Our immediate destination was a village called Baskinta, at an elevation of 1200 meters on the western slope of Mount Lebanon, a 45 km drive northeast of Beirut. With Tarek’s help, we found a direct bus that was scheduled to depart at 10:50 from a roundabout in the city’s eastern suburbs. Two hours ahead, we had our heavy backpacks strapped-on and were striding along the still-quiet and relatively cool streets of the big city.
We started that earlier because we needed an hour to walk there and we could do with a spare hour for contingencies and breakfast. As soon as we reached the broad, busy roundabout, we set about locating the bus. The first person we asked pointed to the opposite side. There lay a minivan and two men idling beside it.
“Baskinta?” I asked them.
“Yes,” the one replied and, without delay, attempted to all but physically steer us into the vehicle.
It felt a bit too easy. After all, we were talking about a random mountain village; not some major hub along the coast.
I double-checked: “Baskinta, direct, sure?”
“Baskinta, yes,” he affirmed.
“Vous allez directement à Baskinta, n’est-ce pas?” I triple-checked in a more widely understood tongue.
“Baskinta, Baskinta, oui, oui,” he reaffirmed and prompted me to board with a tap on the shoulder.
“Alright. What time do you leave?”
“Now,” he said and walked around to the driver’s door.
This story is an excerpt from my book "Backpacking Lebanon", wherein I recount my one-month journey around this fascinating country. Check it out if you like what you're reading.
We were an hour early, but he hadn’t left any room for doubt. There seemingly were more buses than the one Tarek had found. Breakfast could wait for an hour or two until we arrive. I only requested that he give me a minute to at least buy some water. He met my request by dispatching the other guy to fetch some for us. We got in, waited for a short bit until the man returned with two small bottles, passed him the money from the window, and hit the road.
We were the only passengers, but after some half hour of tormentingly slow progress and incessant honking at every human standing or walking on the roadside, he filled it to the last seat. Baskinta was quite popular after all, it seemed… But when we reached the turn to Baskinta, he barrelled on straight past it.
“Yo! Baskinta!” I yelled, cocking my thumb back toward the missed junction.
“Baskinta, yes,” he said, continuing with an unintelligible-to-me but explanatory-sounding spurt of Arabic and reassuring gestures.
We could only wait. Perhaps he’d take some other, less direct route…
After some 50 km of letting passengers on and off along the coast, he turned around and headed back the same way. Perhaps he’d now take the normal route to our destination…
“Baskinta, yes,” he once more placated my protests after we drove past our turn for the second time.
A little later, on Beirut’s outskirts, a short distance from where we’d started three hours earlier, he pulled over and pointed to a vacant private parking lot across the frontage road.
“Baskinta,” he announced with an expression suggestive of praise expectation and motioned us to get off.
I tried to argue, but there was no use, not least because we didn’t comprehend a single one of each other’s words. Defeatedly, we pulled out to figure out what to do next.
No sooner than I completed my first step away from the van, he screamed for me to halt. I turned around.
“Money!” he demanded. After all, yes wasn’t the only English word he knew.
“What for?” I asked, dismissed his complaints, and resumed my steps. He skidded away, screeching tires expressing his vexation.
My theory is that he tried to scam us in cold blood. He might have assumed we were so stupid as to not understand that we drove back and forth the same way and instead think that we’d come a long way closer to our destination. It’s also possible that he prevented us from going to buy water ourselves afraid that we’d spot the correct bus. In retrospect, I should have asked him what we owed for the ride out of curiosity.
Anyway, he didn’t rob us of money but of the entire morning. Now it was scorching midday, and we were standing in the middle of the highway, sticky, hungry, and planless.
We clambered over the concrete median barrier and crossed the frontage road to the parking lot he had indicated: not because there was any clue of a bus stop over there, but because the two guards standing at its entrance were the only people in sight.
They spoke good English but weren’t experts on their country’s public transport operations. They suggested we walk to the turn and see if any buses come.
That’s what we did. Beaded with sweat, we reached the turn and sat down on the low, fetid pavement, waiting amid the traffic buzz and diesel fumes that permeated the hustling intersection. Countless buses zoomed past along the main road until one slowed down with indicators blinking.
I sprang up and almost jumped in front of it to make sure it’d stop. A woman passenger interpreted in French that a bus to Baskinta would pass later, but he could take us now to Bteghrine—another mountain village en route—if we wanted. Of course we wanted: better wait in peaceful environs over a traditional meal.
Refreshing breezes blew through the van’s windows as the urban drabness gave way to delightful views of verdant slopes and the faint azure of the now-faraway Mediterranean. Traversing steep, sinuous roads and bypassing various cute settlements, we arrived in Bteghrine. My mouth watered in view of the restaurants and bakeries whizzing behind as we progressed through the village. I was about to race to the nearest one when the driver stopped to drop off the other passengers, but he gestured us to wait to… instead drop us off at a desolate junction a good way out of the village, where the bus to Baskinta would pass through.
There was a lone motorcycle repair shop a few steps down the road and a shaded ledge opposite it where we settled waiting. The lads who worked there and the infrequent passers-by glanced at us curiously, but no one spoke to us. A calm while later, the firecracker turned up.
He came revving and swerving up the road in his big, rugged jeep. Then, noticing us, he braked to a sudden halt and bounced out, chortling and bantering. He invited us to sit at the makeshift patio lounge on the plank deck overlooking the gorge behind our previous position. Within minutes, the workshop lads had abandoned their jobs to join us, and a couple more of his friends had arrived with hookahs.
We chatted in rudimentary English and French aided by pantomime and digital translation. He proudly claimed to have become rich by playing online poker and boasted about his hunting and off-road driving achievements. They were all impressed to hear about our upcoming expedition. Meanwhile, the bus was coming in ten minutes every time we asked him. A few hours later, he shot up to stop a passing truck for us.
Although he said he was going to Baskinta, the driver dropped us off at another village in between. The traffic was denser there, and we hitched a follow-up ride before long. Late afternoon, we had at last made it to our destination.
Baskinta was a picturesque, amphitheatrical Christian village surrounded by spectacular views. We’d have allotted more time to explore it. But given the tardiness, we walked straight into the first food place and got a pizza for a too-belated-breakfast/dinner. And after a quick stop for groceries, we took the uphill road out of the village.
A pickup stopped soon and offered us an enjoyable, open-air ride on its bed. Having saved all the ascent, we hopped off where our intended route forked off down the next valley. A bit later, concurrently with the sundown, we were pitching our tent in a terraced apple orchard and were about to sack out for the night.
Photos
View (and if you want use) all my photographs from Baskinta.
Accommodation and Activities in Lebanon
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