Lebanon Part 1: The Cedars and Baatara Gorge

We recently returned from a family vacation to Lebanon and Cyprus. It was such an interesting, restful, and fun trip, and I'll blog about it over the next several posts. We spent 4 nights in Lebanon and 4 nights in Cyprus, and had a great time in both countries. The first few posts will be about Lebanon. We stayed in downtown Beirut, and had a couple of day trips around the country. This first post will be about our day trip to see the Cedars of God and Baatara Gorge.

The Cedars of God, referenced throughout the Old Testament, is a forest of cedar trees that once covered much of Lebanon in ancient times. Their timber was used by the Phoenicians, Israelites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans, and the Turks. Today, only a few very small cedar forests exist. The forest we visited, called the Cedars of God, was a few hours outside of Beirut. It was such a neat opportunity to see this beautiful country. As we got further into the middle of the country, we drove through the mountains, and little quaint villages. It is is green, mountainous, and lush! In the winter, skiing is popular and people from around the region come here to enjoy the snow.

A nice view along the way.

The Cedars of God...

We hiked along a path and looked at the giant cedar trees, that are said to be as old as 6,000 years old. At the top, there was a giant tree with no leaves, and a church. Pretty much every place we visited had a church at the tourist site, which is something we are not used to seeing in this part of the world.

A nearby town by the forest. What an amazing view these people have!!

Hiking back down to the entrance.

Pit stop to write their names in the dirt.

It was a beautiful day and really neat place to visit!

Before taking another long car ride, we got some snacks and souvenirs at the shopping area.

Another view of the lush mountains, on the way to the gorge.

Baatara gorge has a 830ft waterfall at the bottom of the gorge, that drops into a sinkhole in to the Cave of Three Bridges, on the Mount Lebanon trail. During the spring melt, the water is plentiful, but unfortunately it was completely dried up when we visited! This gorge was only discovered in 1952, and the waterfall and sinkhole were not mapped until the 1980s, when it was determined where the water came from. Lots of unique looking flowers...but watch out for the thorns. Poor Caleb fell into a plant and got a handful of thorns :(.

We took what they called an 'air chair' to the bottom - like a ski lift, but the boys thought air chair was more fun to say.

Normally, there would be a cascading waterfall dropping down the hole.

The path to get to the other side was kind of narrow and rocky, so we looked from afar, got a snack, and headed back to the top on the air chair.

Nathan walked up and we rode.

It was a neat experience to see the mountainous countryside, and the boys were troopers because we were in the car for close to 6 hours that day!

When we got back to the hotel, we hopped in a cab and went to the Corniche, which is a really nice pathway along the Med. We saw people walking, biking, and running (in shorts and tank tops)!!

And a bunch of dudes hanging out on the rocks. It seemed weird, but there was a beautiful sunset behind us, so maybe they were all coming to watch? 

Going down...

We had a great first day exploring Lebanon!