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Published: July 29th 2005
Bcharre
It's a beautiful town perched right on the edge of the Qadisha valley, although unfortunately the older houses seem to be losing out to concrete. I certainly wasn't expecting to see so many churches (and no mosques at all) in the middle eastern countryside.Apparently Che used to summarize the past month in his diary, so I'll try to do the same about my 2 weeks in Lebanon. This should serve to go some ways towards satisfying those who have requested "a bulleted summary" of where I've been and what I've done.
Lebanon is a beautiful country, with mountains seemingly rising right out of the sea, a gorgeous coastline, and great hiking. The people in Beirut are cosmopolitan and indeed one feels like in someplace like America rather than the middle east while in Beirut -- that is, until you notice the bullet holes in the buildings. Accordingly, some elite locals apparently claim to be "Phoenician" and not Arab.
Prices in Lebanon came as quite a shock after I had gotten used to the prices in Syria and I ended up eating falafel or otherwise preparing my own food (hummus, olives, zaatar, and a lot of fruit). In reality, I think the prices in Beirut are marginally lower than those in Istanbul.
I ended up meeting a lot of really nice people in Beirut, some of which I hung out with on multiple occasions, a welcome change from either solitary
The Cedars of Lebanon
The obligatory photo of the cedars. Compare with the two people in the upper righthand corner; the trees are truly immense, although the experience would have been better if there were more of them. wanderings or the self-contained bubble of hanging out with other travelers. Most people on the street speak some english, and the more educated/elite speak arabic/english/french, although sometimes better french than arabic. On the other hand, some vendors overcharge and/or provide false information, so I preferred the people in Syria. The way I saw things, the average Lebanese person must want a piece of the action (surrounded by the extremely rich as they are), the same way in which some Turks see tourists as walking dollars.
I visited such illustruous places such as Tyre and Sidon, passed through the village of Zarepheth on the way, saw a former prison complex in Liberated South Lebanon, and visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut and one in Tyre. In Tyre I scored an authentic Fatah-only black shirt with a picture of Arafat on it. Liberated South Lebanon is frantically building new luxury houses, presumably not what the "martyrs" had in mind when they died fighting the Israelis.
Beirut is like its own little country, having little to nothing in common with the remainder of Lebanon.
And now, the gaps in the story.
From Beirut I head up
The Qadisha Valley
The Syrians and Lebanese don't pronounce the 'kaf' sound, so it's pronounced 'adisha.
This was taken during my descent into the valley: I didn't take any pictures while I was scrambling on the cliffs trying to find a trail and hoping it would stay light for a few more minutes.
north to Tripoli which is about as different from Beirut as a city less than 100km away can be. It too has buildings pock-marked with bullet holes, but it's a much more traditional (predominantly sunni muslim) town with large free-standing "Allah" signs in main intersections. It has much more of the air of a stereotypical "Arab City", with street vendors lining certain streets selling bananas, oranges, tangerines, lemons and the occasional coconut, and a bustling souq (where I'm sad to report I was occasionally pointed at and laughed at), and an old city with winding alleyways. Oddly everything in the city shutdown around 9:30, including the coffee shops which normally (even in the smallest Turkish town) stay open until midnight. Someone I asked about it said it might be a habit from the days of the civil war. The outskirts of town are all christian, and walking just a half hour from the "Allah" signs you end up in an area with pictures of Mary stuck on windows. It's yet another reminder of the religious diversity in Lebanon.
I took a daytrip from there into the nearby mountains to
Bcharre at the head of the beautiful
Qadisha valley. This
Tripoli
A truly Arab town (unlike Beirut) with long-bearded men and free-standing "Allah" signs. This was the most interesting-looking minaret I had seen so far (before seeing Damascus). I don't have pictures of the jeering people in the marketplace. is hardcore Maronite country, with lage cathedral-like churches and monasteries replacing the more familiar mosques. It was a very welcome respite from the cities I've been confined to for so long, although I did little more than visit Kahlil Gibran's house and museum (essentially because the other travelers I was with wanted to check it out; I haven't read any of his books) and see
The Cedars, as it's called, a cluster of a couple dozen old Cedar trees standing in the midst of otherwise completely bald mountains. Apparently the hills used to be covered with cedars but they're mostly gone now. On the way up there we (myself and 2 traveler girls from the hostel) were quoted $10 to take a "taxi" the 7km there and back, a price which I thought was outrageous so we decided to walk. Before doing so, however, one of the girls disappeared and we found her a few minutes later in a backyard with three broadly smiling Bcharre-ians who were brewing their own
arak (the Lebanese equivalent of Turkish
raki or Greek
ouzo) in a large chimney-like contraption and were in the meantime drinking (and offering us) large cups of homemade wine (which
Baalbeck
I figure there must be thousands of professional photos of Baalbeck, so I won't try to compete. Here's a picture of visiting mullahs admiring the fallen ceiling-statues of Venus among the ruins of a pagan temple famous for its prostitution and alcohol. It also gives you an idea of the size of the place, and these aren't the really big columns either. actually wasn't that bad at all. They all had tattoos of "St Charmaine", the local Maronite favorite, and kept insisting that the girls spend the night "for free". The girls ended up hitching us a ride to the top from another guy who was clearly anti-Muslim and carefully asked us our religion (and double-checked my response a couple of times). The Lebanese don't seem to like the Syrians very much but I think they have a lot to learn (by way of religious tolerance) from Syria.
