Food, Friends, and Ferryboats

— Posted inUncategorized — 5 min read
It’s hard to believe I’ve been in Lebanon for a week already, harder still to think of leaving on Saturday. I’ve got an evening flight to Cyprus bought and paid for, though, so I’ll be gone all too soon.
What have I been doing in Lebanon?  I’ve spent time catching up on the past nine years with an old friend, and getting acquainted with his three children. I wrote a short article on pilgrimage for a diocesan publication, which my friend then translated into Arabic.  I’ve been to church every day except for the day I arrived, and I’d have made it to the service that evening if I had walked instead of flagging a cab. A few days ago I went shopping and replaced my shoes. The duct tape repair job not only looked funny, it probably wouldn’t have survived long on the rough trail that is waiting for me in the Holy Land. After 2000 kms, they have certainly been a good investment! I’ll wait to discard them just in case my new shoes give me blisters.  And, as I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been eating a lot and walking very little.
One of the advantages of being in a country with a long tradition of Orthodox Christianity is that there is no difficulty finding good wholesome food during fasting periods. After months of processed food, I am finally eating my veggies. And legumes, and fresh fruit, and of course, hummus and khibz.  The Feast of the Annunciation is a national holiday in Lebanon, so after Liturgy on Wednesday we feasted on fish, fish, and more fish. I had decided to keep fish in my diet for the Nativity Fast while walking in Italy, but I’ve been trying to keep a stricter fast for Great Lent. (That’s probably one of the reasons I found the walk along the Mediterranean coast in Turkey so challenging, even with dairy.)
It’s not only the Lebanese who have been wining and dining me. On Thursday, I finally paid a visit to my old stomping grounds at the St John of Damascus Institute of Theology and the University of Balamand. The bus ride north took an hour and twenty minutes and cost the equivalent of US $2. (The ride back south later that night took fifty minutes. Traffic congestion isn’t an exclusively North American problem.) I had a chance to see Fr. Bassam, who had been a fellow parishioner in Canada before he returned to Lebanon. I also spent several delightful hours as the guest of Philip and Joanna. They are British expats who had begun teaching at the university the year I was in Lebanon, and thanks to Flickr I have maintained contact with them. When Philip brought me home after Great Compline, Joanna set a place for me at the table. I was genuinely surprised when I realised how late it was At the end of the evening. They gave me a ride down to the highway and waited with me until a bus arrived.  (The name Balamand is likely a corruption of “belle mont,” which is what Frankish crusaders dubbed the hill. At 330 m, it’s not particularly tall, but it is a very stiff climb up from sea level. I was glad to be spared the walk down in the dark.)
I’m still not sure how I’ll be getting from Cyprus to Israel. The two ferry companies that sail out of the port of Limassol haven’t updated their websites in quite some time. One of them indicates that service to Haifa ended in 2006, while it looks like the other doesn’t start operating passenger ferries until May. I’ve emailed both companies, and am awaiting a reply. (One of them forwarded my mail to another company, so there’s still some hope.)  I’m hoping to get a ferry to Haifa, and then follow the Israel National Trail south to Jerusalem.  It would be nice to get away from road walking for the last week of my pilgrimage, and with that in mind I bought a 2 litre water pouch to supplement my water bottle. One disadvantage of hiking trails is that they tend not to have shops selling cold drinks along the way.
Another possibility for travelling to Israel is a ferry to Ashdod.  The city looks to be about 30 kms from Jerusalem, which means I’d be arriving a week earlier than I’d planned unless I do what a few others have done and catch a bus north to Haifa and begin walking from there. While I’ve cut about a thousand kilometres from my walk by bus and train, it is counterintuitive to go out of my way just to follow a particular route. Still, I’ve got these nice new hiking shoes, so I may do just that.
The simplest way forward would be to fly from Larnaca (Cyprus) to Tel Aviv and then walk to Jerusalem from there. That would mean I wouldn’t have any walking in Cyprus (the sea port is about 70 kms from the airport), but at least I’d experience some of the Israel National Trail without making an unnecessary detour by bus. It would also mean I wouldn’t miss any of Holy Week. If I haven’t heard from a ferry company by Sunday, this is likely what I’ll do.

Domestication

— Posted inUncategorized — 5 min read

As the warm afternoon sun flooded my host’s living room yesterday, I real‎ised that I have been indoors or in a car almost continuously since Thursday evening. I am not complaining about the hospitality – far from it – but after six months on the road, it is a radical lifestyle change. After explaining my desire to go for a short walk, I excused myself and set out.

