6/26/05, Byblos. Too hot.

I'm sitting in a fashionable Italian restaurant in downtown Byblos waiting for the back of my shirt to dry out. Keith and I are the only customers. He's downstairs chatting up the female bartender and her cute friend. I'm upstairs in a little dining area that I have all to myself. There's a wall-mounted A/C unit up here, and I've maneuvered a table and chair so that I'm sitting in front of it. It's a stagnant and humid thirty degrees outside, but I'm sitting under a chilly twenty degree blast. And I'm loving it.

I'm feeling very Hunter Thompson-ish right now. Fifteen minutes ago, I stormed into this little restaurant short of breath and soaked in sweat. I fell into a barstool and demanded tequila-now. After patiently showing the bartender how to make a Tequila Sunrise, I ordered two. I finished the first one and cooled down a bit, but the sweat on my shirt wouldn't dry and my sunburn was aching and my mind wasn't working quite right. I spotted a stairwell in the back of the bar and asked if the restaurant was upstairs. The bartender said yes. I asked if they had air conditioning. She said yes. I asked if I could go upstairs and if she could turn the air conditioning on for me, and she said yes and yes again. I thought maybe yes was the only English word she knew. I grabbed my drink and backpack and hustled up the stairs.

So now I'm sitting in the upper floor of a tiny brick building in a little room that's called a diner but looks more like an attic, drinking tequila cocktails and scribbling into a notebook at 80 words a minute and trying desperately to make sense of everything I've seen in the past three days. Hunter would be proud.

I got out of bed at 8 this morning and woke up with a cold shower. We had hired a driver to take us up to Jeitta Grotto and Byblos and then back to Beirut. The driver was Joseph, a Lebanese guy from Mount Lebanon whose brother-in-law ran our hostel. Joseph took us to a good restaurant, and we bought him breakfast. Over coffee, we learned that he wanted to move to Montreal. He spoke decent French but bad English, and we helped him practice. He taught us a few words of Arabic in return. We really enjoyed swapping languages. I hope he gets a flight to Canada soon.

After breakfast, we drove north to Jeitta Grotto. The Grotto is a big cave system close to Nahr Al-Kalb, the river that divides Lebanon into northern and southern regions. The lower grotto collects snow melt from the higher mountains in Spring, and it's a source for the Nahr Al-Kalb for much of the year. That section was flooded and closed to tourists. The upper grotto is a steep canyon, part of which is open to visitors. Keith and I walked along a paved path in the upper grotto and stared at the water far below.

We left Jeitta at one and got to Byblos at two. The town felt as hot as Kuwait and as steamy as the Amazon. I wasn't used to this kind of humidity. I broke out in a heavy sweat, but it wouldn't evaporate. It just stuck to my skin and soaked through my shirt. We toured the old Crusader Castle on the Byblos coast, but Keith saw much more of it than I did. He ran all over the castle, but I sought out the highest walkways, the narrowest corridors and the darkest rooms, places where the sun was blocked and the wind was channeled. Keith walked the grounds around the castle, but I got dehydrated and retreated to the shade of the keep.

After the castle I insisted on finding water, food and shade. Keith was hungry, and he agreed. We went to Pepe's Old Fishing Club on the Byblos harbor. Pepe is an old Mexican who opened the Fishing Club back in the 1940's. His restaurant was a world-famous hot spot until the civil war drove the tourists away. He spent the 80's in Mexico and came back to Lebanon in 1992. The club reopened immediately, and today it's the best place to eat in Byblos. The walls at Pepe's were covered with pictures of the old man posing with celebrities like Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, and Jacques Cousteau. A picture of Pepe and Rafik Hariri had been moved from the inside dining room to the outside deck.

