Who gonna run this town tonight?

So as that song was getting wide spread play in America, I was heading to Lebanon. The original plan was to visit Syria as well, but I decided to stay in Lebanon, namely Beirut. I was more ready than I'd ever been for R&R this time out. I stayed in Sudan for 14 weeks instead of my usual 10. An extra month in the field will definitely prepare you for R&R. I flew out of Nairobi in the afternoon and reached Doha, Qatar about 8 pm. My flight to Beirut wasn't until 8 am so I had planned to sleep in the airport. That planned failed. So as I wandered around Doha International Airport (which sounds larger than it is, it's more like the airport in Fayetteville, NC) I met some interesting people. It was apparent that I was in the middle east. There weren't a lot of white dudes around that night. If there were they were mostly British guys. I met and chatted with an Iranian guy for a while and before I knew it the sun was rising.

The flight to Beirut was only a couple of hours and I was greeted by my co workers at the airport with a sign reading "Jay Z." Even after 48 hours with no sleep I could still laugh at that and just mumbled "I wish" and we were on our way out. We rented a car and immediately headed out of the city of Beirut up to Tripoli. Tripoli is a friendly neighborhood that's 100% Muslim and the people were very inviting. We stayed in a "Hotel" that was family owned and run. Sort of like something you would expect to see in a Chevy Chase vacation movie. We beat around Tripoli that night and headed out the next morning.

On the way we stopped for "breakfast." In Beirut there's everything, restaurant wise, that we have in the States. Burger King, (went three times) Pizza Hut, (once) Starbucks, (probably twelve times) Dunkin Doughnuts, (zero) because there was Krispie Kreme! (I lost count on this one) So once we were outside of the city those things disappeared. We followed the locals to a small part of town and went into a food vendor's shop. With our Arabic being non-existent (Sudanese Arabic is very different from the classical one) we just pointed and said "four of those." It turned out well though, we had these pizza pocket things that had basil, oil, and cheese in them. So we washed it down with a cup of coffee we bought from the back of a bicycle and headed up to the cedars. In the mountains of north Lebanon there is a forest of cedars that is presumed to be one of the oldest in the world. There are mentions of it in the Old Testament. It was cool but it really just was a bunch of cedars. Good enough. We took lunch there and then started to drive for Balbeck.

The drive to Balbeck was definitely interesting. We drove through the mountains of north Lebanon on roads that were at sometimes about as wide as a driveway back home. And no guard rails. Now I'm not afraid of heights, ok yes I am. So that was an interestingly, terrifyingly, amazing drive. Along the way was pretty remote desert with the occasional passing truck. Kind of like in Body of Lies when Leo is driving to meet that terrorist informant. But still a good experience nonetheless. We reached Balbeck in the afternoon to see an old Roman ruin. It was interesting, but if you've seen one you've seen 'em all. So we made our drive back to Beirut instead of sleeping in Balbeck. We had been told that Hezbollah has a strong presence there and not five minutes out of the car young boys were trying to sell us Hezbollah T Shirts. And since some Americans were recently kidnapped there we decided it best to get back to the city.

The next morning we drove down to the Israeli border. We spent the afternoon at an orphanage that one of our friends runs there. It overlooks Mt Hermon, the site of Jesus' transfigurarion. We met the children and spent some time looking around in their very impressive garden. We had asked if someone would be willing to drive us to the border so we could take a look. Israel and Lebanon are not on good terms with each other. Lebanon being mostly Muslim in faith and Israel being mostly Jewish have fought over land on the border for years. Not too long ago Israel was firing missiles into Lebanon. So the situation now is still tense, but peaceful. On the drive down to the border we saw many billboards that Muslim extremists have erected to praise martyrs for their suicide bombings. There was a very strong UN presence there as well. We snapped some photos of the border, took a group picture with the UN guys and after a shady Arab guy in a small truck stopped and yelled at us in Arabic, we thought it best to get back to the city again.

I spent the next few days taking in Beirut. For me being away from home it was a nice place to be. Some of the same comforts from America are there as well as great Lebanese culture. The people in Lebanon are the warmest people I've ever met. Me and my buddy (whose name is actually Buddy) found a blues band at a local place and saw them three nights in a row. When they'd finish their set they would sit and talk with us, recommending that we see this or that and just chat about life. So during the day we would beat around the city taking in great Lebanese food as we went, and then we'd go hear unfamiliar people perform oh so familiar songs and then spend a couple hours just chilling with them. I didn't want to leave by the end of the trip. The people, the food, the culture, and being right on the Mediterranean was just too much of an experience to leave after a little over a week. I will definitely plan to go back to Lebanon one day. So as all of the locals we met there would say when they found out we were Americans "don't believe all that you hear on CNN. Lebanon is a great country."

P.S. Sorry I couldn't post photos yet. My computer cord got fried from a power surge on our generator in Yirol, Sudan. I'll get some up once I can get my photos off that computer.