The hills are alive

Juggling cousin has arrived from Germany on holiday. His days are free. My days are free (work is not happening at the fastest speed here). So off we headed into the mountains. Five hours on the road and all we saw was a minute part of this gorgeous 200x50km country. The thing about this very tiny country is that it's mountainous - very, very big hilly! Not ideal for someone who's easily nauseated by roundabout movement; but luckily there was so much beauty to distract me and cool French music to play the soundtrack to our roadtrip, and refreshing wind blowing through the car window, so I was happy. Plus, the fresh mountain air - we were about 1 250km above sea level at the top - and the sound of birds (you don't see or hear any in Beirut) and pretty roadside flowers (you don't see any on the roads where there are a lot of people living because they pick them all) got me really in touch with nature after three weeks of city life and missing my daily beach walks in Muizenberg.

Oh, and for those who know about my fear of heights: I managed to walk across a 30cm wide plank that was acting as a bridge in place of a broken bridge. Okay, so it was only four and 20 metres long and only about 20m above the river, but this fear has been with me for longer than four metres. After four attempts to cross, I high fived juggling cousin on the other side.

Adrenaline in the middle of nowhere really is quite something.

The windy mountain roads that we drove.

Noel (smoking) and Leila sitting on the side of the road in the village of Eghbe, having their morning arguile and ahwe. All Leila wanted to know was whether the clothes in South Africa are better than those in Lebanon.

Drinking water that flows down the mountain comes out of this fountain

for the villagers to utilise.

A typical Lebanese village roof. Those that aren't tiled in red tiles have a flat concrete roof that almost always has grape vines growing on it.

A pristine part of Naher Ibrahim. Naher means river.

Another part of Naher Ibrahim, further down, from on top a bridge.

One of the many pretty flowers along the road.

Living in quiet solitude. Houses dotted along the mountainside.

An ancient bridge that now stands in ruins on either end.