Lebanon is a pretty small country, and for that reason it’s easier just to base yourself in Beirut, which is right in the middle, and do day trips from there, so that’s exactly what I did. After exploring the city itself and some of the interior I spent the rest of my time exploring some of the historic towns along the coast, a coastline of which every inch is developed and inhabited. There’s really no clear division from one town…
Most places in Lebanon can be seen as easy day trips from Beirut, but not all. So I took a break from Beirut and headed up to the mountains to stunning Bcharre, a city on the edge of a cliff overlooking the very deep Qadisha Valley for a little hiking. It was quite refreshing being up here, cooler temps, quieter nights, and the smell of pine trees all around. The main reason for coming here though, was to see the…
Greetings from Lebanon! I’ve left the relative calm oasis of Jordan and landed in loud, fast paced, chaotic Beirut. The very first thing I noticed about this place is that the Lebanese are hands down the most insane drivers in the world. No joke! The taxi ride from the airport to my hotel was absolutely terrifying. It’s gas all the way to the floor or brake all the way to the floor, weaving around everyone and everything, and three times…
Up with the sun, I left Wadi Musa in a car with a nice Czech couple to Wadi Rum about an hour and a half away. When people talk about the Arabian desert, this is usually the place they’re talking about. It’s arid, sandy, and hot, the Bedouin people have been living and thriving here for thousands of years, this was the home and stomping grounds of TE Lawrence of Arabia during the Arab revolts in the early 20th century,…
After an easy ride from Feynan, provided by my hotel, I landed in the town of Wadi Musa, a town that apparently was largely built up only due to it’s proximity to Petra. Lots of hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops, tour buses, selfie sticks, you get the idea. My head was still pounding from my hikes in Dana and Feynan so I pretty much went straight to bed and slept all day and through the night after taking some “Jordanian herbs”…
Getting out of Karak turned out to be a bit of an odyssey. Luckily it worked out, but it took most of the day, a lot longer than expected. I was supposed to take a bus from Karak to Tafilah and transfer to a bus to Dana. For some reason there were no buses to Tafilah from Karak that day, so instead, a couple of locals told me the best way to get there and the odyssey began. First a…
As I said in my previous post, Karak is just a quick one night stop for me on my way south. I woke up early in Madaba and had to first take a bus back to Amman and then transfer to a bus heading to Karak. It was all fairly easy to accomplish, though I get strange looks and genuine confusion from locals when they find out I want to take the bus instead of paying a small fortune for…
A couple of easy buses from Irbid and now I’m in Madaba, just a bit southwest from Amman. Madaba is a fairly quiet town and has the largest population of Christians in Jordan. That’s not to say the Muslims don’t have a presence though. Every morning the Imam’s call to prayer can be heard everywhere as in most towns, but here it’s immediately followed by the ringing of the church bells. Most of the sites and cities throughout the region,…
After about an hour and a half bus ride from Ajlun, I based myself in the university town of Irbid to the north. Irbid is a very busy and bustling city, the second largest in Jordan, and it never seems to stop. There’s very little here to interest the tourists, but it makes for a great base to explore some more Roman ruins here in the northern part of the country. I’ve noticed that most of the tourists seem to…
A short bus ride to the northwest takes me to the village of Ajlun, nestled in some hills surrounded by pine and olive groves. Beautiful! Ajlun really has only one attraction, a huge castle on the highest hilltop, Mt Auf. It was built in the 12th century to defend against Christian crusaders and apparently saw a lot of action. You can see everything from up there. It’s definitely one of the better castles I’ve been to in my travels. And…