Susu and I have spent two days in the labrynthian old Damascus and we are moving on to Beirut. It’s a only three hour ride from the capital city in Syria to Lebanon. I’m excited and anxious to see Beirut. I’ve heard so much about it being the Paris of the Middle East which is an image that is exactly the opposite of my mental image of Beirut, provided courtesy of the war-machine media. I first heard about Beirut in 1985 during the hi-jacking of TWA 847. At such a young age, all references to Beirut were drawn in my memory as a city far away, were people were stuck on a plane. Really, what I remember is an image of a runway with a plane and some people on the ground. This is such a vivid image and I see it in black and white. So I wonder if it was a newspaper article or just my imagination. Whatever the case, I never envisioned Beirut as a whole city full of life, and color and people and love. Though Beirut has seen years and years of civil war and political instability, it is a city that continues to thrive and negates all stereotypes of what is the Middle East.
We plan to spend 10 days in Lebanon, but have no real “plan” for exactly how we are going to get there and only a vague plan for where we will stay. The night before we leave I go to an internet café and print out the Lonely Planet guide for Beirut. Our friend’s sister who has been our host and guide in Damascus calls a taxi friend that she has used to make the trip. He is not available and sends a friend. We are to meet him near the old Roman columns in a white car at 7am. How about that? When was the last time you crossed a border with a random taxi that you find waiting for you on the side of the road at dawn.
Up to this point we’ve had battles with all our taxi drivers who feel the need to provide us with information that is not exactly true. I’m not saying they were lying, just re-forming what is necessary information to benefit themselves. Yeah, right. So we find out that we are sharing a taxi and drive to another part of town to pick up a student who is attending a university in Beirut. The charge for the shared taxi depends on, get this, where you sit and how many people are in the car. If you ride shotgun, it costs more! So we take the back seats, which are a safer distance from the inevitable come-ons of the driver. All cars are supposed to have AC which is why you take one instead of a bus. Oh and all the taxi cars are very modern four door sedans, Toyotas or Hyundais, so there is no issue with them being unreliable. We’ve negotiated the price of $30 each and are off on our journey.
The drive is beautiful and I strain to stay awake. We are still jetlagged as we’ve been through four countries in the last five days. But I’m determined to stay awake. We quickly reach the border and first go through exiting in Syria. Then we drive on a ways and have to go through immigrations/entering for Lebanon. (Watch the Syrian Bride and you’ll get an idea of how wide the border crossings are.) Because Susu and I have American passports we have to get out each time and go inside to pay for our visas and have our passports stamped. It’s all a bit murky as to what we are supposed to do. So the taxi driver hastily rushes us through pointing us towards the counters we need to visit. Driving in a Syrian taxi he can cross the borders, but must also show his papers and that he can legally take us.
Lines? What lines? Pushing and shoving and yelling is the only way to get through immigrations.
When we go through Lebanese immigrations, it is calm in comparison to the entry into Syria. When we go to buy our visa, they tell us we need to exchange our US dollars for Lebanese money. Thankfully Susu was on top of the exchange rate and acutely alert, while I was foggy and disoriented. We asked where we could exchange our money and the immigrations officer turned and pointed out the door to. . .a man. . .standing. . .behind a hole in the border fence!!! That’s right! I couldn’t believe it. I was in the parking lot halfway between the car and the fence trying to keep an eye on our luggage, but also staying with Susu to make sure we weren’t getting ripped off. For whatever reason, the taxi drivers ALWAYS feel obliged to insert themselves in all transactions, which leaves us feeling suspicious. As if exchanging money through a hole in the fence isn’t already suspect enough. As expected, mr. money changer decides to test our math skills and does some fancy calculations that leave us scratching our heads and wondering if he thinks we are really that dumb. Battle number nine ensues and Susu emerges victorious.
We get back into our taxi, our other hijabi passenger, plugged into her ipod, waits expressionless. . . and we are off. Just like that, we are now in Lebanon. The landscape becomes greener and more lush with each turn in the winding road. We are approaching the coast and the dry dessert air first becomes cooler as we go up over the mountains and then becomes thick and humid as we descend into the sprawling outer limits of Beirut.
We have a contact in Beirut, a friend of a friend who is supposed to meet us and take us to our room at a dormitory at the Arab University. The taxi driver drops of the other passenger and we continue on through one-mile-an-hour bumper to bumper traffic to the other side of the city. We aren’t sure where we are going and the taxi driver calls our friend for directions. We are sitting at an impasse where officers are trying to direct the laneless traffic. Our Beirut contact finds out our location and says he’ll come meet us. And not a moment too soon! He drives up, just as the traffic officers pull our taxi driver off the road and out of the car. We find out he’s not licensed to drive this far into the city! As a Syrian driver, he’s supposed to drop us off at the border and we take a local taxi into the city. We felt bad leaving him in the situation, but what can you do? So we hopped out and got into the other car and were whisked off to the dormitory. . .which had no vacancy and no record of our “reservation.”
This is gonna be good.
This is gonna be good.
Welcome to Beirut!!!
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