In typical Lebanese fashion there are hardly any road signs to get to this place so we ask some man for directions to which he tells us to follow him and he drives us there! Once we get there the area is heaving with pilgrims as it is Easter time.
On the way out, our car is really boxed in and whilst I am trying to get out of the tightly packed space I accidentally hit into another car. I am mortified, but someone comes up and says it doesn’t matter. They probably just think Japanese people are bad drivers!!!!
We drive through Bekaa Valley, which despite its name isn’t actually a valley but actually a high plateau. We are on our way to Baalbek, where you need to drive high up into the mountains through the Yebel Sannine Mt Range. Again, in typical Lebanese fashion the roads are full of bone shaking pot holes. We drive high up into the mountains and there is snow still up here!
Baalbek is infamously the Hezbollah’s strategic headquarters , where back in 2006 took a battering during the Israel-Hezbollah War, with up to 20% of it’s building destroyed. And although there are many yellow Hezbollah flags flying across the region, the town’s population is mixed Christian and Muslim.
Baalbek is the home to an incredibly impressive ancient Roman site in Lebanon. And unlike Rome, where the ruins are full of tourists, there are surprising hardly any here so you basically get the site to yourself!
The drive home along the busy mountain road is yet again very stressful. Cars over take on blind corners head onto oncoming vehicles and the potholes are immense! Some of the potholes take up the entire road and you have to drive really really slow, but at the same time cars are trying to over take head onto other cars on the other side of the road. It's mental!
The night ends with us smoking more shisha at the café we went to on our first night.
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