The swiss-y becharre
Becharre is beautiful. It's perched atop a huge gorge and surrounded by semi snowy mountains. I think I liked Bekaa valley better, but Kadisha Valley certainly competes. With their churches, mountainous skyline, and cute litle streets lined with red roofed houses, I get a overwhelming feeling of being in switzerland (or at least what I imagine switzerland to be like, as I've never been). It's peaceful here, quiet. and they have lots of "chalets" dotting hills..i guess this is the place to go for some fantastic winter skiing.
I'm staying at Bauhaus on recommendation of a brit I met in beirut. Great little hotel..clean but unfortunately mostly empty. A french couple I met in Jordan showed up 5 minutes after me, but they left this morning. Tonight I will have the company of a serbian man and hopefully a good movie on tv.
Today I saw--
1. The Cedars - the lebanese flag is red and white with a cheesy looking green tree in the middle. This is a Cedar tree, the national icon because of a small forest of cedar trees approx 12km north of Becharre. I had to pay 8USD to get up there and back via taxi, but it was a pleasant little walk. Nothing as impressive as our redwoods back home, but still nice. It reminded me a lot of fort mason, if fort mason was surrounded by huge mountains and not by the bay.
2. Kadisha Valley - I did something very un-joanna like today. Actually two very un-joanna like things. I went hiking. in a dress. yes, you read that right. I went hiking OF MY OWN WILL in a DRESS. granted the only reason I was wearing the dress was because I washed both of my jeans in a kitchen pot this morning, but in retrospect the situation was the result of a series of bad decisions. The hike itself was semi grueling--1.5 hours down and a little less going back up the other side of the gorge since I hitched a ride back into town. The path was slightly overrun because I don't think many people hike it, and I kept getting scratched and poked by all sorts of unruly plants. At first I sorta felt cool that I was the only person on the path, but after falling flat on my ass twice I was starting to wonder if I actually hurt myself how long it would take for anybody to find me. or to even look for me, since I didn't tell anybody I was going hiking anyway!
I'm staying at Bauhaus on recommendation of a brit I met in beirut. Great little hotel..clean but unfortunately mostly empty. A french couple I met in Jordan showed up 5 minutes after me, but they left this morning. Tonight I will have the company of a serbian man and hopefully a good movie on tv.
Today I saw--
1. The Cedars - the lebanese flag is red and white with a cheesy looking green tree in the middle. This is a Cedar tree, the national icon because of a small forest of cedar trees approx 12km north of Becharre. I had to pay 8USD to get up there and back via taxi, but it was a pleasant little walk. Nothing as impressive as our redwoods back home, but still nice. It reminded me a lot of fort mason, if fort mason was surrounded by huge mountains and not by the bay.
2. Kadisha Valley - I did something very un-joanna like today. Actually two very un-joanna like things. I went hiking. in a dress. yes, you read that right. I went hiking OF MY OWN WILL in a DRESS. granted the only reason I was wearing the dress was because I washed both of my jeans in a kitchen pot this morning, but in retrospect the situation was the result of a series of bad decisions. The hike itself was semi grueling--1.5 hours down and a little less going back up the other side of the gorge since I hitched a ride back into town. The path was slightly overrun because I don't think many people hike it, and I kept getting scratched and poked by all sorts of unruly plants. At first I sorta felt cool that I was the only person on the path, but after falling flat on my ass twice I was starting to wonder if I actually hurt myself how long it would take for anybody to find me. or to even look for me, since I didn't tell anybody I was going hiking anyway!
1 Comments:
I googled it and it's beautiful! It looks like where the elves live in LOTR.
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