28.03.2006, it is 5:30 am and my cell phone is waking me up. Being very tired, I switch it off and turn around again, when the muezzin is starting his morning prayer, which is transmitted by the speakers on top of the mosques. For making sure, that I won’t fall asleep again, the reception desk, is giving me a wake-up-call, too. By the way, I am in a hotel in Tripolis and today our journey to the Sahara is beginning.

At 6:05 am I am having breakfast. Our travel group from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Sweden is quite silent, since we have already been in Libya since Sunday and after an exhausting arrival and an extensive sightseeing schedule in Tripolis and Leptis Magna we are all a little tired. But maybe it is also the inner tension that keeps us calm. After all the great adventure of the desert is right in front of us.

Our two German and two Libyan travel guides and the two security policemen are making the last arrangements during breakfast. None of us really knows whether these are really the last arrangement because nobody knows what is awaiting us. Overall we are two groups consisting of forty “solar-eclipse-enthusiasts”.

We hit the jackpot of being assigned to an airplane that would take us from Tripolis to the oil fields in the north of the oasis Jalu. At 7:20 we are leaving the hotel and reach the airport of the city at 7:30. A little bit of gallow humor is slightly arising as we catch sight of the counter of the Airline Buraq which is on the black list of the EU. However we are flying with the national flag carrier airline “Libyan airlines”.

Our flight, scheduled for 9:00 am, is finally leaving at 10:10 am; we are following the coast line towards the East to finally turn to the desert in the south. Our Boeing 727-200 doesn’t seem to be the youngest, but it is taking us to our destination safe and sound. At around 11:30 we are arriving at the oil fields in the north of the oasis Jalu.

An unreal atmosphere, an airport in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nothing. A light wind is blowing and in the sun the temperature is pleasant. Our luggage is being unloaded very quickly, so that we can already leave by bus at 12:20. After some 10 km we are driving through the oasis Jalu from where we can get right into the totality zone. The road is good and made of asphalt and a police car with blue lights that is staying with us until we get closer to the camp, is driving in front of us.

Around 1:50 pm we finally reach the camp which is about 8 km off the desert road. Again an unreal atmosphere is waiting for us, here, in the gravel desert of the Sahara, about 110 km south of the oasis Jalu. We are right at the central line of the eclipse and the Libyans built up an incredible tent camp with hundreds, maybe even thousands of tents out of the desert sand. Everything is organized, but still it is giving us an unreal impression. The desert is flat, smooth, endlessly until the horizon and then this incredible camp of tents.

Libya has built up three of these camps in the desert for visitors from all around the world. Apparently they are all some 100 km away from each other, being situated at an appropriate distance from the airport and oil fields, all of them along the central line of the eclipse. Everything seems unreal, we are all completely surprised, nobody expected this.

By 2:15 pm we have moved into our tents. Even those of us who are travelling alone (including me) got big carpeted tents and including a mattress, a comforter and a pillow.

At 3:00 pm we are getting up to have lunch in a huge marquee decorated in red-white. Again it is unbelievable, what logistic masterstroke the Libyans accomplished. The personal caterer of Gaddafi is supposed to be responsible for the great hospitality for the guests.

Afterwards we are going to explore the camping ground in small groups, taking a great interest in what technical equipment the others brought. And we are going on a tour around the camp on quite a far distance. We just cannot get used to this unreal atmosphere, awe for the desert is taking us in, this endless vastness, and also this incredible camp. We are proud to be able to take part in this/to be here.

Before dinner we are watching a beautiful sun set and after eating we are going out into the desert once again to take a look at the night sky. At 10:45 pm everyone is going into their tents . Some of us are falling asleep right away. But I cannot really think of sleeping. All the impressions of this first day in the desert are on my mind. And of course it isn’t exactly quiet outside. The Libyans, a very friendly and open nation, are celebrating this event until late at night.

The next morning is all about getting up, having breakfast, having a wash, going back to the Tuaregs and get a Tuaregs-headdress (if you had one those things once, you will know, why the Tuaregs are wearing them), spending some time and at 10:30 am we are setting out for the desert in a small group of ten people and our equipment, plastic chairs and water bottles. The pleasant anticipation for this unique event is extremely high and we are all laughing, joking and having a lot of fun.

