Thursday May 3, 2012
"Hello, how are you?" said my friend Adam as he befriended yet another Lebanese soldier.
We were walking back to our hotel after dinner in the small tourist town of Bcharre, deep in the mountains in northern Lebanon. The famous Cedars of God and the best ski fields in Lebanon are just up the slope from the town centre, and the spectacular Qadisha Valley is down the slope.
The people of Lebanon like to brag that on the same day they can go out to the beach for a swim then out to the mountains for a ski. Adam was determined to achieve that double, if not on the same day but on the same trip.
Two days earlier during lunch we had asked the restaurant owner if it was still possible to ski. He was pessimistic, "The lifts closed just last week."
But after a few minutes a lightbulb went off in his head. "You can ask the army."
What? Ask the army for what? "Ask the army if you can ski on their slope. They sometimes allow foreigners to use their lift. You can ski with the soldiers."
Adam's eyes lit up! From then on we approached every soldier we could find to see if we could sweet talk ourselves onto the military snow. And soldiers are easy to find in Lebanon.
Like busy hookers we solicited as many military personnel as we could the next two days - but had no result. We had even visited the military ski training centre up at the Cedars and spoke to the guards, to no avail. But even after all that Adam had not given up hope.
On our way to dinner we had met three blokes on duty (I don't know what they were patrolling, they just seemed to be standing in the middle of an anonymous Bcharre street) and Adam spoke with them for a few minutes establishing rapport. Everyone in Lebanon seems to have a cousin in Australia, it was easy enough for us to get a conversation going.
After yet another filling Lebanese meal we walked back the same path and encountered the same checkpoint. Adam wanted to resume the conversation with the trio, hoping to get on that elusive slope.
"Hello, how are you? What a beautiful night!" Adam began, with the zeal of a evangelist. It was a crisp night in the mountains, and a near full moon lit the sky like an aurora.
The soldiers stared back at Adam with a strange look. They didn't seem to be as enamoured with him as earlier. Adam tried his best to keep the conversation going, but it turned out to be a very awkward five minutes.
We finally gave up, said our goodbyes to the military folk, and trudged back to our hotel. Adam sighed "Geez, that was hard. It was like as if they didn't even remember me from two hours ago. I really thought I had a chance with those guys."
I had to put Adam out of his misery. "Adam, you know they weren't the same guys as before dinner? They changed over while we were eating."
"Hello, how are you?" said my friend Adam as he befriended yet another Lebanese soldier.
We were walking back to our hotel after dinner in the small tourist town of Bcharre, deep in the mountains in northern Lebanon. The famous Cedars of God and the best ski fields in Lebanon are just up the slope from the town centre, and the spectacular Qadisha Valley is down the slope.
 |
| Me with Bcharre and Qadisha Valley below. |
Two days earlier during lunch we had asked the restaurant owner if it was still possible to ski. He was pessimistic, "The lifts closed just last week."
But after a few minutes a lightbulb went off in his head. "You can ask the army."
What? Ask the army for what? "Ask the army if you can ski on their slope. They sometimes allow foreigners to use their lift. You can ski with the soldiers."
 |
| The closed lifts at Cedars of God - we missed it by a week! |
Like busy hookers we solicited as many military personnel as we could the next two days - but had no result. We had even visited the military ski training centre up at the Cedars and spoke to the guards, to no avail. But even after all that Adam had not given up hope.
 |
| Ski training centre for the Lebanese Army, at Cedars of God. |
"Hello, how are you? What a beautiful night!" Adam began, with the zeal of a evangelist. It was a crisp night in the mountains, and a near full moon lit the sky like an aurora.
The soldiers stared back at Adam with a strange look. They didn't seem to be as enamoured with him as earlier. Adam tried his best to keep the conversation going, but it turned out to be a very awkward five minutes.
I had to put Adam out of his misery. "Adam, you know they weren't the same guys as before dinner? They changed over while we were eating."
No comments:
Post a Comment