Wine, Hizbollah, Saida, and Jounieh

In Bekaa Valley you have Hezbollah, Wine, and Hash (Red Leb)...though we only got to experienced two out of the three.

From left to right: Hezbollah Secretary General Sayad Hassan Nasrallah, angels, an angel holding a scroll, a golden spirit blessing a missile, a soldier gazing at a missile, and a praying child against scattered clouds and a sparkling sky. 

 

Back to Chateau Ksara , Lebanon's largest winery operating since 1857. This year we skipped the tour and the tasting and went straight for the delicious salad bar, cheese plate, and a bottle of wine. We made our own self guided tour into the caves and found an unlocked door leading to resting bottles. We fought off temptation taking only photographs.

The Chateau had a large display of their Antique bottling equipment. 

Our goal for the day was to reach Saida (Sidon) in the south. I had the bright idea that instead of crossing the mountains back towards Beirut a better adventure would be to drive through the valley past what appears to be the only lake in Lebanon (El Qaraaoun). We past vineyards, wineries, and some goat herding along the way.

Halloween idea for 2011, maybe my brother George and I can tag team on this. You up for it?

If it wasn't those damn McDonalds collector's glasses then it was Khomeini billboards. Long story short, dusk was fast approaching as we were driving southbound and we came to a military check point. The stern looking soldiers didn't allow us to proceed forward because we were three Americans and a Brit. One of the officers took our passports and said "Hezbollah, too dangerous" and made us turn the car around. We were handed back our documents after a successful 180 and told to drive back to Beirut. So close but yet so far, this will go into the books as a two hour misadventure. But damn, seeing the lake and driving over unmarked speedbumps was well worth it.

We finally reached Sidon (Saida) only to be told that the two hotels were full. It felt like smaller Tripoli with a bigger middle finger pointed at us. We hopped back in the car and drove a few km north to the severely neglected Mina Beach "resort". Chewing gum smeared on the television speaker and duct taped glass on the balcony door was one of the amenities the resort included. On the plus side the sounds of the waves were nice and the view was decent as long as you didn't look north at the smoke stacks dumping blackness into the blue skies.

Maybe in the summer there's water in it.

The Sea Castle in Saida

Plastic only beaches.

One of the main attractions in Saida is the Musee du Savon (Soap Museum). Since it was the Eid, it was officially closed. A young lady acting as a tour guide for a small group worked her magic on the security guards and got us in. Additionally everyone bought stuff at the gift shop without a cashier. I'm sure the guards left a note with the money paper clipped to it.

Stamps for the soap.

More soap stamps.

Racks of soap. The museum is set in a 13th century building. I overheard the guide talk about how many of the buildings in the old town souq area are being renovated. This would be a fine example of one of them. 

We escaped out the back door into the souq area. Lebanese love their politicians.

Falafel sandwiches, the breakfast of champions. Here's how it is done: pull open the bread, place 4 falafel balls in the center then puncture them like they did something wrong and you're very angry at them. Next sprinkle some cilantro, slice a tomato, generously pour tahini, and roll like a burrito. Wrap with paper and twist the bottom to avoid spillage.

The master at work.

Q: What do Muslim boys in Lebanon get for the big Eid
A: Guns

Credit goes to Sonny for taking all the kids with guns photos. He called this one "Amir's first shotgun"

Gonna cap that infidel.

We said goodbye to the south only to come back to fully booked hotels in Beirut. There was nothing for the four of us thanks to the Eid. The front desk man at the Port View Hotel told us to go to 15 km to Jounieh, "where the bars and Christians are, Muslim families won't be staying there" True enough we found a room at the Zoukotel Hotel. The old man running the front desk was tops, as a bonus he was born and raised in Alexandria. The morning we left he told us that he was going to come and visit us...inshallah. The above bottles of wine are from the Don Carlos Bar. They'll open one for you but it will set you back between $500-1000 USD.  

Not only did Don Carlos have 50 year old bottles of vino, but the endless bottles of vintage cognac were displayed on almost every shelf. Sadly the establishment has seen better days. Opposite the bar are tables with all the place settings intact. Upstairs sits an out of commission kitchen. There is definite character here of a bygone era and back in the states a place like this it would be deemed a museum of sorts.

Happy campers prior to the bill, perhaps with priced drink menus and no funny business when it came to the check, this would a nice place to come back to. Let's hope the owners do the right thing.

The Zoukotel Hotel style wise is rooted in the 70's and that's a good thing! It would be Sonny's and Christine's final night. I felt a little sad dropping them off at the airport the following morning. It had been quite an experience we had together and just like that it was over. 

View from the hotel room. After our friends left the front desk man made us a deal to stay another night and that included a new but smaller room.

The ABC mall in Achrafiye had quite a nativity scene on the top floor near the duty free book shop where I picked up Off The Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War by Zeina Maasri. It is mind blowing learning about all the warring political factions in Lebanon; it is still a true volatile mess.