Here, too, we are experiencing an unreal atmosphere. Outside of the camp, very distant, the little groups of people have created a ring around it. Only a few are walking further than the horizon so enjoy the eclipse on their own. We are picking a place close to an older Japanese and set up our equipment Almost everyone of us is using a single-lense reflex camera with an objective with a bigger focal width. As long as the total phase hasn’t started, we are of course also using a sunscreen foil.

Around 11:10 am the spectacle is starting with the first contact. There are some loose shouts of joy and applause occurring. We are still exchanging information about which lens aperture and exposure time we have to use for which sensitivity and at which point we have to take off the foils to adjust exactly to the beginning of the total phase without the foil. The sound of clicking is coming from everywhere and we are all working our individual programs for the photographic documentation of the partial phase.

Then the light exposure conditions are changing, the air is getting cooler, clearer, richer in contrast, a light not comparable with the dawn. The eagerness is rising, it is 12:15 am, only a couple of minutes are left until the beginning of the total phase. We are looking around us: on the one hand the tent camp, on the other one the boundless vastness of the desert, and all this touched by an incredible contrasty light.

It is getting darker, clearer and clearer, and suddenly the moment has arrived when the last sunray is breaking away and there is a black sun at the firmament. There are only sporadic shouts of joy breaking out, only some are applauding. We are all touched by awe, internally caught by an amazing emotional atmosphere, that cannot be described. Quietly sentences are soft-spoken :”Incredible… This is unbelievable… I didn’t expect this… indescribable…I can’t believe it…”.

There is a black sun in the sky, it is shining black, it is there, so real, but so unreal at the same time.

Slowly we are loosening from our captiveness: “Just take a look at that corona. Isn’t it amazing how it fanned out at both sides of the sun?” On the left and on the right of the sun three fans have appeared, on the right towards 1-2 o’clock, 3 o’clock and 4-5 o’clock and on the left towards 7-8 o’clock, 9o’clock and 10-11 o’clock. They reach the length of 1,5 to 2 sun diameter, are of a milky white and are thinning out in the black sky. Over and under the black sun, thus towards 12 and 6 o’clock, there is a strong light corona which is of the length of a quarter circle. The ends of this corona are fading off into the fans.

“And there is the Venus!” It is the brightest luminary in the sky. It is shining in black. But there are not nearly as many stars and planets visible as I had expected. The sky turned so night black.

“Turn around and look at the horizon, breath-taking light!” And now it is clear why it didn’t become completely dark. Along the whole horizon a yellow-golden hem has appeared as it can be seen right after a sun set. Whereas it is already very dark in the East during a sun set. But here, a black sun is glowing in the sky and all along the horizon it seems as if there has been turned on an indirect yellow-golden light behind the horizon. We are feeling like we are in the middle of a spectacle that can only be watched in a flat desert just as the one we are in.

In the meantime the black sun is recapturing us. The moon is slowly moving on, and we are getting quieter too, we are feeling, that another indescribable moment is being imminent. On the one side of the sun the corona is getting darker, is almost disappearing completely, only a brightly beaming semi-circle is left. And on the other side of the black sun it is getting lighter, it is starting to sparkle in a semi-circle, diamond-like bright.

And then it is happening, incredible, the light is detonating, destroying the black sun with an explosion. This moment is surprising us totally unexpected. Some are jubilating and applauding sporadically, but we are remaining reverentially silent. Inconceivable, the black sun is gone, simply disappeared in a detonation of light.

After a few seconds we are picking up courage again. The sunscreen foil needs to be reattached to the objectives, so that the cameras won’t get damaged. This exercise is helping us to elude from the black sun’s spell. And we are breaking into conversations. An euphoric mood is spreading and everyone is talking about his individual experience. Enthusiasm is engaging the whole group.

A couple of minutes later we are starting to execute out photographic program of the second partial phase and keep telling others about our impressions again and again. The light is as rich in contrast as it was before, however, it is not impressing us as much as it did during the total phase. Soon it is also getting warmer again. The time until the fourth contact, thus until the end oft he solar ecplipse, is over very fast, we are packing our equipment and head back to the tent camp.

After a big lunch, at around 3:30 pm we are hitting the road again and drive through the desert towards Benghazi, our next stop in Libya for 6 hours. Sitting in the bus we are lost in our thoughts, talk about this adventure again and again and show the picture on the little monitors of our digi-cams to each other. I am listening to the music that I put on my iPod:

A great gig in the sky

By Pink Floyd

At 9:00 pm we are arriving in Benghazi, an incredible adventure is over.