I finally found the salsa crowd here, just when I was about to give up and think that there were no dancers in Beirut, man was I wrong. The dancers are not only awesome dancers, but in true lebanese fashion they are so nice and welcoming, offering rides to go out dancing, (yes, i've taken rides with strangers, but somehow being part of the salsa community makes them less "strange" to me) and offering to give tours of the city. But enough about salsa for now.
We were thinking of taking a weekend trip to Tripoli, since Lonely PLanet gushes on about it for pages and pages, but the more we asked around the locals, everyone told us that we'd be more impressed with other places, and one person even told us to be careful because the al qaeda that was kicked out of the refugee camps all went to tripoli...who knows if that's true, but we were just as excited to visit Byblos so we decided to start there. We actually ended up going twice because by the time we arrived on friday it was almost sunset, and after not finding a cheap place to stay but wandering around a while, we rode the $1 bus back to Beirut to sleep and planned to return the next morning.
Byblos is the world's oldest continuously inhabited city (~8000years), and is calm, quiet, and next to the sea. The uneven cobblestone streets that make up the Vieux Souk (old souk) part of town give it so much of its character, and the air smells like orange blossoms. By the way, the first picture above is on a clear day (finally) from our patio where you can see the snow-covered mountains! The second photo is of the ruins in Byblos, which look unassuming and small from outside the gate, but are absolutely massive, and were built right up to the sea. Many of the ruins were uncovered after a big landslide there. The 3rd and 4th photo are also from the ruins (Marika and I were there with Josh, Erin was in Syria with her dad that weekend), there was a beautiful stone house built near the water at the early part of the 1900s, and would be such a nice place to escape to... The next two pictures are of the castle among the ruins, where we all tried to imagine what it must have looked like in it's day, complete with a moat. One of the artifacts on display inside was a ceramic pot with the remains of a 5-year old child, which is apparently how over 2000 children used to be buried after their untimely deaths (along with trinkets in the pot). Josh couldn't help himself and decided to climb under the clearly marked gate, and he managed to get to the very top of the castle without any security noticing. Actually there wasn't any security.
We heard that Byblos was best at sunset, so we walked down to the waterfront as the sun was melting into the sea, and I can't resist putting up the picture of josh and marika (and take all the credit for how good it came out). There were rows of tangled fishing nets lining the edge of the docks, and all the colors were so amazing in the leftover sunlight. We ended the day at a restaurant right on the water, after peering in to about 10 other places in search of the best looking seafood we picked one that felt right. The prawns, calamari, and mussels, bathed in garlic, cilantro, lemon, and butter, were so fresh and favorful. It was one of those days where you feel so fortunate, to be where you are and to be who you're with, away from the honking and smog of beirut.
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