More Road Trippin’

The little alley ways of the Saida Souq

Saturday, I took my father to visit a friend down south in Kfar Tibnit. She was still busy with trimming the olive trees, and so on our way we decided to stop at the old souq in Saida, which is probably the only souq in the country that is still authentic and working. 

The little alley ways have been paved not that long ago, and some of the alleys have been obviously restored, but the previous owners and business did not have to make place for fancy shops and business. You can’t enter with a car, and everything has to be brought in by handcar, or little electric scooters. Trades are still organized by quarters. 

You’ve got the gold souq, the vegetable souq, there are alleys where all the woodworkers and carpenters are clustered, the upholstery guys are in one street together, the mattress makers and blanket sellers in another, there are the spice sellers, the butchers, the head scarves and bra sellers, and in between you have your pastry shops and bakeries, the mosques and the schools, and in between that, you have tiny little alleys and stair cases that lead to even tinier little court yards and houses; a veritable labyrinth. Hollywood could film an entire series on the middle ages here without ever having to change a thing of the scenery.

Remove the wires and the blue bin, and you are in 1455 AD

After that, we spent the afternoon in Kfar Tibnit.  When the evening was approaching, it was time to go home. As I had gotten stuck in a nasty traffic jam in Sidon, and I do not like take the same road twice, I wondered if I could go from Kfar Tibnit straight to the small mountain village in the Shouf where we were sleeping that night. Google Maps showed that this was very well possible. Granted, it would take some time (2:19 minutes), but we were not in a hurry. And armed with Google maps, we went on our way.

The bait shop. No idea how this guy is going to get something from the back of his shop

But the night fell quite rapidly, Google maps kept shifting its path from one road to another, seemingly unsure of what road it should take, and for some strange reason, there seemed to be a massive black-out in the entire region; not one silly street light worked. Or maybe there weren’t any.

Traffic became sparser and sparser, while road constructions seemed to be on the rise. Entire stretches of tarmac just dissipated as we drove along.

Every now and then I consulted Google maps again, but the app had change to night vision mode, and in black, the map of Lebanon looked quite unfamiliar to me. I tried to get on the road alongside the Qaroun Lake, because once there, I know how to get home, but it seemed a lot easier than it was in reality in the pitch dark.

Coffee on its way

Somewhere, I knew, I had to go to the right, otherwise I’d end up in the mountains of Jezzine, and then it would be tiny little hairpin roads for hours and hours.  And so when Google maps suddenly indicates that I should turn right, off the main road into a rather narrow wooded road, but into the Beqaa Valley, I thought that be a good idea.

And so here we drive, along this tiny little road, and not a village, house or light in sight. It’s a good thing my father doesn’t see too well; he’s 102 and has only one eye. I do not see much either, for that matter. I am constantly driving with big lights, blinding anyone coming from the opposite direction, but no one is coming from the opposite direction. We are clearly the only ones. 

But I do see the flags in drums suddenly appear on both sides of the road. The logo of Hezbollah, even in the dark, is like that of Coca Cola; recognizable even when only partly visible. And then a large metal barrier, with a young man in front of it.

A road block, but not an army one. 

No gun, but the baseball cap and that typical blue parka are an open book: I have stumbled upon a gate with a Hezbollah guard in front of it.

More medieval scenes. The should organize some Air BNB's here. "Sleep in an authetic souq."

In the middle of nowhere, in the dark, on an unmarked road, with a phone in my hand.  Uhhh. How is this going to look? Hezbollah guards are notoriously suspicious, even when you have a credible story.

Saad Harriri just resigned blaming Hezbollah and the Iranians for threatening his life, and here are two foreigners in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, at some sort of Hezbollah base, claiming to be driving to a little obscure town in the Shouf which is like very very far away, while using Google maps. No Lebanese would ever be doing this.

"Where are you going?”

“Well, that way,” I point to the barrier, showing the road on my phone.

“But where do you need to go?”

Naming the little town to where I intend to drive is not going to help much; he probably never heard of it. So I try “Shtoura”. Not quite where I need to be, but it’s on the way. ”And my map says I need to drive here.”

“Yes,” he replies, and then pauses for while, “But this road is closed.”

“So how do I get to Shtoura?”

“You need to go back to the main road, and then to the right. Ask at the army check point down the road.”

Yes, about that army check point.
You see, I am not really supposed to drive through this region with a foreigner (my dad) without permission from the army headquarters in Saida. Not sure why, but that’s the rule. I sort of had banked on the fact that in the dark, the soldiers don’t really check who is in the car, they just wave you through, so I am sure as heck not going to stop at that check point and ask for directions.

Anyway. Like a good little obedient citizen, I, very nicely and very meekly, turn quietly around, go back on the main road, do not ask for directions at the army check point, and decide to just go along with the hairpin mountain roads. 

When we do get home, some three hours later, my father says, "Wonderful trip.”