Pepe's didn't have air conditioning or the Mexican food I was hoping for, but it was cool and shaded and relaxing. We got a table outside on the deck, where we could watch the people and listen to the ocean while we ate. We ordered enough food to feed a family, and over two hours we ate it all. We nearly filled up on hommos and olives and baba ghanoush and shanklish and bread before the waiter brought two big plates of shish tawook and a huge platter of french fries. When we'd finished that, we could hardly move, but the waiter brought us half a watermelon for dessert. We decided that there's always room for watermelon, so we ate the the whole thing and left a pile of seeds in an empty green husk. Then we propped our feet up on the railings and patted our bellies like a pair of old men.

We sat on the deck and drank local wine and watched the people on the harbor. Keith said the only thing he needed was a hammock. I said the only thing I needed was a joint. I hardly ever get high, but on special occasions-like when I'm watching the Mediterranean in a small town in Lebanon from the deck of a seafood restaurant run by a guy named Pepe-a Bob Marley record and a big fat joint really hit the spot.

I didn't meet Pepe, but I got a glimpse of him just as we left. When you say the words, “old Mexican fisherman,” Pepe is what you see. He was shirtless and barefoot, dressed in a pair of white swim trunks and a 3-foot-wide sombrero. He had a rapid, stiff-legged walk and a slightly hunched posture, but he moved with a calm and unhurried energy. He had a long fishing pole in one hand with a little tackle box tucked under his arm. In the other hand, he held a bundle of little fish that he had caught on the harbor wall. He looked like he had everything he wanted in the world.

We left Pepe's before we wore out our welcome. As soon as we left the shade, I started to sweat. The wind had stopped, and the temperature had risen. We walked around the souq for a while, but the calm mood of Pepe's vanished, and soon I was dehydrated and worn out all over again. The back of my shirt turned darker than the front. My sunburned forehead went bright red. I dragged Keith into the Byblos Wax Museum just for the shade and air conditioning. That kept our attention for about fifteen minutes, then we left and I ran to the next air-conditioned spot.

That was Storia, the little Italian restaurant where I am now-sitting under a freezing air conditioner, downing the last of my Tequila Sunrise, and hoping I've arranged the things I've seen into a coherent story. Hunter would be proud.

Keith came upstairs while I was writing. He asked me how the writing was going, and if the bartender mixed a good cocktail, but the subtext was that he was bored and ready to move on. I'm not ready. I have too much writing to do, and it can't wait until I get home or even until I get to the hotel. I told him I planned to sit under this air conditioner until I got three days worth of stories or the sun went down, whichever came last. Then I told him to go tour the town and meet me here at sunset. He said he didn't mind waiting and went downstairs for another beer.

So I'm going to end this story here. I've been up in this attic for an hour writing about the last three days. I'd stay here all night if I was traveling alone. But I'm not going to sit up here like Emily Dickinson while my friend is downstairs waiting for me to get out and have a good time. Keith likes to stay busy, and he keeps his companions busy as well. It's not fair of me to keep him waiting while I try to get my phrasing just right. So I'm going to close this journal and finish writing it when I get home. I might forget some of the things I've done, but I'll remember that I had fun doing them. Does that makes any sense at all?

Comments

[rampurple]

i sense the person u saw was not pepe... pepe is really old and doesnt fish anymore. he always wears a captains hat and is fully dressed. he usually is wearing a neck brace as well.

as for mexican food, there is a mexican restaurant behind pepe.

[mark]

dude if you were in Byblos you should have past by "Georges Snack". They have the best cheese burger ever! If you were there for dinner you should have past by "Sajj Makhlouf" and ordered the cheese and ham which is again the best cheese and ham ever.

If you are in Kaslik make sure you pass by "George Farah" for some really good sajj there also.

Have you been to "Super schtroumpf" yet? Best beer, best view and the most incredible menu at the best price. Its located in Jounieh. I think they have Kareoke night every tuesday and i think they have a beer festival going on at the moment.

Finally you need to pass by the chase located at Espace 2000 in Jounieh or in Achrafieh sassine square near starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. http://www.chase.com.lb/

have fun :)