it is very easy in this country to be at the sea and in the mountains on the same day.

Byblos is on old and ancient port city located a few dozen kilometers north of Beirut that has been inhabited for several thousand years. Many parts of old Byblos around the port have been restored nicely, although the main focus was on attracting tourists. These days tourists are few and far to be found, the crisis in Syria and the uncertainty within Lebanon itself, Tripoli is not to far up the road from Byblos, speak for itself.

Unfortunately during the Easter Weekend, the country was hit by a dust storm emanating, according to the press, in North Africa. No surprise there, as a lot of dust has been kicked up lately in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and elsewhere. Let's hope that it is not a shitstorm that hit's next, but stirring is on the rise in neighbouring countries. So neither at Sea Level nor in the mountains at a hight of 2000 meters, visibility was especially good, again reflecting the current political scene here, kind of hazy.

In addition to the dust, the air was hot at the coast but pleasant up in the mountains, were still remnants if the winter could be found in snow fields that were rapidly melting in the hazy sun.

Spring is about to break free in the country meteorological speaking at least. The swallows and swifts are back and great flocks of storks could be observed over the weekend circling over the Tyre coast looking for warm air currents to rise and carry them northwards. I hope they reach the north countries not to fast, as they might be surprised with the white Easter and cold temperatures this year in much of Europe. But with the dust in the air yesterday, I guess even the storks had to stop flying and be grounded. In the mountains one could see the first small blossoms on the apple trees, so indeed spring seems to be around the corner.

Yes, as usual I will complain about the horrendous driving of the Lebanese, but I also will mention a nice encounter I had in the village of Tanourine up in the Lebanon Mountain range. I stopped at a fruit stall to buy three bananas. I went into the shop that was literally full with any kind of fruit in season, including bananas. When I asked the shopkeeper to sell me three bananas, he just gave them to me refusing to take any payment. I read somewhere that mountain people are always nicer, I don't know if it is generally true, but for sure at this time I found some merit to this statement.

The Chouf was quite on Monday, probably due to the bad weather, with a dust storm having found it's way from North Africa to this end of the Levant. Visibility was bad in the morning, and dropped to less than 300 meters in the afternoon. Not a good Photo day. I still have not explored the “Monastery of the Moon” (Deir Al Omar) with all it's alleyways and little places fully. The Chouf region is a place I find interesting especially as it allows me to escape the urban jungle on the coast. Apparently Lebanon is a country with on of the highest urbanization levels in the world. One literally has to go very high up into the Mountains of the Mount Lebanon range to be able to experience some kind of “Wilderness”. The rest of the country is characterized by mad traffic and what I call new building 'ruins' shooting up everywhere. I can't think off what and who and why is this building boom happening? What you going to do if you have only urban space left??

More next time on the journeys through the Levant. Bye for now.