Caving in Roueiss

What’s this , you wonder? Well, that’s a mud butt.

You see, I got this invitation on Facebook; whether I was interested in ‘discovering the galleries of the Roueiss cave in Aqoura’.
I’m always interested, and I had never been to the Roueiss cave. I checked it up on the internet. The cave is very accessible for beginners, because 'you can walk from the entrance to the exit,’ I read. (Who's the clown that wrote that?)

That would be an easy Sunday, I figured. The invitation did mention that I should bring a change of clothing. But you know how people here can be so careful, so I did not think too much of that either. And off my 7-year old and I went. Didn’t it say minimum age is 12? Oops, didn’t read that one.

The Rouiss cave lies quite close to the Afqa cave, in this mountain range, in beds of limestone. There are some layers of volcanic rock as well, which keep the water from seeping all the way down.

The Roueiss Cave is Lebanon's second deepest cave, some 6 kilometers long (Jeita being the first), In spring time the cave is difficult to negotiate, since the cave floods. Together with the Afqa cave, it is the main source of the Ibrahim River. But at the end of summer, the river has totally dried up. Or so I thought.

When we got there, with the guide, there was another group, of some 30 people, all gearing up, and ready to explore the exact same cave; Hardhats on, lights lit.

The 'real deal'; carbide caver lamps

‘That won’t do,’ says the guide, ‘in that case, we’ll explore the upper one.” The upper one, however, is not the one you can walk from entrance to exit, as promised. Are you kidding?

In the beginning you try to keep your hands from getting muddy. But then you’ve got to grab onto the mud in order to steady yourself. So you try to keep your pants clean. Then you have to slide down a mud-covered passage to get to the next one. You try to keep your knees clean. Until you’ve got to climb on all fours, because the opening is so narrow, you cannot even squat your way through it. But your shirt is still clean.

Until you’ve got to slither on your belly, like a snake, though the mud, and your camera -which you’ve got hanging on your back, because it's got mud all over - gets hooked by the overhanging rock. Boy, this is no sport for claustrophobic people.

 A National Geographic documentary in the making

And then through the water up to your thighs, 15 degrees Celsius, the mud sucking at you shoes. I swear, if I would have lost my shoe in that water, I would have left it there. I had to crawl sideways through tunnels that would hook my hips (“mom, you’re too fat to make it through here’).

I got a helmet with a lamp (very useful, as it is dark, and you constantly bump your head against the cave roof), but the ‘real people’, the ones that do this for fun, had carbide lamps. They put carbide in a container they carry with them, mix it with water, and this produces a gas that they light. It gives a very pretty light.

So here I am, expecting to keep it clean, and next thing I know, I find myself in a National Geographic documentary, crawling through tight passages, sliding down muddy shutes and wading through water-filled tunnels. But it was totally fascinating. This cave is a true labyrinth of passageways shooting off left and right. The guide with us, Joe, knew his way around, but if you get lost, you can roam around for days, and you won’t find your way out.

Experienced caver

In retrospect, the 12 year minimum age had a reason. A 7 year old has short legs, and cannot bridge the gap from one slippery rock to another, trying to climb over some deep dark hole that is who knows how many meters deep. However, after 2 hours of slithering, crawling, walking on all fours and pushing myself sideways though crevasses, I was tired, while the 7-year old was hopping left and right.

Fellow cavers (with the 'real' lamps)

There was a German lady with us, probably in her early seventies, and in the mud she went, through the water, on her belly, and her behind, and not one complaint. The only remark she had was that maybe they could have informed her better what to wear. She was wearing a white woolen sweater. For a while.

So. Don’t know what to do next Sunday? Get a guide, and go explore Roueiss. Or go with these guys. It’s absolutely worth it. And take a camera with you! And if you’re into the geology of things, check out this document.

