Baalbek in the North

Last Wednesday, on yet another break from school, we took a trip northwards, near the edge of Syria. We took a quick taxi to the bus station and then were held onto, pulled, and harangued (though with repetitions of "please") towards private cars at the sight of three Americanos. The marketplace enabled us to obtain $4 one-way/per person rates for a two hour trip, a bargain.

A significant portion of any trip is always simply leaving Beirut, and the bus station was located in a Hizbollah neighborhood. Pictures of people were present throughout each passing block; Rodrigo, our Brazilian-American history teacher, informed us that these were pictures of martyrs. Of course, much younger photos of Nasrallah, the leader, also peppered the landscape as well. I asked Rodrigo how Hizbollah's usage of green and yellow--Brazil's colors--made him feel. He wasn't that fond.

Tallest columns in the world-no joke!

Some of the misconceptions of Hizbollah--the "terrorist group", must stem from the media. After all, what images come to mind when Lebanon is mentioned? And while I would love to write in details about some of their misconceptions, I will merely mention a few things in passing. Do they have a history of violence? Yes, starting from Israel's invasion in 1982. There is a holiday here that celebrates not only Lebanon's independence but also Liberation Day, when, in 2000, Israel withdrew to the UN designated border (which only took them 22 years). Students and adults alike accredit this to Hizbollah.

The song that I hummed throughout that car ride, and later in Baalbek itself, was "One of These Nights" by The Eagles. Everyone knows the song, but a few lines resonate:

I've been searching for the daughter of the devil himself
I've been searching for an angel in white
I've been waiting for a woman who's a little of both and I can feel it but she's nowhere in sight

Hizbollah may not be saints but they also take up where the government, for whatever reason, has left off. They build roads, hospitals, clean up garbage (endemic as that problem is)--hell, they even have a Martry's Institute to take care of families of fighters who have died. It is a love hate relationship with most Lebanese.

But meanwhile, in Baalbek, the feeling here is love. Yellow and green abound, the shops are supplied with every souvenir that might commemorate them. I wish I had pictures of that but the sights there should suffice.

The ruins, one of the coolest Roman sites ever, were spectacular and date from the 3rd millennium BC. That's Syria, by the way, on the other side of the mountains. I love natural borders.

The history is long, but let's just say that within 5000 years the Phoenicians, Romans, Syrian, Byzantine and Ottoman Dynasties and everybody else passing through had a piece of it. But it is most memorable for its Roman Awesomeness.

Remarkably, besides being so vast, the majority of the ruins, such as the Temple of Bacchus--God of wine--on the left was in tact.

The sheer size of everything is demonstrated by the one section, the Great Court, on the far right.

Called the "small temple" in antiquity, this is larger
than the Parthenon! And they had orgies there!
History is truly awesome.

And so we spent the day walking around, marveling at how something that took 120 years to construct and how the 100,000 slaves must have felt working their entire lives to build but one section. We avoided seeing the "largest cut stone" up the hill not only because of its name, "Hajar al-Hubla" (Stone of the Pregnant Woman) but because I wasn't feeling too great. Still, we spent the entire day there, and hope to return, especially for their annual festival, right there on the ruins.

We took a bus back, with annoying teen boys and their limited vulgar English, and ended up travelling through quite a bit of fog. We also passed by an enormous bridge that connects two mountains that was destroyed during the war two years ago--very strategic.

Three days later we went south to Tyre, so we will post that next.