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Posts Tagged ‘balbek’

After a short flight from Jordan, we were greeted at Beirut airport by Maroun’s mum and cousin’s Susan and Fouad.  It was a great reunion to be back with family.   We drove for around 2 hours to the tiny little village of Saghbine which is in the Beqaa Valley region.  In the village we met the children of Susan and Fouad, 3 gorgeous girls, Emily, Amanda and Angela.  We also met Uncle Abdulla and Aunty Amra who were here from Australia.  After dinner we headed just up the road to sweet Aampty (Aunty) Salwa’s house where we were staying.

The next day we met our neighbours and relatives Aamo (Uncle) Faousi, Aampty Saidy and cousins Coco, Maryanne, Charbel, Shady and Fadi.

Aamo Faousi took us down to the family orchid.  The orchids are on the side of the mountain and have been neatly arranged by levels of retaining walls.  I rode the donkey down, and then on the way back we packed all the fruit we picked on the donkey and walked him back up.  We picked apples, plums, pears, grapes, berries and figs.  The next day we had more work on the agenda.  We went up Maroun’s dad’s orchid and we picked walnuts, leaving our hands stained.  Also at this location there are Maroun’s dad’s olive trees.  He planted these trees before he moved to Australia, now they are thriving and the family here gets to enjoy great olives and make their own olive oil.

We spent many lazy days, meeting family members, drinking coffee and tea, eating eating eating and last but not least, dancing the dabke.  The dabke is a Lebanese line dance.  Every village has a slight variation to the foot movements but we dance around in a circle, going slow in sections then breaking out faster in when the beat picks up in the music.  The music is Arabian folk music which is very catchy “Waile waile waile”.

Village life is a very relaxed life.  We’d be woken in the morning by the neighbours donkey, he sounds like a rusty horn.  The day is filled by a slow breakfast, then visitors coming over having tea and coffee, a light lunch, and walk possibly popping into someone else’s house (unannounced) having more tea and coffee, then coming home in the evening for dinner, whisky and smoking arghilies.

Saghbine is in the Beqaa Valley which is an agricultural region, and I must say has some pretty good wines.  Susan and Foued and the family to us to Chateau Ksara, which is a local winery.  We went on a virtual tour of the winery and walked down into the cellars, before tasting their local drop.  The wine cellars were underground in caves which had the perfect temperature for storing wine.   The caves were discovered in Roman times and were expanded during WWI.  There is over 2km of tunnels.  That afternoon we window shopped through the village of Zahle, then we indulged in ice-cream and fruit cocktails.  The Lebanese don’t enjoy their wine in summer and I must say I received a few comments.  The drink of summer is their national drink Arak.  Arak is an aniseed flavoured spirit, and its it mixed with water to make a cloudy drink.  Similar to Ouzo that the Greeks drink.  One or two small glasses are about all that I could handle before the flavor gets too intense and you can’t taste anything else.

Aamo Abdulla took us to one of Lebanon’s finest tourist attraction, Jeita Grotto.   Jeita Grotto are the most spectacular caves I’ve ever seen.  I think they’d be up there with the world’s finest.  They stretch some 6Km back into the mountains.  We walked through the upper cavern along a man-made path and experienced some extraordinary stalactites and stalagmites.  We only walked through a small section of it but we could see its astonishing size.  We then made our way to the lower cavern, where we took a short boat ride through the beautifully lit caves.

We spent a few days just 21km north of Beirut on a coastal town named Jouneih; however, as soon as we got there I got sick so we were limited in what we could do.  Jouneih is a beach side town where there is a charming old Centre Ville with great little shopping boutiques, and to the North is the night life with bars and “Super” nightclubs where you’ll find expensive exotic dancers.

