Tyre

Tyre. Tier. Not Tire. Also known as Sour. Not sour. Pronounced like Souhre with a soft, rolling "r", as though Marylin Monroe determined the pronunciation herself. The two days I spent in Tyre turned my rainy, cold, expensive vacation in Lebanon into a sunny, relaxed adventure. Yes, relaxed and adventurous. The town is small; no building is over 10 stories. The streets are busy and full of people sitting on the boardwalk or eating kebab in the shopping district. The city is not newly rebuilt or as "Euro" as Beirut, and more women wear headscarves giving the Muslim population more visiblility. Transportation from Beirut to Tyre in a local microbus takes just above an hour. The route follows the highway south along the Mediterranean; it's a gorgeous ride, especially at sunset.

Two people I met in the hostel in Beirut, a Turkish man, Korcjan, and an Irish woman, Christina, both travelling separately, also wanted to go to Tyre. Korcjan worked for a bank in Turkey and Christina (pale, blond Irish woman) taught English in, of all places, Saudi Arabia. It's a good thing to travel with others when you have common touristic interests, especially when you will need to find a driver to take you places you could otherwise not get to with public transportation. We decided to meet at a hotel in Tyre called Al Fanar, the Lighthouse, which is located on the very tip of an outcrop of the Christian section of town, near the harbor by the historic lighthouse, just off of the business district. Korcjan and I walked from there to a reputable kebab house and had one of the better, and actually affordable, meals I ate in the entire country.

After dinner we set out to find a driver, someone who would know the places of Southern Lebanon of both ancient and modern historic importance, of both a political and controversial nature. We flagged down a taxi. The car was a maroon Mercedes, late 1980's make, and our driver was young, like us, smiled a lot and had a small moustace. His name was Abbas. He didn't speak a huge amount of English, but he managed to beg us to come with him to meet his wife, or, as we found out, his finance, Marium. She had thick, long well-managed curly brown hair, spoke very good English, and explained, while reading and turning the pages of our Lonely Planet, that her soon-to-be husband knew the back hills of this region very well, but not necessarily every site the book mentioned.

Both Korcjan and I felt quiet comfortable with our soon-to-be driver and his soon-to-be wife. He and I had swapped travel stories over dinner and discussed how we would handle strangers and negotiations. While still in the car with Abbas and his fiance, we silently communicated our acceptance then turned to them to negotiated a price, a time to meet, and encouraged his fiance to join us.

Our tour lasted 6 or 7 hours. We saw a cave where miracles from Christian lore were said to have happened. We saw remnants of the previous war when Israel had ground troops in the hills and air power above. We saw a United Nations memorial to victims of one particularly destructive hit. We saw whole villages which we were told were strongholds of the resistence group but saw not a single gun or guard on duty anywhere. Being from the area, Abbas knew the Hezbollah, but he wasn't an active member nor interested in being one. We saw mansions of wealthy Lebanese men (supposedly in the diamond mining business). We went to the border and saw a chain-link fence topped with barbed-wire stretching for miles. On a concrete block next to it a grafitti piece in the style of a Keith Haring drawing lightened the mood just a bit.

We ended the trip by climbing a few thousand feet into the bald-headed mountain-hills to find the Beaufort Castle, a cliff-top fort built by the Crusaders in the 12th century. The fort is abandoned now but had been used as a military outpost by the oft-shifting powers in the region to the present day. The entire trip conversation flowed from the front to the back seat, with questions and jokes and genuine interest in enjoying each other's company (including me and my new companions from the hostel). At the end of the tour outside the hotel, we gave them more money than previously agreed, and before getting out of the car, Korcjan turned to Abbas and said "You are a very lucky man to have this woman as your future wife." We all smiled and nodded. Then he turned to Marium and said, "And you are very lucky to have him, as well!" We all laughed in agreement. Perhaps their neighborhood in Tyre is still standing, perhaps they are still together and perhaps, despite the difficult times, perhaps they are still happy.

(PS--Three photos are posted on the 1/18/06 entry titled Beyrouth, LIBAN. Right now I don't have access to my photos so I cannot suppliment this entry with sites mentioned.)