Human chatter awoke us at dawn. I went out to inspect. Its source unseeable, it came from within the bordering orchard upslope. White spurts of pesticide jetted above the treeline. We got ready and were off before the fierce morning sunlight reached us.Now we had to climb 400 steep meters until the ridge to rejoin our trail. We started early to avoid doing this in the extreme … [Read more...]

The daybreak was approaching, warming the nightly frigid interior of the cave and encouraging me to quit the sleeping bag. I went out to witness a wonderful view of the now-visible gorge. The bats had gone to sleep, and gobs of little birds, who nested in the speckling of holes on the cave’s ceiling that was a trypophobic’s nightmare, were now fluttering all around, producing a … [Read more...]

We were up at dawn. Before the sun crested the ridge, we were packed and gone.As agreed last evening, we stopped by Emilio’s hotel to have breakfast together. The place seemed forsaken. The open door led us past a vacant reception desk and a lobby in-the-works out to a backyard. A man was there, meditating over a running hose rather than watering the flowers. After we found a … [Read more...]

An owl’s persistent, mellow and melodious hooting preceded the alarm and aroused us before the crack of dawn. We snoozed on while the twilight infiltrated the tent and replaced the absolute darkness. When we could see enough, we got up and began preparing for the first day of our trekking adventure.The aptly named Lebanon Mountain Trail is a 470 km long-distance hiking trail … [Read more...]