Beirut

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After a long and interest border experience coming into Beirut, Felipe and I were looking to relax in a cheap hotel somewhere. Unfortunately, we discovered the not much of anything is cheap in Beirut! After checking into our hotel, we went for one of many walks along the corniche (seawall).

Beirut is an interesting city in that there are very liberal people (miniskirts and fancy clothes, etc) living in harmony with people in traditional garb (niqabs, burkahs and robes). But for the most part, it was hard for me to ignore the opulence and excess of this place. With fancy cars and huge SUV´s everywhere, it reminded me too much of many of the things I dislike about my own home city of Calgary. It seemed that people here were too considered with status, which is something I had not seen in the rest of the Middle East.

That said, it is still a very pretty and scenic city. The downtown (despite being heavily guarded by heavy artillery for fear of car bombings) had beautiful French colonnial architecture and the corniche / nightlife areas were alive and hopping in the evenings.

After a couple days here, we were itching to move on to a smaller venue, so we decided to head out northeast to Baalbek in the Bekaa valley, home to the Hezbolah party!

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Comments

[Barb Howard]

thanks
Thanks Mark for your fascinating descriptions and stories. This has been a very interesting journey for me too!