There, I Fixed It

There’s this web site in the States that’s called ‘There, I Fixed It.’ . An entire collection of how people ‘fix’ things. A friend of mine calls it ‘redneck repairs’, but I see a lot of Lebanese tinker work in the way they fix things.

 

Like this one for instance. I saw it the other day near the beaches. The car is obviously still driving. After all, why would you pay mechanic (road taxes) if it isn’t? But at some point the trunk didn’t lock anymore, and somehow the cover of the petrol tank got left at some gas station as well. But hey, I can fix that.

On Getting Lost

I went to the cemetery to visit Ibrahim. It’s been 3 years since he died. His mom is one strong woman. I don't know how she does it.

Every time I go to Ibrahim, I have to ask one of the guards where he lies. It’s quite a big cemetery, Bashoura, and an old one, and so the graves are all jumbled up, and I can never find him. I pronounce Ibrahim’s last name clearly different from what they have in mind, and so it usually takes some time before they have figured out who I am looking for, and I have figured out where he is.

And while I was standing there, at his grave, contemplating whether I should feel guilty over the fact that I cannot find his grave, I see this family roaming around. Up en down, clambering over tombs, maneuvering between graves, which are packed back to back. It’s early morning, but it’s hot already, and you can see the sweat glistening on their faces as they’re walking around. They come in my direction, and for a moment I think they come and visit Ibrahim as well. But no, they’re lost. They cannot find their grave either.

That made me feel a little better. It also reminds me think of another graveyard story, also about a lost grave, but a not so sad story, though. It’s rather funny. At least, whenever my husband tells me the story, he has to laugh. So if you are in a somber mood, do not read on.

My husband’s grandmother died at the height of the Lebanese civil war. It was her wish to be buried in Tripoli. However, there was fighting going on in both Beirut and Tripoli at the time, and the road to Tripoli, with several militia checkpoints to cross, wasn’t altogether safe either. But you cannot deny a dying woman her last wish. Her sons were not in the country, and so her son-in-law, with her two grandsons (one of them my husband), decided they would have get her to Tripoli themselves. There was no question that anyone else could join them, the roads were simply not safe. It was mid-summer, hot as can be, and so they drive up to Tripoli, coffin in tow.

They make it passed all the checkpoints without a problem, but in Tripoli, the situation – and I am not speaking weather-wise – is even hotter. Hubbie cannot remember who was fighting whom, Palestinians, Syrians or some local sunni militia, but there were bullets whizzing by all over the place. So here they arrive, at the grave yard, and the custodian says the grave has been dug somewhere ‘in the back’ and he gestures with his hand. “Over there,” he points hastily. He’s organized a local sheikh, who will preside over the funeral, but there is no way that the custodian is going to risk his life by getting out of the safety of the gatehouse to the cemetery.

They will have to find the freshly dug grave themselves. They wait for a while, sitting around the coffin at the gatehouse of the graveyard, for the shooting to abate, but the sheikh says it has been like that for 3 days. This could go on for hours and hours, maybe even days. There is no refrigerator, because there’s no electricity, and so there’s some urgency in getting the lady settled.

“Let’s go,” says the father in-law. And here they go; the sheikh in his thick dark long mantle, and 3 men in black woolen suits, balancing a wooden coffin, in search of a grave. But the place is packed with graves, and there are no real walkways in between. They’ve got to climb over other graves in order to get to the corner indicated. In woolen suits. In the heat. With a heavy coffin. And with sporadic shooting around them. And they clamber and climb, constantly balancing the coffin, and they sweat and sweat. And they just cannot find that hole! Where’s the grave? Where’s the darn custodian?

It doesn’t take long for them to get a laughing fit. It’s like a movie, a scene from a slapstick. It just cannot get more ridiculous than this.

They eventually find the grave. The sheikh says his prayers, one of the workers of the graveyard has finally joined them, and so together they place her body, and cover it.

This all comes to mind, while I'm standing with Ibrahim. He probably would have thought that to be a funny story too.

