Lebanon is one of the places that I have wanted to go for most of the time that I have been in Doha. I had heard great things from many different people about its mountains, ruins, beaches, and nightlife. However, it had been in the middle of bit of civil unrest as it failed to elect a government for months until Qatar stepped in and brokered a compromise between the two sides. As things had settled down a little, I got a trip on the calendar started monitoring the news. Lebanon is not a very big country, I did a day tour which covered most of it. The picture above is from Baalbek, an ancient Roman city in the mountains to the East of Beirut. It is said to be one of the top Roman sites in the Middle East and covered quite a large area. Every summer they have a music festival that they setup in one of the ruins or temples. They were making all the preparations as we walked through the site. Missed it by a weekend, something to put on the list for the next time I am there in the summer.

One of the archeological sites that I visited also included a nice exhibit on the Lebanese army and their struggle against the “Zionist invaders” of the Palestinian homeland. I didn’t judge one way or another but I thought it made a cool picture. These guys really don’t like Israel; coming through immigration control on the way into the country two different officials look through every stamp in my passport (and there are a lot now) to see if I had been to Israel before. I guess that is what happens when Hezbollah runs you government.

The terrain in Lebanon is pretty amazing, people say that you can snow ski in the morning on one it’s almost 10,000 foot mountains and then drive down to the beach for the afternoon. It is also famous for its cedar forests. My guide said that this one had been studied and was more than 4,000 years old. It was a nice break to be up in the cooler mountain air after months of summer in Doha.
One of the main reasons for taking the trip to Lebanon on this particular weekend was to see a concert by DJ Tiesto, one of the most famous DJ’s in the world. He was playing in Beirut that weekend, so it seemed like the perfect party to attend in a party city. The nightlife was great, and went all night long. On the last night that I was there, I went to an after-hours club that was in an underground bunker. You drive up to the place and there appears to be nothing but a parking lot but you walk down the stairs and through the heavy metal door and . . . there you are. Best of all though, around 3am I look up and see that the roof is retracting and now the place is open to the night sky. Pretty good last night to the trip.