Baalbeck, Lebanon
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Our final stop in Lebanon was Baalbek, the base for Hezbollah – the anti-Israel fighting group. We had a crappy time getting there.. a whole day affair and we kept getting ripped off by bus drivers which is obviously overly frustrating. I was tired and fed up and had a little cry in the back of the bus and a soldier noticed and he ended up paying our bus fare and then driving us into the city. He wouldn't even accept any money. Yet again an amazingly kind person in Lebanon. Luke said finally my crying paid off J .. Anyway back to Hezbollah town. Luckily we weren’t caught in any firing.. instead we had a really nice time in this town. Our hotel owner was awesome.. I had tea and fruit with him while Luke was taking a nap, then when he got up, we all chatted over more tea then he showed us some marijuana growing outside his hotel. He also kept calling the hotel owner from Becharre (the last town in the mountains) a "son of bitch".. it was too funny. We preferred hanging out with this guy over sightseeing. At night there was some concert in town where so important people were attending, so the streets were lined with huge tanks and probably a hundred or so soldiers. We weren't sure if we should feel safe or scared. The next morning we went out to visit the famous Baalbek ruins. But to be honest we were already starting to get “ruined” out so we didn’t linger too long.
That about covers our Lebanon experience. Luke and I both agreed it was our favorite country so far on the trip. It was most like home and the people always went out of their ways to make us feel welcome.
