Actually that’s not true- we essentially went from one end of the country to the other with our little hire car.
After looking at these massive caves with Stalagmites and stalactites we motored up to Byblos which was suppose to have some awesome ruins- spoiler alert- they haven’t, the ruins are crap. Bearing in mind Mails & I had no plans or accommodation booked we decided to drive the girls up to the snow and stay the night up there. Yes you heard me right, snow! Is there anything Lebanon can’t do!!! We had a quiet but boozey night in at the hotel which was good and then went out to the slopes the next morning. To put it into perspective for you – we saw one guy skiing in his swimming trunks.
The plan was to head up to Tripoli next to check that out but we got as far as driving into the heart of the city, losing our temper and driving out. Oh well, it looked like a crap hole anyway. The only good thing out of that little journey is we finally found the transformer chicken place and got our Fishtastic, and let me tell you they were totally Fishtastic.
All renewed we headed up to the Bearre valley up near the other ski resort and found a cheap little hotel looking over the entire valley. Let me tell you this was gorgeous. To make it even better Mails & i did our favourite thing – grabbed some wine and snacks and sat on the balcony chatting till the sun went down (so romantic) and then continued with the wine while we watched the Oscars.
The final full day for Lebanon was spent booting it down south to Siddon. We had a super yummy and cheap lunch after which i decided it was best for me to scarf up as there was a lot of staring going on at my heathen red hair- damn mails and her dark hair and olivey complexion. We went for a wander through the souk- i thought it was awesome. It’s from ancient times and they still have people working and living in there but Mails wasn’t such a fan. It was here that the un-natural collection of scarves really started.
All stocked up on scarves I convinced Mails that we should head for Tyre. Now according to the guide book Siddon is as far south as you should go to be safe unless you check the travel warnings. If they are good go down to Tyre, do not go off the main roads and avoid the UN at all costs (nobody like the UN). So, all convinced we headed off to Tyre. Ok, I’ll admit, I forgot to read out the bit about the travel warnings when I was doing the convincing and I wouldn’t even have a clue where you check them anyway. After driving about 10 mins down the motorway we got diverted. We pulled off the motor way, both thinking about the book’s warning not to go off the main track, but determine not to be the first to scream and run away. I’ll admit when we had to drive past the big camp I did start to think maybe it wasn’t a good idea. But when has that ever stooped us. We continued down to Tyre panicing every time we saw the UN tanks around.
Turns out we didn’t see much of Tyre at all- I think we’d gotten ourselves a bit worked up and didn’t want to leave the car and there seemd to be lots of construction going on so it didn’t seem very pretty. The funniest thing of all though was when I got us stuck in a tinny narrow lane driving around the town. What was even funnier was that some guy on a scooter was interested enough in my awesome driving moods he drove past 4 times. To this day I am convinced if Lebanese Mamma hadn’t come out and directed us we would still be there today.
Oh yeah, and did I mention we did all of this without a real map- definitely O for awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment