Byblos and Tripoli

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We bussed down nearly 3000m to sea level and wandered into the small fishing town of Byblos. We were promptly disappointed to find out that it was in fact more expensive to stay here than even Beirut, but we decided to stick it out for one night. After wandering around the old city (old is so relative in the Middle East because it could mean 40, 400 or over 4000 years old!), shot some amazing sunset photos at the old Crusader castle ruins right by the ocean and relaxed with a nice fresh fish (Dorado) dinner! At night, we decided to hit the town and ran into a joint stag/stagette for a couple and had a tasty beer with the party. In the morning, we decided to pick up our roots again and head north to Tripoli.

Tripoli was a breath of "fresh" air, as the first thing either of us thought was: "welcome back to the Middle East!". It felt like we had stepped back into our element of less western culture and more souqs (markets), hammams (Turkish baths) and mosques... We spent most of the day wandering aimlessly through the many souqs (everything is organized into areas: the gold souq, brass souq, soap souq, clothing souq, etc) and soaked in the friendly vibes from the people. We spent the evening chilling on the side of a street with a cup of tasty sweet tea (I'm growing an addiction to this stuff) and smoking an Nargileh (sheesha - don't worry Mom, no addiction to that!).

I think both Felipe and I were itching to get back into Syria and enjoy the extremely friendly people and the ridiculously cheap food, as we quickly picked up roots this morning and headed to Hama in central western Syria, which will be our home base for awhile in order to make some day trips and visit the countryside.

On a personal note: Merry birthday Habibi!

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Comments

[Bonnie Howard]

Shukran Habibi!