Tripoli

We had finally reached Tripoli after months of traveling. Mark and I were just about ready to retire that very day because of everything we had gone through. Ibn explained to us how much of the World there was left to see and to quit now would be quitting out on life itself. We did negotiate with him somewhat though. We would stay in Tripoli for a few weeks before going on to Cairo and the Red Sea. Tripoli was a great city with a population of about 100,000 people. One thing that we noticed though was many men apparently getting for war. The armories were packed to the brim with orders and it was going to take almost 2 weeks for our swords to get repaired and sharpened. The clothing stores were also filled with military orders and we couldn’t design any new clothes. We just had to take what they had already made. We were able to sell all the salt we brought though since the soldiers would need it while traveling. When we asked who these soldiers were going to fight they said the Ottomans. We ultimately decided to give them a large discount on the salt we were selling since they were fighting a common foe, the same enemy who had attacked and destroyed our home. Our time in Tripoli was full of exquisite meals as well because of its location as a trading hub. We were able to eat foods from all over Eurasia and Africa. I guess our stomachs weren’t ready for some of the foods though since we got sick a few times. I do feel bad for whoever has to clean up that outhouse, thats for sure. While we were there we learned much about the religion sweeping the World. Islam was very interesting to us and Ibn loved meeting all the Muslims we met in these lands because he too was a Muslim. We shared our ideas of Christianity with some of the people we met as well and were surprised to see many similarities in our religions. We even visited the St George Church which was the oldest Greek Orthodox church in North Africa. There was many Greek traders and people in the Church during the service. Afterwards we talked to them and they too were war refugees who had been forced to leave their homes. We enjoyed speaking with them and hoped to see more Greeks in our travels. The next morning we left Tripoli and we started our journey to Alexandria followed by Cairo. We were planning on taking a ship which would sail along the Coast until it reached the city of Alexandria in Egypt.