One thing about the towns in the hills around Beirut is precisely that they are built in the hills. The roads follow the‎ contour lines, and if you make one wrong turn, you’ll find yourself on the opposite side of a very steep valley, with no way to get to your destination other than winding down the hill and trying again. (That’s one of the reasons my Thursday evening taxi ride was so painfully long.) Another peculiarity of these areas overlooking Beirut and the sea is that they consist almost entirely of low rise apartment buildings. Any errands require the use of a car. The only people I saw walking were attached by a leash to one or more dogs. I suppose I was rather conspicuous, especially with the bright yellow duct tape patches on my shoes. (Inexplicably, my photo of the repair job that I uploaded to Flickr has received over 3000 views in a little over 24 hours.)

From the above, it’s probably quite obvious that I did not head north Sunday afternoon. I am very comfortable here, and being well fed at regular intervals. I should make an effort to do something other than sit and eat while I’m in Lebanon, or the resumption of my pilgrimage will be a real shock to the system.

When I arrive in Larnaca from Beirut on Saturday evening, I have several options. I could walk to Limassol and take the ferry to Haifa from there, or I can save a few days and fly out Sunday after attending Liturgy. The Orthodox cathedral in Larnaca was built over the tomb of Lazarus, and some of his relics have been preserved there to this day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Saint_Lazarus,_Larnaca (This year, the commemoration of Lazarus’ resuscitation at our Lord’s command will take place on April 4, a week after I arrive at the site of his second and final grave.)

Now that I’ve processed this information, there’s no question about what I want to do. I plan to be at Liturgy Sunday morning in Larnaca. I suppose I could start walking to Limassol afterwards, but once I reach Haifa it will be about eight days of walking along the Israel National Trail before I reach Jerusalem. If I catch a Sunday flight and start walking Monday, I should arrive on Tuesday, allowing me to spend the greater part of Holy Week in Jerusalem. (Hopefully the hordes of Catholic and Protestant faithful will have withdrawn by this time.) I should have booked a hostel months ago since it is a very busy time of year, but I’m not overly concerned.

I will need to book my flight home before I reach Israel. (Apparently they may demand to see proof of departure at customs and immigration control.) My months of wandering are drawing to a close. Of course I’m eager to see friends and loved ones again, but the pilgrim way of life on the road has a beautiful simplicity to it which is difficult if not impossible to replicate when at home in the world.

In October I wrote of my mixed feelings of excitement and dread regarding my pilgrimage, and compared it to jumping off a cliff. There is no longer any dread in my heart, but my joyful anticipation at reaching my goal is mingled with some sadness. In online discussions, people who have completed the Camino often report experiencing the post-pilgrimage blues.

I don’t know what I’ll be doing when I return to Canada, other than seeking gainful employ. One thing I plan to do is maintain the habit of daily exercise I’ve acquired over the past months. (I’ve lost 20 kgs, so a new wardrobe is also in order.) A forty hour work week would provide both the time and money for a gym membership, but if I’m unable to re-enter the workforce immediately I will at least have the luxury of taking long walks each day. This might be beneficial for another reason. I’ve had several people suggest that an account of my pilgrimage could make a good book. I would need time and a good editor to work these updates into something worth publishing, and walking for several hours each day would provide me with the distraction-free time I’d need to get such an undertaking organised.

In any case, I will soon be sleeping in my own bed again, surrounded by my books and computers. There are some advantages to a domestic life that are impossible to replace while on the road.
‎

Hmm… what’s the frequency, Kenneth?

