Lebanon 2006

 

Biblos

 

On the third day I headed for another very old site, Biblos, and another crusader castle ruin and more, way north of Beirut. On the way there the bus detoured into a valley where some Indians were having a celebration. Oh the fun! I stepped off the bus, and they must have worried that I might actually had wanted to stay. I snapped a pic and left.
On the way out of the valley, now facing the other side, I saw this remainder of a Roman aquaduct.

 

This guy had found the choice spot in a 6000-year-old harbor.
Biblos is one of those rare places that has been continuously inhabited since the stone age. So here you can see buildings from the neolithic, the Middle Ages, and the 20th Century..

 

The old fossil store near Biblos.

 

There is a beautiful Crusader keep here

 

View from the keep's tower.

 

A very nice little Roman theater
A sarcophagus that was raised from the funerary tunnels below

 

I am reminded of the 'fast food' places that I saw in the ruins of Pompeii

 

This well has been sustaining life here since the stone age

 

Just like the temple depicted above, this stuff is so old, they can only guess at the meanings or the the names of the gods involved.

 

This is the Middle East, moreover, war-torn Lebanon, and there is a story here that you might find hard to believe, although I did not, having traveled there and around these countries extensively. As I was standing on the roof of the Crusader keep, I was approached by this young girl, who was told by her mom, who was standing in the shadows below, to offer herself to me as a possible wife. The family wanted out of there, and saw this lonely American and thought their best offer was this young girl. I chatted with her for some time. She spoke little English, but we had a fair bit of communication going on. I let her down gently, thanking her and with a bow to her mome, for their generous and kind offer, but had to decline because of her youth. I told her, after she wrote her age in Arabic numbers on her hand, and I wrote mine, also in Arabic numbers on mine, that she was way to young and lovely for this old man. Yes, call me crazy, but deals like that can be made in the Middle East almost anywhere.

 

A girls-only picnic and mom smokes the shisha. Now had the daughter in the pink top approached me on the crusader castle roof, I might well be smoking the waterpipe, too, and now, possibly be a very happy man.

 

I am always a sucker for freshly baked bread

 

Or this one - the girl, I am talking about, not weird-shirt guy.