t want the riff-raff and the lager louts from the Costa del Sol; they envisage a refined, cultured sort of tourism that comes to appreciate the ancient sites, the National Museum (which is dazzling) and perhaps a little ethnography… and is content at the end of a long day of rubbernecking, to sit back with a bottle of fizzy orange. There is talk though of creating a “tourism zone”, where the draconian restrictions do not apply.