On Cedar Trees and the Outdoors

Some will probably admire me for my constant outdoor activities. You probably think I love adventure, nature, the outdoors, physical activities such as hiking and rappelling and mountain climbing, and that I am constantly thinking about how I can enlighten my children on the beauty of this country.

I’m afraid I have to disappoint you. I do not enjoy physical activities. I’m not a big fan of the outdoors. I hate spiders, for instance. Nature is not really my thing either. And as far as enlightening my children, well, they can look it up on the Internet. I do like adventure though.

But the problem is, I live in an apartment. In Beirut. A city with some 1 million souls, all with honking cars, and busted exhaust pipes, and big fat diesel trucks that barrel themselves through the narrow streets, and sirens of car alarms, ambulances, fire engines and police cars. And weather that just does not want to get cooler. It’s just too hot, noisy, dusty and stinky right now.

During the week I work, so that’s not a problem. But over the weekend I am home. And it takes me about 30 minutes to develop cabin fever. In order to keep my sanity, I’ve got to get out. Sorry to disappoint you, but if I had a garden, I’d be wallowing in a hammock 24/7. And never get out.

With that obsessive compulsive ‘needing to be on the road’ disorder, you’d think I would have seen the entire country. Well, there’s parts of this country I’ve never been to. Such as this forest, the Shouf Cedar Reserve. Until now, of course.

Actually, I had been here, but in another part (the Ain Zhalta part). It is one of the largest cedar reserves in Lebanon (some 500 ha, although not all of it has trees on it, it seems), and it’s got 4 entrances. It was the first time I went in from the Barouk side. There were some very big trees there; some say they’re close to 2,000 years old.

The Lebanese cedar - Cedrus libani - is a cedar species of native to the mountains of the Mediterranean region, and it only grows above 1,300 meter. The most striking characters of the Lebanon Cedar are the numerous large and wide-spreading horizontal branches and the broad and flattened summit of the full-grown tree. (Source)

Cedars in Barouk have been infected with what is presumed to be a fungal disease. Stagheading and crown defoliation are the main symptoms. (Stagheading could be a physiological reaction to stress, and not necessarily a symptom of a fungus disease or infection.). (Source)

Don’t think you’re going to be able to walk in between these staggering trees in silence, allowing you to contemplate. These forests are popular, and thus you got to push your way through throngs of ladies in high heels. Which is fine with me, I don’t do any contemplating. I’m just glad to get out of the city. Having said that, I think next week I'm going on a real adventure again. Stay tuned.

Life is Good . . .

Can’t get enough of moments like this; Friday evenings. Work is finished, the weekend has begun. Going out with your friends to the HR for some drinks. 16 Ounce triple platinum Margueritas on the rocks, not frozen, and more diet Coke than they can haul. French fries without seasoning, and Caesar salad without the olives. We all have our peculiarities. And we laugh. And bitch. And share. And talk. And plan. About that road trip we’re going to take one day in the US in a camper. But we’ve got to be fast, or else one of them is going to need a walker. But not too fast, because the other won’t be able to cross the border. Who knows, one day it will materialize.

And then, we leave happy, ready for the weekend, and walk onto the Beirut Corniche, and look out over the Mediterranean Sea. The weather in the evening is mild right now. Not too hot, not too cold. The best season of the year; fall.

Life is good when you have friends.

Something Else . . .

Look what I saw on Hamra last weekend.

I was making pictures of these three ladies walking towards me wearing white uniforms, when suddenly, one of them ran across the street toward my daughter, and . . . .

Isn’t that sweet? We ran into our old housekeeper, Cecile. She was my daughter’s favorite. Well, actually, Mariza was, but when Mariza left for Miami, and Cecile took her place, Cecile became her favorite. I still know the names of all the housekeepers that ever worked for us. There was Roula, an Egyptian with a mean eye, whose husband ran off with another woman. Mali, from Sri Lanka, whose husband was handicapped, and whom I never heard from again after the tsunami on Christmas Day. We had Sounita, whose husband drank all her money away, and Sindra, whose daughter died while she lived here, and she left early, devastated. Mariza, who was a success story, because she ended up owning her own business and house in Miami Beach. And Cecile, who decided she wanted to come back, but then Miriam had already taken her place. Miriam, who leaves 3 children behind while she’s working here.

