17 November 2009

Hiking in the Mist


I finally got at chance to get out of the city again. 


Avedis CEO at the adventure company Sport4life invited my for a reconnaissance hike together with a collegue of his in the forrest in north Lebanon, close to the Syrian border. 


I was up 5 o'clock in them morning at there was no trafic. It was really surreal to look at teh empty streets when they take so much focus in the daily routines. I felt like I was in a dream, no noise, no people and no cars. Reality hit me though, I had to get at taxi, so I placed myself in the middle of an intersection and moments after I was driving through the empty streets of Beirut to meet my new friend Avedis. We were on I way to the kobayat national reserve!


I looked back and gazed on the pollution covering Beirut like a sepia silk veil although there nothing soft about this mist of cancer. I wondered out loud why there were no railway or working buses in Lebanon and the guys told me that a half a decade ago, there was a railway going from Turkey via Syria, down the costal line of Lebanon to Palestine. When they told me about the buses, they laughed at told me that the late president Hariri committed an infrastural genocide so people would drive cars instead, so the economy would benefit from the car sales. This sounded naturally like one of the government corruption stories I heard all the time and I got use to the tone of sarcasm everybody had when talking about national economy or the government.. 



It did not take up long to get to the park, I often forget the that Lebanon is one of the smallest country in the world and when you drive from the coast and head straight up in the mountains, the changing scenery just made my smile bigger and pupils wider.

Before we entered the natural reserve we were stopped by a relativ big military checkpoint, all the way we have been slaloming out way through them, but being in the middle of a forrest there was a big checkpoint. What surprised me the most however, was the sloppy way the military were holding their sub machine guns and swinging them around. We got through the check point with no hassel though and we were about to start our hike. 







This little critter attacked my camera lens! 
Unfortunately I jumped back made a noise like a little girl, 
instead of being cool and getting a great action shoot. 




This Lady greeted us with at warm smile although she did not like 
posing for me. She told us about a secret Phonetician tomb 
and exhilarated like kids we looked for it.


The Secret Phoenitician tomb




This mule did not move as I approached it.


Still standing still?


Looking around, not caring.


The reason the mule did not move was because of a deformed leg
that seemed be to big. We were amazed that the mule so far had
 been safe from the wolfs and hyenas.     


We heard some bell in the mist, an eerie sound when you do 
not know what is approaching.


Eerie goats


The Ram, overlooking the head


The Ram looking at me.


Ahmad the friendly shepherd 


Mahmood the other friendly shepherd


Unfortunately the adventurous nature experience was at times tarnish by the extremely bad habit of the Lebanese. They love killing birds and the don't care about keeping picking up the shell or the water bottle, plastic bags, food etc




1 comment:

  1. I absolutely love the photo of the Ram looking at you!

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