Beirut - The Arab "Island" of Freedom (Part 1)

("In Beirut, nothing is constant. Especially not dreams. But neither is despair. Beirut is a city that is loved and hated a thousand times a day. Every day. It is exhausting, but also wonderful...")

Nasri Atallah

Intro

For Beirut, I've known since I was little. I was one of those kids for whom the atlas was a favorite book. Fascinated by the flags of countries, their capital cities, rivers, and mountains, I bought every one of those (popular at the time) circles for easy and fun learning of geographical facts as soon as it appeared in the school bookstore. Among hundreds of countries and flags of Europe, Asia, and Africa, one red-white flag with a green tree caught my attention. Maybe because of the Star, or maybe because among a multitude of geometric shapes, pentagrams, crowns, and stars, the green tree was an unusual and different symbol. Years passed until I found out that the tree was not a New Year's tree but a cedar, an indigenous conifer and the national symbol of Lebanon.

Around the same time, the capital of this country, Beirut, was often mentioned on TV in the context of a new war starting in that country. It was 2006. It hadn't been long since the wars and conflicts in our region, so I wasn't overly upset about the events in the distant Middle East, unfortunately accepting them as "normal." Palestine, Israel, Yasser Arafat, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, Shiites, Sunnis, Hezbollah, and Fatah—all these terms have been daily in the news for as long as I can remember. Anyway, the wars in Lebanon ended, fortunately, after just a month, peace was established, and life continued as usual.

If someone had told me at that time that just a decade later I would be walking the dusty streets of Beirut, swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, visiting ancient Byblos and Baalbek, eating shawarma and falafel to exhaustion, and "smuggling" a sapling of that famous Lebanese cedar onto a plane to Belgrade, it would be an understatement to say that I would have just laughed. But life is miraculous, so a completely accidental acquaintance in Belgrade with a peer from Beirut turned into a great mutual friendship, culminating in attending a Lebanese wedding in Beirut as an honorary guest.

Trip preparations

Serbia was already well within the Schengen zone, but visas for most Asian countries were necessary, as they are today. A wedding invitation and a letter of guarantee from my host were sufficient documentation to obtain a visa without any difficulties. However, even with that, a potentially insurmountable obstacle could be the presence of an Israeli stamp in my passport, as Arab countries explicitly do not allow entry to travelers who have visited Israel (for this reason, Israeli border officials stamp tourists' passports on a sheet of paper). This question from the officer at the Lebanese embassy surprised me, but since I had never traveled to the Middle East before, there was no reason to worry, and the sweet and unusual visa written in Arabic appeared in my document after a few days.

If I'm not mistaken, there still wasn't a direct flight between Belgrade and Beirut at that time, and if there was, it was significantly more expensive than the low-cost option with Pegasus. I assume it's the same today. Flying in an airplane and observing the Earth's surface from the air is an adventure of its kind for me as a geographer (which I have become in the meantime). From takeoff at "Tesla," the colorful fields of Srem and the hills of Šumadija that the plane soon left behind, to the vast urban jungle that Istanbul appears to be from the air, my nose was constantly glued to the airplane window. The same was true after a short break during the layover when the plane flew over Cyprus and the deep blue Mediterranean. And when the pilot announced that we would soon be landing at "Rafic Hariri" airport and that it was "pleasantly" 36 degrees outside, a new wave of excitement ensued.

First Impression of Lebanon

The meeting at the airport with a friend I hadn't seen in 6-7 years was very warm. In response to his "Where have you been, mate" in pure Serbian, I replied with "marhabaan khayye" in Lebanese. We hugged and greeted each other, exchanged a few sentences in English (as we had both only learned a few phrases in each other's language), left the airport, got in the car, and headed to his house, where I would be staying during my upcoming two-week stay in Lebanon. My host lives in a suburban area near Beirut called Mansuri (Mansourieh), which takes about 45 minutes to reach from the airport, literally driving through the entire city.

First impression of Beirut is the chaotic flow of traffic through 4 lanes of vehicles, even though there are only two designated lanes (which can explain the fact that almost every car is "scraped" on all four sides). Shouting and shouting through open windows, mass phone conversations while driving, "cutting in" and accelerating as soon as there is a 50-meter stretch of clear road, make me momentarily think that I'm safer in a plane at 8,000 meters above ground than on the streets of Beirut. However, one quickly realizes that this kind of driving is a kind of local folklore and that there is no reason to worry (at least while being driven by a local). In rush hour, which lasts more or less throughout the day, the pilot's "pleasant" 36 degrees are anything but that, especially since the humidity near the sea is very high, so the subjective feeling is as if it's at least 50 degrees outside... In the shade.

The city is modern, noisy, dusty. Like Belgrade, it has been demolished and rebuilt many times, so there is no particular architectural harmony, except in downtown, which I should visit in the coming days. As far as I can see along the way, people are dressed in a modern way, except for women who wear scarves and burqas for cultural and religious reasons. They drive nice cars. Advertisements on modern buildings testify to the presence of representations of the world's largest companies. There are American and French flags as well. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that I am in a country surrounded by bloody war on three sides (in Syria) and with a closed border towards Israel, and that it has itself been the site of conflicts on multiple occasions during the 20th century. Nothing, except for heavily armed soldiers and patrols that occasionally appear at important strategic points, just enough to remind me that I have indeed arrived in the easily combustible Middle East.

Hospitality

Those who have traveled to Arab countries know that kindness and hospitality abound among these people. On the first day of my stay in Lebanon, I met my friend's entire family, his sisters and brothers-in-law, relatives from Kuwait and Armenia, and even neighbors. As is usually the case after a trip, after a short break with the popular Lebanese beer Almaza, we sat down at the table, and with pleasant chatting, a true feast began.

On the table, very few things looked familiar – from the mezzes consisting of tabbouleh and fatoush (salads made of finely chopped fresh vegetables), mountain bread lavash prepared according to an old recipe, and the famous hummus spread, to vine leaf and eggplant rolls, and a kind of fried kibbeh balls, to local specialties of lamb and chicken meat, accompanied by plenty of onions, lemon juice, and characteristic Eastern spices (among which za'atar particularly dominates). The only familiar taste was baklava, a traditional Eastern dessert, followed by another surprise – mint-flavored coffee derived from the local spice cardamom.

Amidst the multitude of new flavors, hardly comparable to those I have been accustomed to my whole life, the taste buds become confused, so I wasn't sure if I actually liked Lebanese food or not. It is certainly authentic, but for a final judgment, a few more days had to pass (I like it). After the vibrant flight, "crazy" rides, exotic cuisine, and getting to know incredibly warm and friendly people, the impression was that the journey was already a complete success on the same day.

However, the best part, including sightseeing of tourist attractions and a Lebanese wedding, was yet to come in the following days...

To be continued...

Author: Jossie Geographer