What sad stories these ladies share. And how warm they are with our children. Something you should appreciate, I think.

Over the Mountains and into the Valley

If it weren’t for that horrendous and ugly Damascus Highway, I’d be spending more time in the Beqaa Valley . As it is, I rarely get to go there. I’ve tried to get over the mountain ridge another way, but once you’ve done the Barouq way or the Bois de Boulogne way (or the Cedars way, if you really want to go out of your way), you’ve just about had it with those two as well. I know there’s one road going from Feraya, which I haven’t tried yet, and one all the way down south, but with accurate road maps nonexistent and car computers that use Lebanese army maps (equally inaccurate), it’s difficult to find your way over those mountains.

My brother keeps telling me to download the entire Google map system onto a simple Nokia, and then use my phone and Google maps (or something along those lines) to get on the right track, but with that much technology, and a foreign face, I just might be apprehended as the next Israeli spy in the Lebanese firmament of some 131 one caught so far. They're a little trigger-happy, so to speak.

And so I don’t get there often enough. Which is a pity, because it is quite beautiful. You can imagine yourself being in the Roussillon in France, between the vineyards. For those who do not know about Lebanese wine ; Kefraya makes some excellent white ones. And Chateau Muzar has some really deep red ones. Wine making in the Beqaa goes some 6,000 years back.

And do you see those clouds? Looks like they’re heading my way, but they never get over the mountains. They straddle the ridge constantly, and then disappear. You can see them come over the mountain, and then they’re gone. That’s called a ‘rain shadow’. ‘The mountains block the passage of rain-producing weather systems, casting a "shadow" of dryness behind them.’ Bet you didn’t know that. Me neither, I just found out while googling it.

They’ve got pine trees there. Not a lot, but still enough to be called a forest. Tiny patches of forest. They show signs of past military presence; foxholes that were dug, and places where tanks were half hidden from view from the road. The Syrians were here until recently (2006). The trees, however, did not provide much cover, as I understand.

 In June 1982, the IAF (Israeli Air Force) destroyed 17 of the 19 Syrian SAM batteries and their radar sites, as well as 29 Syrian Air Force (SAF) fighters, without loss. The following day, the IAF destroyed the remaining two missile batteries. The SAF once more challenged the Israelis and lost approximately 35 more aircraft, again without downing an Israeli aircraft. By the end of July, Syria had lost at least 87 aircraft. (source)

The Israelis must have spent some time there as well, apparent from this thing the kids dug up. They thought it was an ammo box. Yes, that’s what my kids do, digging up empty ammo boxes. They were greatly disappointed when it turned out to be something else. An oil canister?

But there are enough trees to pretend you’re in a real forest. Real enough to be building a tree hut. Or a tepee. No, they’re not all my kids. I borrow them from family members. With many kids in tow, you’re less likely to be evicted from a private property, like this forest. I mean, who’s going to send some happy-go-lucky kids off their land?

The Beqaa Valley – but I think I have mentioned this before – is the tip of the Great Rift Valley that stretches all the way into Africa. So geologically speaking the valley is spreading. That should make cannabis producers happy, because it will increase the land. I didn’t see any, they grow it higher up on the eastern side, where there’s more moisture (and fewer pesky tourists with children running through your fields) . They say the production is in decline. That is, by the way, another product that was around during Roman times (like the wine).

One year, I did a story on the Lebanese police destroying cannabis crops. They took me to the police headquarters of Zahle, where they showed the visiting press corps the catch of that week in the basement. Man! It was stacked up everywhere. Packed bales of leaves, blocks of paste, all kinds of home-made tools. We were wading up to our ankles through the yellowish/greenish powder. All that was – so it was said – going up in smoke. Now whether that would happen in Zahle, or I Amsterdam, I failed to ask.