We visited Harissa which is high above Jounieh.  It has the gigantic white-panted bronze statue of Our Lady of Lebanon with her arms outstretched overlooking Beirut.  We took a very old and dodgy cable car up the mountain, but since we were going up to see Our Lady, we felt safe.  They say that miracles have happened here.  The Our Lady that stands above the church was originally facing in the direction of Jounieh which is the same direction that the Church faces, then when the war broke out in the 1960’s in Beirut, one morning the Mary had turned and is now facing in the direction of Beirut, watching and protecting the people.  The Mary is built from stone and is solidly placed in cement, one man could not have moved it, and it’s a miracle.

We went shopping downtown and to the Arminian area.  There is a large Arminian community in Lebanon who have seeked refuge and have settled there.  We went to see the beautiful views of the Pigeon Rocks in the Mediterranean Sea.  These rocks are large beautiful arches just off shore which is the only natural feature in Beirut.  We visited St George Church and also the Mohammed al-Amin mosque which is where the much loved former Prime Minister Rafig Hariri is buried.

Beirut is a diverse city; it has been reconstructed numerous times due to war disaster.  You can see these bitter memories in the buildings with bullet holes.  There is even a building in the outskirts of the city that was built using army tanks and is a war memorial.  The city has beautiful churches and mosques.  Behind you are beautiful green luscious mountains and in front of you are the inviting warm clear blue waters of the Mederanean Sea.   The people of Beirut live for the moment.    The vibe of the city is a little crazy with maniac drivers, air pollution, universities and cafes.

We went for a drive to North of Lebanon to see the protected Cedar trees of Lebanon.  We went to Byblos which is not the night club on Oxford Street but a gorgeous little port town with ancient Roman ruins.

We hired a local taxi for the day and he took us to Beitadine which is the Kings Palace, a gorgeous palace with fine Arabian architecture.  We then we to Assar Mousa which is Moses’ Castle.  This castle was built by a local man named Moses.  He was not wealthy but wanted a castle.  Everyone told him he was dreaming and would never be able to build a castle.  He also wanted to build it to win the love of a lady.  Little by little, stone by stone, he built his castle.  Each stone has a carved representation of Lebanese life.  The castle is a museum with life size statues of people living the Lebanese lifestyle, baking bread, dancing the dabke, a classroom at school.  Maroun’s mum went to school with this man; she mentioned that he was always getting into trouble from the teachers because he was always drawing pictures of people.  He has now lived his dream and he did marry the woman he wanted to impress.

We also went to Baalbek which is probably one of the largest ancient Roman sites in the world.  It would have still been perfectly intact if it hadn’t gone through theft, war and earthquakes.  Baalbek was known in ancient Greek as the City of the Sun.  The site is huge and the highlight would have to be the Temple of Jupiter.   It had 54 columns and now 6 are left standing.  The columns are 20m high with a diameter of 2.2 meters, its considered the largest in the world.

Overall our trip to Lebanon was relaxing and comforting.  We got to meet family and experience the life that my in-laws speak fondly about.  I’m going to miss Aampty Salwa’s over fussing and giving me a nick name of “Gaioola”.  I’ll miss our conversations where neither of us understood each others language but we got by with laughs hugs and kisses.

I’ll miss the gorgeous little Angela’s persistence with teaching me the Arabic alphabet.  She was such a strict teacher and I bet she’ll grow up to be a fine student, and perhaps a fine teacher.  When I’m home she has even assured me that I’ll have homework by correspondence!!!!

To my new Lebanese family, thank you for welcoming me into your homes and into your family.  I wish I could have communicated with you better but I hope in my next visit I’ll have learnt some Arabic and be able to impress you with conversation.  To Coco, I hope your visa comes in quickly so we can see you in Australia.  To Charbel, Shady, Marianna and Fadi, you now have 2 excuses to come to Australia, one to visit me, and the other to visit your sister Coco.  Good luck with your studies and I wish you every success.  To Emily, Amanda and Angela, you are the most gorgeous girls.  Big hugs to you and perhaps we’ll see you in Australia soon.  Be good and study hard.  To Susan and Foued, thank you for all the time you spent with us showing us around.  It was a pleasure to be in your company.

No more tears, we have more adventures to follow, next stop India….