Middle East Trip: Beirut and Bekaa Valley

I’m determined to finish our Middle East blog posts before winter break, so I’ll pick up where I left off: Lebanon.

Lara had been trying to find us hotel reservations in Beirut for days but to no avail.  We went anyway, hoping to take advantage of someone else’s last-minute cancellation.  After driving around for over an hour, we finally managed to find one room...an executive suite; the front desk associate was super nice and agreed to let the four of us share it for the price of two basic rooms (about $200 less than it would normally cost).  We threw our stuff inside, showered, and walked down the street for a late pizza dinner.

Beirut has an incredible energy to it, and it’s very much a city of contrasts.  Walking down the street, it’s not unusual to see a completely covered Muslim woman with only her eyes showing pass by another woman wearing a skimpy, sequined halter top.  Shiny new financial centers sit adjacent to abandoned shells of old buildings peppered with bullet holes.  The area where we were staying, Hamra, is a bustling district near Beirut’s three universities, and we savored our Starbucks iced mochas while we window shopped along the streets.  At the same time, Lara reminded us that this area was the hub of the city’s intellectual activity during the Civil War in the ‘70s and ‘80s.  In fact, the hotel where we stayed, the Mayflower, is famous for being a base for journalists during the war, and the hotel bar was a major gathering place for reporters and politicians.  Because of the universities, it’s common to hear students speaking English in this area, and of the conversations we overheard on street corners, several were about politics.  The whole city just felt charged.

During our first day here, Brian, Anjana, and I took a cab to the National Museum.  (Lara had been there many times, so she left us to go shop the sales.)  The building’s architecture looked like it belonged in D.C. next to the Smithsonian museums, and the collection inside was amazing.  This photo is a little blurry, but you can at least get a sense of how things were set up. 

One of the things Brian and I were most excited about—dorky English teachers that we are—were the two marble sarcophagi from Tyre that had images from the life of Achilles carved into the sides. 
This side shows Hector’s body being dragged around the city. 
This is a close-up of the section with King Priam kneeling before Achilles after paying the ransom for his son’s remains. 
And this is another side depicting Achilles grieving over Patroclus.  The Jungmans love their Iliad! 

There were many kinds of artwork on display, including mosaics, which I really enjoyed.  This one is called the “Jealousy Mosaic” and is from Beirut during the Byzantine Period. 
This is another mosaic I liked, but I didn’t note the origin. 
One of my favorite stones is carnelian, so I loved these necklaces.  I would have been totally hip during the Bronze Age. 
One last photo: I thought these gold funerary ornaments were really interesting; they’re from the Roman Period and were placed on a woman’s face when she was buried.  The little leaf-shaped pieces formed a crown around her head, and the other sheets were placed on her forehead, eyes, nose, and mouth.  
Two final notes on this museum visit:

1. The power went out at one point, and I thought about how hard it would be to maintain controlled conditions for the artifacts in such a varying situation.

2. I realized that this was the first time I could fully enjoy looking at artifacts from this region because they were being displayed as a source of national pride.  Usually—in the Vatican Museum for example—I feel a sort of guilt knowing that the only reason I’m able to view them is because someone stole them from tombs way back when.

We met back up with Lara and walked over to the American University of Beirut.  The campus is green and tranquil, and we spent a lovely afternoon wandering around. 

I don’t think I would mind running laps as much if I got to gaze out at the Mediterranean! 
This is looking back up the hill toward the main campus. 
And this is looking out toward the water, so you can see how close the campus is to the Corniche, the walkway that runs all the way along the shoreline. 
We strolled down this street again later (once it cooled down) and had some great views of the city all lit up at night. 

When we were all walked-out, we took a cab downtown to the Place d’Etoile, which is bordered by the unbelievably beautiful Mohammed al-Amin mosque. 

This part of the city reminded me a lot of Rome, both because of the random columns you’d see between buildings… 
…and the airy sidewalk cafes lining the plaza.  We had a great time people watching while we ate our sandwiches at one of the restaurants along here. 

After dinner, we went out to the clubs in the Achrafiye district, chatted with some locals (all very friendly), and danced the night away.

The next day, we took a cab about an hour outside of town to the Bekaa Valley for a wine tour.  (While we probably could have figured out a lot of the things we did on this trip by ourselves, this particular venture was something we never would have attempted without Lara.)  The road went through the mountains, and it was actually cold up there, which felt fantastic after sweating constantly since arriving in Aleppo several days before.  On the way, we passed this bridge that was destroyed by Israel in 2006, but which is now almost rebuilt. 
This area is politically very loyal to Hezbollah, and while it’s a quiet valley of small towns, it was still surreal to see signs like this on our way to a winery. 
Scenes like this, on the other hand, made us feel like we were right back home in Yaoundé. 
One thing that kept striking us about being in the Middle East—especially Jordan, which I’ll discuss more in a later post—was that we were on land where so much history has taken place.  The Bekaa Valley, especially, felt very biblical with its vineyards and arid hills. 

While the scenery was beautiful, the ride itself was something out of madcap tourist movie—I’m thinking Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline.  Before we hired a cab driver in Beirut, we had joked that we needed to find someone we wouldn’t mind spending the whole day with.  Cue the sweet-looking old man who turns out to be totally insane.

Here is the entry from my trip journal for that part of the day (“aala” means “to”):

"He stopped constantly to ask for directions and then would literally go the opposite way—despite our shouting and pointing.  A very small little man who chain-smoked and sounded like he was about to cough up a lung, he used his horn constantly and for seemingly no reason.  Asked 'aala Massaya' to everyone we saw (as Lara pointed out, the Muslim street cleaners have no reason to know where to go wine tasting!) as we searched for the first winery.  Wouldn’t turn when we saw the signs, and then even when we pulled in, he asked a man wearing a Massaya winery staff shirt if he knew where the place was. Oy!"

To top it off, Massaya was just closing for the day, but we did get to peek in at the machines.  Next we went to the Ksara winery (thankfully still open), which is an old castle.  We toured the caves full of oak barrels and reserves… 


…did some tasting, and watched a short film about the harvesting process.  The wine was good, but I have to say the ones we tried in Oregon a few weeks before were much nicer.

After hearing that the St. Thomas winery was closed, we steered our faithful cabby to one last stop, Kefraya.  I thought the wine was better here, including a sweet wine, which I don’t normally like.  This is a picture of the tasting room. 
We had a late lunch at Kefraya on the covered patio: cheese plate, mezze, and a chevre salad.  This isn’t a very good picture of us, but I wanted to show the setting—it felt like we’d somehow stumbled into Tuscany.

The drive back to Beirut took a much longer time because it was so foggy in the mountains.  Our driver was not pleased with the weather either.  Here’s my entire journal entry from the ride back:

"Terrifying driving, incessant horn and coughing—what an odd little man." 

Pretty much sums up those two hours.

When we finally arrived in one piece at our hotel, we walked to Starbucks for one last chai.  Anything to calm our nerves after that taxi ride!