THE WORST DRIVERS IN THE WORLD PLY THE ROADS of Lebanon. They combine Italian aggressiveness with the driving skill of the Chinese. You can be certain only that they will do something unexpected, stupid and probably suicidal. And a surprising number of them drive luxury cars. Go figure.
As bad as driving is, public transportation is worse, so renting a car was our only viable option. Getting out of Beirut was a nightmare of bumper-to-bumper, mirror to mirror traffic and blaring horns, where courtesy is considered a sign of weakness. Once on the highway, things didn’t improve much. Town names come in two versions, each with multiple spellings and road signs are often in Arabic.
Qadisha Valley
Eventually we were headed north towards Tripoli and somehow found the exit for Les Cedares, the famous Cedars of Lebanon. In millennia past, Lebanon was carpeted with cedar trees that provided cedar wood for Egypt and lumber for the Phoenician fleets. More recently the British nearly felled the last of the ancient trees for their railroad and only few stands of the old ones still exist.
The ancient one, 2000 years old
The road climbed steadily, but not straight, through the Qadisha Valley, and over a mile high, towards Bcarre, until finally we reached a stand of 345 cedars, covered in snow too deep to wade through. Even on this rainy winter day, French-speaking men worked their shops selling honey, cedar products and all manner of tourist junk. To whom, I know not.