— Posted inUncategorized — 4 min read
‎The last half of my previous update was dropped, but the first half was repeated several times with some odd formatting.  My roaming plan has no data provision for Lebanon, so I didn’t discover the fail until I arrived at church this morning and connected to the WiFi here.
Anyway, from Tripoli, my German friends dropped me off in Antelias, just north of Beirut. That’s when I realised that while I still remembered‎ how to get to the old church, all I knew of the new location is that it’s in the hills across a valley from the heavily fortified American embassy. It’s not just the North which has seen massive growth. I barely recognised the area, although once I spotted the army checkpoint I knew exactly where I was.  After walking around for a bit and getting a sandweesh batates ma’a toom, I decided my best bet was to flag a taxi and let the cabbie figure it out. I guess he was only in the area to drop off a fare, since his knowledge of the neighbourhood was even worse than my own. I had been stopping every five minutes or so to ask for directions, and he was doing likewise. The difference, of course, is that travelling at 4 km/h meant I remained in the right area, but stopping for directions every five minutes in the cab meant we wound up taking a very VERY scenic route. When we finally arrived at the church 45 minutes later, I discovered it was 500 m from where I had first hopped in the cab.
I’ve spent the last few days as a guest with my friend’s family, and it has been wonderful. I’ve been to services every day (except for Thursday, due to that frustrating ride), I’ve been feasting on fresh and tasty Lebanese food, and have made a good start at catching up on the past nine years — including meeting the seven year old child. I am quite happy to be here, although I do plan to head north again to pay a visit to the Balamand and see some folks there.
I’m also playing with the idea of going back to Tripoli and then walking down to Beirut. While I’ve been trying to walk as much as I reasonably can, the trains, buses, and car rides have trimmed about a thousand kilometres from my journey. Any notion of “authenticity” or “purity of pilgrimage” was shot long ago. (Thankfully, my sense of humour is still intact.)‎ What I may do is head up to Tripoli this evening, spend the night there, and then walk south along the sea road for a few dozen kilometres before heading back to the highway and catching a bus south in time for Great Compline Monday evening.
This is not (simply) a case of pig-headedness.‎ With the land route from Turkey to Jerusalem closed for the present, most pilgrims are going through Cyprus. This presents a different set of challenges. The physical minefields are all well marked, but the Turkish military occupation of the northern section of the island has created numerous political ones. Crossing the Green Line in Λευκωσία (as Nicosia is known in Greek) has been possible for several years now. The problem is that the shipping companies operating ferries between Cyprus and Israel have been instructed by the Cypriot gov’t not to sell tickets to non-EU pilgrims who have entered Cyprus “illegally,” i.e. through the port of Girne/Κερυνεια. In 2006, an American pilgrim was allowed to take a ferry after being scolded, but this past autumn a different pilgrim wound up having to travel from the port of Limassol to the city of Larnaca and leave Cyprus by plane. By travelling to the Republic of Cyprus from Turkey via Lebanon, future pilgrims can avoid one set of potential problems. (Lebanon is beautiful, and worth visiting in its own right, even if it’s just for a few days along the coast.) If I do a bit of walking while I’m here, I can provide information for future pilgrims who choose this route. I won’t be walking the 90 kms or so continuously, but by using Beirut as a base I should be able to spend time with my friends, get to church, and do some significant amounts of walking. (Yeah, I want it all.)

Whatever I wind up doing over the next few days, my flight from Beirut to Larnaca is bought and paid for. I’ll be leaving Lebanon on March 28 and arriving in Cyprus after the 45 minute flight. I’m not sure whether I’ll take a plane or a ferry to Haifa, but I should be on my way to Jerusalem again shortly.

Feets, Don’t Fail Me Now

— Posted inUncategorized — 3 min read

On Thursday I arrived in Tripoli much later than I’d expected. Our departure from Turkey was delayed  several hours beyond the advertised time, and don’t even mention my mistaken 5:00 AM jaunt to the port. When we eventually moored in Lebanon, there was another lengthy wait was the vessel was boarded and the passengers and crew were accounted for. Once we had permission to go ashore, the interview at Customs went relatively quickly. As a Canadian, I received a one month visa, with the possibility to renew it for another month. Unexpectedly, I wasn’t charged for this — on my last trip to Lebanon I had to purchase a tourist visa at the airport. The Lebanese gov’t website I consulted before visiting this time indicated that policy is still in effect, although it didn’t mention anything about arrivals by sea.

The journey was pleasant enough. There were about a dozen passengers in total, including a few truckers who were bypassing Syria, and two cars with German-Lebanese tourists who had driven 3200 kms in five days in order to spend two weeks on vacation in the home they had left in the 1970s. One of the men had worked as an automotive engineer in Germany, and he was a bit put out at the condition of the ship. It’s not that it was obviously unsafe, but it just wasn’t up to German standards. When he mentioned possibly writing an email to the shipping company to complain about the delays and the shape of the ship, I laughed and told him he’d been away from Lebanon too long.

Since it was midafternoon when I got out of customs and found WiFi, I decided against walking to the Balamand and instead accepted the offer of a ride from my new German friends. (Two of the three adults were travelling on German passports.) That’s when I learned that one of the cars had been purchased and registered in Germany two months ago. Not normally a problem, except that Lebanese import regulations require proof of ownership for at least three months before entering the country with a vehicle. Perhaps my friends could have sprung their vehicle had they been willing to grease a few palms, but as a matter of principle, they wanted to do everything correctly and above-board. (They’ve been in Germany a looong time!) After waiting several hours, they were informed that only the head of customs for the port had the authority to release the vehicle, and he had gone home for the day. Undaunted, the Germans decided to rent a car for the night, drive down to Beirut, and return in the morning. (This is a much cheaper option than a taxi each way.)

I had been considering taking a few days to walk down to Beirut from Tripoli, but instead I squeezed into the rental car‎ with the others and headed south along the main highway. I’d been amazed at how much Tripoli had grown in the nine years since I’d last seen the city, and the highway has seen corresponding growth. The long stretches of highway with nothing but cliff face to one side and the sea on the other have been replaced with new construction, gas stations, and shops. I was pleasantly surprised that nobody was driving against traffic on the divided highway — clearly Lebanon has become more orderly in my absence. That’s not to imply that the cheerful chaos is absent, just that driving is no longer as life-threatening as it used to be.