Another night at the Pension Haddad, another mile of my poor skin destroyed by marauding mosquitoes. CL, Kris and I were up and on the road bright and early. We found the minibus to Bcharre and rode out the three hours enjoying the increasingly dramatic scenery. The bus rolled to a stop outside a military installation. We were the only people left on board apart from the driver.
"Ici Les Cedres," he told me in French, since we had earlier established that this was the easiest way to communicate.
"But we asked for Bcharre," I said in French.
"But I thought you wanted the Cedars."
And so it came to pass that our voyage to the Kadisha Valley began with an unplanned visit to the Cedars, the last forest of cedar trees in Lebanon, followed by a 4km hike back down the road to Bcharre.
The Cedars is a beautiful forest, according to the French inscription literally called The Forest of the Cedars of God. At the centre of the very modest stand of cedar trees is a dead tree into whose larger branches the bodies of people have been sculpted. In the crux of the tree, a figure that looks suspiciously like Jesus appears to be crucified. 
Down the other side of the hill, the forest disappears abruptly and there is an incredible panorama of snow-covered mountains and rolling rocky hills. 
CL hiked off to take pictures of the snow. I sat on a rock and looked at the hills, breathing in the smells of the flowers and listening to the grumbling of the insects.
Down the other side of the hill, the forest disappears abruptly and there is an incredible panorama of snow-covered mountains and rolling rocky hills. 
CL hiked off to take pictures of the snow. I sat on a rock and looked at the hills, breathing in the smells of the flowers and listening to the grumbling of the insects.We hiked back to Bcharre with a little help from a guy who let us ride in the back of his pickup truck for about one and a half kilometres. We enjoyed a burger lunch at the local cafe and then, provisioned with appetising cans of luncheon meat and hummus, we set off for the valley floor.
The path to the Kadisha Valley floor from Bcharre town is supposed to run down the back of the church. We followed this path and, after climbing down a very steep path that wound between houses built into the cliff face, we came to a dead end. A lady leaned out of her window and shouted directions. We could walk all the way back up the incline (ugh) or we could cut through her neighbour's orchard in order to get to the path. Her neighbour, she said, "probably wouldn't shoot us". Awesome.
We cut through the orchard, pausing now and again to enjoy the views. The orchard ended at a small stream that ran down the side of the mountain. 
There were two paths, one across it and one up the rocks and around the top. A small man carrying a large box motioned to us that he was going down to the valley and we should cut across the stream. Now, when you are in a remote part of a country apparently teetering on the brink of civil war and you find yourself at a junction, looking for a way down a mountain, I challenge you to find a better source of directions than a small man carrying a large box. Who doesn't speak English. Or, from later inspection, any other recognisable language. We followed Small Large Box Man down the path and then, being more accustomed to the descent than us, he disappeared round a corner. As I took the bend in my stride, I came to a halt. The path ahead of us, the one and only path down the mountainside, was approximately one and a half feet wide. Very narrow indeed. When leading strangers down a mountainside along a narrow path, there are many things that would occur to the average person to do. Offer them water. Make polite conversation. Show worn photos of toothless wife and mugging grandkids. However, Small Large Box Man, in a fit of what can only be described as Fear Factor genius, had dumped his large box squarely onto the path. Hovering above it and to either side were hundreds of bees. The box had contained bees. Now there were bees everywhere and I had to walk through them. SLBM motioned for me to walk by as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 
CL, Kris and I braved the bee gauntlet and continued our walk down the mountainside none the worse for wear.
There were two paths, one across it and one up the rocks and around the top. A small man carrying a large box motioned to us that he was going down to the valley and we should cut across the stream. Now, when you are in a remote part of a country apparently teetering on the brink of civil war and you find yourself at a junction, looking for a way down a mountain, I challenge you to find a better source of directions than a small man carrying a large box. Who doesn't speak English. Or, from later inspection, any other recognisable language. We followed Small Large Box Man down the path and then, being more accustomed to the descent than us, he disappeared round a corner. As I took the bend in my stride, I came to a halt. The path ahead of us, the one and only path down the mountainside, was approximately one and a half feet wide. Very narrow indeed. When leading strangers down a mountainside along a narrow path, there are many things that would occur to the average person to do. Offer them water. Make polite conversation. Show worn photos of toothless wife and mugging grandkids. However, Small Large Box Man, in a fit of what can only be described as Fear Factor genius, had dumped his large box squarely onto the path. Hovering above it and to either side were hundreds of bees. The box had contained bees. Now there were bees everywhere and I had to walk through them. SLBM motioned for me to walk by as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 
CL, Kris and I braved the bee gauntlet and continued our walk down the mountainside none the worse for wear.The Kadisha Valley is an exquisitely beautiful place. Not really a traditional valley but more of a gorge, the valley is formed by a deep, verdant chasm between two mountains. The valley floor and mountainsides are teeming with vegetation. Along the valley floor there is a dirt track negotiable by 4x4, leading between obscure houses and an incredibly pointless restaurant. The attractions of the Kadisha Valley are the scenery, the isolation and the monasteries. Several monasteries are built into the rock walls of the valley. Our destination was Deir Qannoubine, a monastery approximately 7km through the valley from the bottom of the Bcharre path. Deir Qannoubine is very special for many reasons, but to me the exquisiteness of its name is unrivalled by its other features. Qannoubine means Monastery. It is literally named Monastery Monastery, or, to give it the full nomenclature, Our Lady of the Monastery Monastery. It is said to be a functioning convent, which makes its double naming as a monastery even funnier.
Several hours and pints of sweat later, we reached Deir Qannoubine. About two-thirds up the rock wall of the valley, the monastery looks out over the valley to stunning effect, taking in the forests, houses, crags and waterfalls. The monastery was abandoned. A candle burning in the chapel meant that someone had been there recently, but we could find no person in residence. Kris and CL put up a tent to sleep in. I opted to sleep on the observation deck under the stars, a choice that I would not regret. I briefly flirted with the idea of sleeping in the chapel, but the chapel was colder than the deck and also had a creepy Evil Dead vibe that I didn't fancy braving.
We got a fire started and broke open our cans of "food". Tinned hummus and luncheon meat may have sounded good when we were in town, but the reality was horrific. The luncheon meat was particularly bad, but the hummus was a revelation of despair. It glooped out of the can in dry chunks and tasted like mashed potato soaked in vinegar. Beautiful. 
We sat around the fire, drank tea, choked down our "food" and bedded down for the night.
We sat around the fire, drank tea, choked down our "food" and bedded down for the night.Lying on the observation deck, looking at the stars, the wind ruffling my hair, the heat of the day not yet gone, it was again impossible to imagine that somewhere on the other side of this great beauty and silence people were firing guns at each other. It's easy to think of conflicts as remote when you are in a different country or continent, but when you are in the same country, maybe three or four hours drive from the heart of the action, and all you can hear is the whistle of the wind and the creaking of the crickets, it really drives home the fact that violence is not as all-encompassing as the media would have us believe. People shooting in Beirut did not equal hordes of armed crazies running amok on every patch of land in the country. The moon was gibbous and hung bright and close. The stars were above my head, my feet touching the edge of the deck beneath which was a sheer drop to the valley floor. Not a shout, an explosion, a single shot could be heard. The loudest thing out here was my breathing and the Polish muttering of CL and Kris in their tent fifty yards away.
I drifted off to sleep. The strange silence that only religious buildings can produce enveloped me. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I expected blood-hungry undead nuns to burst from the cellars and devour us for trespassing. They never did.
No comments:
Post a Comment