The days being short and public transportation ending around 3:30pm, we didn't get to descend into the valley.
Not having seen what I came for (I really wanted to hike in the valley), I returned the next day and saw some of the arak-makers, who lost interest in me when they realized I was alone. The plan was to hike from
Bcharre down the valley and back up to
Ehden some ways away, a trip I estimated would finish shortly before public transportation stopped running. The valley itself is gorgeous, full of waterfalls crashing down its steep walls, the sun was shining (and I was wearing a tshirt), and it was beautiful. My
Bekaa
You are looking at the anti-Lebanon range behind the columns. The valley is flanked on both sides by snow-capped mountains, giving it the sort of beauty that is difficult to capture with a camera lens. map being
very basic and there not being any signs or people to point me in the right direction, I took the path which looked about right: although it clearly diverged from the main road I figured it would be more fun than following the road. After first turning into a trail and then a hint of a path it eventually completely disappeared and I was left pretty high up on the cliffs of the valley trying to eyeball some semblance of a path while making my way through thorns and thistles and scrambling over rocks. I eventually found the path, then lost it again in my greed to "save time", which completely backfired when I realized (too late) that there was a whole valley seperating me from the visible road. For a while I was stuck with no way to go forward or backtrack, and with the sun disappearing rapidly there was room for concern; luckily I made it down to a (functioning) monastery and from there made it to the main road where I proceeded to hitchike as the sun (and thus public transportation) was long over. I was eventually picked up by a very nice couple who
Always Remember God
Back in Syria, ever-mindful of our maker (me and the cat, that is). spoke very little english (we communicated in the usual tarzan/sign language), although at one point the husband brandished a pistol when talking about Syria, which was odd. They too were Maronites (as everyone else in the region) and seemed to have little love for Muslims.
After a couple more days hanging around Tripoli I head back south to Beirut, intending to spend one night there, meet up with some people I had met, and go to
Baalbeck from there before crossing over into Syria. My initial plan of circling the mountains from the north and getting to the Bekaa valley that way backfired when I was torn between minibus drivers with large smiles assuring me I could get a connection to Baalbek after going to the place their minibus goes, and other locals solemnly declaring I must go all the way to Beirut first. I found the latter hard to believe as I find it inconceivable that two neighboring large-ish towns wouldn't have a form of transportation between them, but my visa was running out and I didn't want to take any chances. I spent the day sleeping and later on picnicing on the beach of Byblos, much more pleasant than wandering the smog-filled streets of Beirut. I then met up with the girls I had met during my last stay in Beirut and went out (ostensibly to see the "friday night" scene), eventually getting back to my hotel a bit after 3 (the manager wasn't happy), and needing to get up early the next day to see Baalbeck.
The visit to Baalbeck started off with me (stupidly) assuming that the moving (empty) minibus would leave faster than the stationary (also empty) one which was waiting to fill up before leaving. In reality, the driver spent at least 45 minutes circling the area, honking and saying "Baalbeck?" to every person (no matter how unlikely-looking) he saw on the street. There must have been half a dozen minibuses all doing the same, diminishing the chances of any one of them actually filling up. We then waited by the side of the highway, a place lined with other minibuses and with hardly any pedestrians, with some kind of fatalistic faith that if he waited and shouted long enough eventually passengers would materialize (or maybe people would feel sorry for him and decide to take a trip to Baalbeck after all). We eventually got there around 2:30pm.
Baalbeck apparently literally means "city of Baal" while "Bekaa valley" means "the valley of the city ". This is from a french guy I met and seemed to know a lot about this sort of stuff. To get there you climb the Mt Lebanon range which begins immediately behind Beirut and end up in a relatively narrow valley between the Lebanon and anti-Lebanon mountains to the west and east, respectively. This (again) is hardcore hezbollah country, and the roads were lined with the familiar flags of green ak-47 and "hezbollah" on a yellow background fluttering in the wind. There were even hezbollah tshirts and music/video cds at a souvenir shop by Baalbeck. Cool souvenir, but it might cause more problems than its worth, and I was last to my last couple thousand lebanese liras, so that didn't happen. The site itself is actually much more striking than one imagines "yet another collection of old stones" to be. The place was apparently an immense Roman temple of Zeus (with a smaller temple to the side), complete with enormous altars, columns with a diameter of 2m and bases taller than me, abolution basins the size of small swimming pools, all very awe-inspiring... I can only imagine the awe of rustics visiting the temple in its heyday -- they must have been completely blown away.
The return to Damascus was uneventful: minibus to a town 5-10km from the border and a bus from there to Damascus. The bus made 3 "shopping stops" in the short distance before the border, wherein nearly all the passengers alighted and returned laden with large bags full of... who knows what. By the time we actually made it to the border the aisle and every available spot in the bus was jammed with bags -- I hadn't been in such a crowded bus since (I think) the bus from Almaty to Tashkent.
Syria, with its warm smiles and people ever willing to help (walk to you where you're going if necessary) and the liberal use of "Ahlan wa sahlan" (you're welcome) was just the thing I needed by the time I got off the bus in Damascus.
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anonymous
non-member comment
lebanon is the best and the more beatifull cuontry in the all world,you can feel you are free and you live
- anna