So if you own a vineyard, and saw a van packed with kids and a dog driving around your land last Sunday, it was I. We enjoyed your forest. We did not leave any trash (unlike the Syrians and the Israelis).

The dog enjoyed it too. And I am in a good mood today.

More Hamra

I went out and walked Hamra last night. Hot hot hot!! And I am not talking about the music. Gosh, why is it still so hot in September?

 

McZeineDin                                     Fuad Itayim and Mounir Khauli

There were people and there was music. But somehow the music did not quite fit all the people. Or actually, the other way around. The people did not quite fit the music. Some of it. I kind of liked McZeineDin. And I enjoyed Itayim and friends too.

There was stuff to buy.

There were Photo exhibitions of Hamra. This picture of the 'Bozo the clown' type of man? If you are a regular of Hamra, you've seen him. He's been there every day for the past 20 years, exchanging money.

And there were big men carrying teeny weensy little dogs around. (Have they heard of Paris Hilton?) These guys are so ready for kids. Girls, these guys need to get married soon!

Balloons of course.

And then there was this. I think I’m pretty tolerant but what’s the story with this full facial garb? I hope they’re not locals, but just tourist. I can’t imagine why you would want to so totally shield yourself of society. Are we so evil?

I'm going off into the country today. No Hamra for me today. But the music continues.

Hamra Festival

The Hamra Festival  started today with a parade. As you may know, I’m an avid Hamra fan . And when they announce on their posters that the parade starts at 5:00 PM, we foreigners come a little earlier; we want to make sure we get a good spot. And so there we are, 5 o’clock sharp, and we look around us, and all we see is foreigners. No Lebanese, and no parade. And we wonder whether we read it right.

Until the organizer rides by on his motorcycle, telling us that the parade actually starts at 6, but because Lebanese are known for their punctuality, they write down 5, so that at 6 the people will have arrived.

The parade started, by the way, at 5:45. It’s all in good spirits though.

We saw the cavalry running by, not sure who they are. Police? In Holland we have the mounted police, ‘bereden politie’,  a task force on heavy horses. These are guys you do not want to mess with. They’re very effective at dispersing a rowdy crowd. Here, with their little itty-bitty Arab horses, they somehow do not instill that same respect. Still, a good show.

There was a line of bugs. I’m glad to see they’re being appreciated over here as well. The next step should be a Lebanese VW Bus Fan Club.

They got all the Harley riders in a row. It’s funny to see how these guys - who all over the world in general are being perceived as your typical Hells Angel – manage to line up so neatly and patiently in a line. Outside it’s your shady character with tattoos and earrings; Here in Lebanon they’re all business men and daddies.

They don't look it, but I tell you, Monday morning and it's all back in suit to the office. And why do they all wear bandanas? Because they have no hair anymore, the average age being 50 and up!!! I know, I'm married to one.

This lady should get a special place. Love it. A Lebanese woman on a Harley. You go girl!!! We need more of your kind.

Some Lebanese policeman also rides around town on Harleys. Theirs are the slightly dilapidated kind. They were all circling around ‘the real deal’, looking with envy. Ahh, if only they could ride a bike like that.

A clown car passed by.

My favorites, the Zaffeh band. A good Lebanese marriage starts with a Zaffeh, a group of drummers and dancers who announce the entrée of the bride. In my husband’s family, they do not like parties, and they have a tradition of secretly disappearing and showing up married; father in-law, brother in-law and husband all did it that way, so no Zaffeh for me when I got married. I am telling you, I don’t care who and how my kids marry, but I’ll be darned if I don’t get to choose the Zaffeh for the party.

And it ended with fireworks over Hamra. The festival runs Saturday and Sunday. Check the program for more info.