Sylvia's Journal

If our trip to the Jeita grottos was about nature’s ingenuity, yesterday’s trip to Baalbeck was about man’s ingenuity and what you can do with free labor.

We walked around the massive stones and pillars for hours; first with our guide who looked liked uncle Paul, or, with his sunglasses on, like our Manchester neighbor Bill. Then, after lunch and on our own pace, now more knowledgeable, we went back and toured the site once more.

Just as I remembered from my last visit there, some 33 years ago, we were practically the only tourists. The only other flock we spotted was a busload with Japanese but they were in a hurry and disappeared quickly to their next destination.

In English that took some getting used to our guide explained both the socio-cultural and architectural context of what we were seeing. We marveled at the 1000+ ton stones that were sitting in places that nowadays would require enormous cranes.

The whole complex is a study in patience: the large temple complex took several 100s of years to complete and by the time the last pagan decorations were to be carved Christianity arrived with its own symbols and so the carving stopped. New images and symbols were called for.

Some of the granite pillars had come all the way from Upper Egypt: again, all this is possible with patience and lots of free labor.

For lunch we went easy and chose from a series of prepared dishes in an unassuming local place. There was no wine as we were in a predominantly Moslem region of Lebanon with many of the outward appearances of conservative Islam.

We talked Sita out of buying a Hizbollah tea shirt but she did manage to get a laminate plate with the image of the disappeared Moussa Sadr who never got off the plane he took to Trablous in 1977. In that part of the Beqaa Valley he is still very much present.

On our dizzying ride back over the Lebanon mountain range we stopped at the Ksara Winery that produces the wines we have been drinking. We were too late for the wine tasting and tour but not too late for buying. We bought a few bottles to replace the ones we had consumed at Alistair’s with maybe an extra to take back to Kabul and sneak through customs. We did buy a small bottle of arak because we have this fantasy of sitting on the terrace of our house in Kabul on a warm spring evening in the near future, recalling memories of our Lebanon trip.

The culinary highlight of the day was our visit to La Creperie, a restaurant that is perched on a rock overlooking Jounieh’s harbor in Kaslik. The restaurant is owned and run by Fadi who is the father of my MSH colleague Mayssa. Mayssa and I share a love of Lebanon and so I was introduced to the restaurant some time ago and a visit was on the program. But each day our lunches were so enormous that we did not need an evening meal.

After our simple and small lunch yesterday the timing for dinner at La Creperie was right. We were chided a little to have waited so long (4 evenings) for our meal there. But our explanation was accepted and our reasoning had been right, one should fast most of the day before going to La Creperie.

We were given the royal treatment in every which way as Fadi pulled out all the stops to give us a ‘taste’ of what his restaurant has to offer. We stretched our visit to over 3 hours munching on this then that galette, this then that crepe, liberally accompanied by Bretagne’s best Cidre. The meal was completed with fruit and coffee accompanied by a small glass of a local triple sec called Orangealina that is produced by another fine Lebanese wine estate, les Tourelles.

It was Lebanese hospitality at its best. We were treated as family. This also meant that there was no check at the end and an exhortation to visit again soon. We happily agreed to do so. It is one other reason to bring us back here. Last night’s was probably the most extraordinary eating experience we have ever had here or anywhere else.