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Today I went on a tour and what a tour it was! I thought I'd had the best experience that could be in the Fall Trek along the Lebanon Mountain Trail a fortnight ago but so much amazingness was packed into this day trip it would have to rank as the highlight of Lebanon for me.
We visited the biggest cave I've ever been to, Jeita Grotto. Last year I saw some pretty stunning caves in Asia (Thien Cung Grotto in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam and Batu Cave in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) but this tops those easily. I've no photos as cameras there are banned, and for good reason. Whilst walking through the cave I felt so lucky to be travelling. I just had this feeling staring up at the ceiling festooned with stalactites, into the distance some 75m away, that I was having a really special period of my life. Sounds pathetically cliched, but I'm glad I couldn't take photos so that I could just become immersed in the experience and let it have its full effect on me. Like Thien Cung Grotto, Jaita Grotto is multi leveled. Both have water in them, but the latter is more convincing in this regard, with the lower level having a separate entrance and you get in a little, silent, battery propeller propelled boat to see it all. Also, you get a thrill of vertigo looking down to the water about 20m below from the upper gallery in places. The interior is actually quite complex with many shelves and places one could easily slide down. It made me wonder about the stories its earliest explorers must have had to tell. Really, the thing that just made such an impact on me walking around in there (took 40 minutes just to do the upper gallery) was how small it made me feel and the amount of detail, the sheer number of stalactites in view where ever I looked. It transported me out of the hustle and bustle of the city, of my life, out of my mind and thoroughly into the quietness, stillness of the cave.
I guess I have become somewhat desensitized to travel. I've been living overseas for most of the past two years, and travelled a lot of Asia and some of the Middle East now during that time. Sometimes I land in a new city and feel it's more of the same. Sometimes when I don't blog for a while I begin to lose a sense of gratitude and excitement about being overseas and seeing new things. This tour woke me up again, especially being thrust into this cave and having to walk through it realising just how small I am and how stunning, effortlessly and unintentionally, nature is.
We also visited the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, Byblos. The place deserves a second visit. It is so beautifully ancient. There are old stone buildings, cobbled streets, a beautiful small harbour and 12 layers of civilisation according to a French archeologist who dug the place up in the 1920s. It was amazing going to the Crusaders cathedral by the ocean and seeing all of the different churches, temples and palaces built by the various powers that have ruled Byblos over the millenia. Yes, the tour guide mentioned how the first civilisation there was in the 6th millenium BC! Everyone from the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Turks to the French have left their mark on Byblos. In Lebanon generally you get the feeling that there is a lot of history that has happened and Byblos is the epitome of that.
Last, we visited Our Lady of Harissa by cable car (the second for the day, we also took a cable car to the cave earlier) and then a little train thing that gets pulled up by a cable on an extremely steep slope. It was a standard kind of a statue but the setting was stunning, with panoramic views across to Beirut in the south, out over the Mediterranean west and Khfaryassine north. See photos. Behind the statue was a distinctively architectured church apparently made to look like a cypress. Overall it was a very well presented, clean tourist attraction, even with elevator music piped around the place. Recommended to do this tour if you've only got a day in Lebanon.
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