Martyrs' Statue riddled with bullet holes and all surviving 15 years of civil war.  

Martyrs' statue and square is to commemorate Lebanese nationalist hung by the Ottomans during World War I. We enjoyed our last supper at Joe Pena's in Gemmayze before the haul back to Jounieh. Basically our last day in Beirut was just as uneventful as this last sentence. 

Beirut Part Two

We had met Stewart on our first night. Ana and I ventured around Gymmayze on a quest for a quiet place to decompress and found The Bulldog pub off the main path. The setting was quiet as the crowd was reduced to a couple of people gathered in a corner at the end of the bar. Our attraction to this establishment was the lonesome beer tap and my thinking was the last time we had seen a beer on tap was the first week of August, so it was a no-brainer that we would find ourselves enjoying a pint of Lebanese brew. 

Finding conversation with the locals was easy, Stewart was the owner and we talked quite a bit about the city and beyond. He had offered to take us on an excursion to Baalbek, a site of Roman period temple ruins near the Syrian boarder in the Bekaa Valley. He offered the right price and we accepted. I know this kind of behavior on our part might seem slightly radical, perhaps dangerous to our friends back home, I mean who accepts an invitation to go on a day trip in a foreign country with a complete stranger, apparently we did. 

Hard to imagine the scale

We decided on a time in the late morning to meet up with Stewart and his month old puppy Lizzy. Ana is deathly afraid of dogs so she rode shotgun while Lizzy slept on my lap during the almost two hour ride through mountains and valleys past military check points and over rebuilt bombed out bridges.

Ana in the corner

Baalbek/ Heliopolis (City of the Sun) was more than amazing. Ana and I had been to Rome and did all the obligatory sights and I must admit Baalbek ups the ante; there is no comparison. If someone told me aliens built the structure, such reasoning might not be far fetched considering the leading theory argues that the columns for the Temple of Jupiter were from Aswan, Egypt…meaning that 128 rose granite seventy-foot columns somehow arrived by land and sea. That my friend is the million-dollar question to this mystery of the ancient world. If you ever had the itch to feel insignificant, this is your kind of destination.

A fallen top...note the poppy carvings

Stewart entertained the thought of what the nomadic desert dwellers must had experienced upon their initial encounter with Baalbek back in the heyday, as to say when the joint was hopping. The poor Bedouins (or the equivalent) must have shit their camels when they crossed over the Anti-Lebanon Mountain Range into Bekaa Valley and came upon Heliopolis. Never mind that there was probably opium and wine waiting inside. 

Inside

Baalbek is Hezbollah territory, in addition to postcards, books, and replica Roman coins at one of the many souvenir booths lining the entrance to Heliopolis you can also get a Hezbollah t-shirt and flag for your loved ones. About two kilometers down the road is a Palestinian camp located on the outskirts of town. I talked Stewart into indulging us in the experience of entering it. We definitely didn’t belong. Most of the kids had toy guns and were shooting at one another. I remembered playing Cowboys and Indians growing up, I wondered if they were playing Martyr and Infidel? We searched for a couple of souvenirs but settled on taking a couple of photos and that was the point we were brought into the command center for questioning. The head of the camp was enjoying his afternoon sheesha and had a small chat with Stewart in Arabic; this was enough to guarantee our peaceful exit. According to Stewart this was one of the more civilized camps in the country. Palestinians have no rights in Lebanon, in other words they don’t have much left to lose?

What me worry?

Outside the command center

Our trip ended with a visit to Caves De Ksara, the major wine producer in Lebanon. We tasted four offerings and toured the caves beneath the winery. The drive back to Beirut was quiet and pleasant.

Vino!

Sight of the cave

One of the samplings

We skipped dinner in lieu of a small bucket of popcorn in the lobby prior to catching a film at the festival...there had been much talk about the film we wanted to see and the line was long. We made it into the theatre just as the lights dimmed and found our seats (yes, they are numbered) but we really could have sat anywhere. I counted 6 other people…so much for all the hype. The projector started to roll as did the Arabic soundtrack, pretty unusual beginning for a Swiss film I thought. No sooner than uttering those very words, we wondered out loud if we were in the right place. Oops. We did make it to the right show and on time thanks to a minor delay.

The evening ended at Club 43 (non-profit, and volunteer run establishment) two doors down from our guesthouse. We ordered hummus and baba ganoush and were served a complementary shot of what might have been a Lebanese version of a margarita. The café makes their own beer and wine and when I tried to order a glass of their homebrew I was initially denied, the server said that it wasn’t that good and offered me a commercial brand. Now, that made me more determined to try one and after much coaxing my request was finally granted. It was more drinkable than Egyptian beer. I also tried their red wine and thought it was pretty decent. It seemed most patrons came for the open wine and cheese menu, why wouldn’t you, for $30/person you can have all the cheese and wine to your heart’s content. The Club offers themed nights such as movie, karaoke, and there was even a poster for a non-smoking evening-that was literally the event.