While Beirut is still hot and balmy, fall has definitely set
in in the mountains above Beirut. The Virginia creeper color the walls red, and
although the parasol pines will stay green all winter, the others trees are
slowly turning yellowish. Not exactly an Indian summer, but still quite lovely.
I like fall, but then I like the beginning of every season.
I think I embrace the change. The sun rises later (winter time is not until the
end of this month), the mist hangs a little longer in the valley in the
mornings, it is cooler, and the dust washes away.
My tortoises in the
mountains feels the change too. They are getting ready for their hibernation.
They get out in the early morning sun, and place themselves sideways against
the wall, like Russian
grandmothers catching much needed sun in the long Siberian winter. By 12 they’re back in their den, and you will
not see them anymore the rest for the day. Not much longer, and they will stay
in until March. They’ve had a productive year; 24 baby tortoises. Next year I
will have to think of some type of ‘into the wild’ program for them, to re-populate
the neighborhood.
And so for Sunday morning’s hike, I walked straight out of
the back door and into the forest. Usually it is way too hot to hike there, and
dry. For good hikes, you need to go up higher into the mountain. But yesterday
night it rained hard and long, and this morning everything was clean and fresh.
The plan was to hike to my cemetery, but I got side tracked and ended up
somewhere else interesting.
I took those strange stairs down. Someone, a long time ago,
went to great length to build this very long stair case in the middle of the
forest. It starts at an old and long abandoned villa, and descends into the
village in the valley, but not quite. There’s still a stretch where you have to
work your way through the brush and thorns.
The house used to belong to a doctor, but he died, and so
did his wife. His children do not live in Lebanon anymore, except for one,
somewhere in Beirut, and no one has the money, or the desire, to rebuild this
monumental place. The stairs remain, but I may never find out why they were
built. I do use them though, when I climb down into the village below.
Out of the door and into the forest. What a luxury. The
forest was lovely and quiet. And so I share some pictures with you of my walk.
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