High plateau between the mount Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges, linking the Syrian interior with the coastal cities of ancient Phoenicia. Used to be very much agricultural, it isn't that much flousishing anymore, apart from the "cannabis" cropping. Fortunately, it is now better known as the centre of Lebanon's burgeoning wine industry. From Beyrouth, which is my starting point for every trip I make inside the country, I have been so far to Baalbek and Zahle. Baalbek, mostly notorious back in the 80's for being the seat of Hezbollah (party of God) and helding hostages hidden in the valley ( such [View Full Entry]

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The Bekaa Valley, straddling the border with Syria, is my last stop before saying a sad goodbye to Lebanon. It’s a curious place, the Bekaa: home to the ancient “Sun City” of the Romans, Baalbek - arguably Lebanon’s top tourist attraction - it’s also the birthplace of Hizbollah - arguably the biggest pain in the Lebanese government’s rump. On your way into town, passing splashy billboards for hotels and local restaurants, you also pass sobering tributes to the martyrs of last year’s war. Their somber young faces, covered in scraggily bears or trim moustaches, stare gravely at the passing cars. [View Full Entry]

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A few days after their disappearance this week, the two Sunni youths are found dead on the side of the road near Sidon. There are nervous nights in Beirut. In my hotel lounge, the owner’s watching the news with his nargileh pipe planted between his lips, the smoke piping from the corner of his mouth and a grave look on his flushed features. “Chouf,” he says, gesturing to the screen with his eyebrows. In a village in the Chouf Mountains, men are pouring into the street - not quite outraged, but clearly up to no good. Words are racing across [View Full Entry]

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There’s a small fracas at the entrance to the auditorium, where British journalist Robert Fisk is preparing to give a trenchant lecture (“After the Collapse: Disengagement in the Middle East”) on Western policy in the region. A broad-shouldered woman with silvering hair has pushed her way inside, using her massive tote bag as a battering ram. Security - a meek old guy with panicky eyes - doesn’t stand a chance. She’s made it half-way down the aisle when her path is blocked by a stout, moustachioed man: his face inflamed, his lips mirthless, his recessed hairline suggesting that not even [View Full Entry]

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In Tyre I meet a young American, a traveler, who shanghais me at a local restaurant where I’m enjoying a plate of hummus. He sits down and pulls his wild orange hair into a ponytail and orders an espresso that he drinks with nervous, freckled hands. We’re sitting in the shade out front, the minibuses coughing out exhaust and dozens of young boys puttering by on scooters. He just arrived in Lebanon this week. We watch the traffic and talk with small, exaggerated flourishes: two travelers sizing each other up with tales from the open road. It’s not long before [View Full Entry]

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To negotiate the checkpoints around the south, I’ve taken a trip to Sidon - an hour’s drive to the north of Tyre - to get permission at the city’s army base. It’s one of the few places on earth, I suspect, where soldiers can brazenly kiss on the street, puckering up to their commanding officers and planting dozens of wet ones on each other’s cheeks. I spend a ponderous morning shuttling from building to building under their watchful eyes, brandishing a photocopy of my passport and a plastic cup of Nescafe. The official who finally meets me - a handsome [View Full Entry]

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They say that to know Lebanon you have to know the south, but they should add that to know the south, your best bet is to hitch a ride on the back of a UN convoy. Even in the best of times, southern Lebanon is as fraught with peril as a Jerry Bruckheimer flick. Hizbollah’s staunchest support is in the south’s tiny villages, while the areas that surround the border on all sides - Shebaa Farms, the Golan Heights, the Palestinian Territories - do a good job of answering the question, “Where do hope and diplomacy go to suffer a [View Full Entry]

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On my way out of Tripoli I load up on sweets - the city’s signature vice - picking up a few kilos’ worth for friends, then packing a dense plate of haliwat al-jebneh - a cheese-based gut-buster - into my belly. In the increasingly desperate Battle of the Bulge I’ve been fighting with my waistline, this round grudgingly ends in sweet, mouth-watering defeat. Back in Beirut, though, I’m greeted with ravenous smiles: maamoul and mafroukeh are fine ways to cozy up to friends. Even Eliana - maniacally fit by anyone’s standards - lets her sweet tooth get the best of [View Full Entry]

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On the road to Tripoli our bus has slowed to an agonizing crawl. Along with the usual snarl-ups you’d normally find leaving the capital, it’s been an added bonus of last summer’s Israeli campaign that Lebanon seems to be stuck in a perpetual traffic jam. The country’s roads are still pockmarked from a month of pummeling by IDF bombs, while bridges are being hastily rebuilt and drivers are forced to take long, elaborate detours. It’s been a source of endless frustration for the Lebanese, few of whom could swallow Israeli claims that the bombings were meant to cripple Hizbollah’s infrastructure. [View Full Entry]

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Before heading north I catch up with Eliana, a CouchSurfer I crossed paths with in Cairo two months ago. She’s just gotten back from a week in Paris and Rome, eager to show off pics of her shapely body in front of the Coliseum, or wrapped in the arms of a tall, muscular Italian named Mikhail. She invites me to a friend’s house in Achrafiyeh, an elegant pad decked out with abstract sculptures and brightly colored mosaics and the sort of gilded tableware that suggests breakfast with the Bourbons. Najim and Nada have made a small fortune for themselves here [View Full Entry]

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