But lets go back to the cave - very unfortunate but they gathered all our phones and cameras at the entrance as it was strictly forbidden to take pictures and it was so beautiful inside. I was speechless..For now Jeita Grotto is number one for beautiful caves for me especially the water part where the guys that were driving the boat were amazing, the literally past only a few millimeters from the walls.
From under the ground we climbed quite high for the next attraction which we accidentally found out. While we were driving on something like a road through the mountains we saw a statue high up on the ridge of a rock and stairs leading to it. Of course we could not resist the temptation to check it out and started climbing the stairs. The heat was brutal and the stairs were never ending but finally after we were up. And it was definitely worth the effort as there was not only a statue with awesome view towards the whole valley but a small path carved in the rock with small sculptures of saints all the way to the end point which turned out to be a monastery. The name 'stairway to Heaven' that we gave to the staircase turned out to be quite exact. Unfortunately everything was is Arabic so we could not read any of the signs but we think that it is a Maronite sanctuary, one of the religions with the biggest number of followers in Lebanon. Maronite are Christians and it is believed that the name of the religion comes from St. Maron, a Syrian priest that lived during 5th century.
I almost forgot to tell you about the restaurant where we had lunch and that was one of the most authentic ones during the whole trip. It was right by a small waterfall by the road with huge terrace where a family of about 15 people were also having lunch. But they also had all their stuff scattered all over the restaurant, the kids we constantly running back and forth and on every table or chair there were wet towels, bathing suits or clothes. At first I thought that this is not a working restaurant but private house but when we sat they gave us menus, luckily with pictures, and took our order. Right behind us there was a goat that was just killed and while we waited for our lunch they put the body on a hook, skinned it and cut it into pieces. After this quite messy procedure one of the guys took a hose-pipe and cleaned the floor. Meanwhile the oldest man put his prayer rug on the floor, prayed and then sat with the rest to smoke hookah (or as they call it 'shisha' ) while the fresh goat meat was cooking. We could not have found a more authentic place than this and on top of this the food they brought us was unbelievably delicious. To be honest i think they just gave us from their home made food as we were the only 'outsiders' there.
After that colorful lunch we took off for the next attraction which was supposed to be a beautiful waterfall Baatara Gorge. As we ate quite a lot at the restaurant we felt really lazy and as soon as we saw that there is a chairlift we did not hesitate for a second but got on it to get us down to the waterfall. We thought that it is included in the price of the entrance ticket but when they started calling - Mister, mister, miss when we took off it became clear that we have to give some money. But it was not some money but whole 10 USD per person for 50m chairlift, pure robbery in my opinion but where else can we use a lift that is actually going backwards :)
Unfortunately we were not lucky with the view here as when we visited Jeita Grotto we were happy that it hasn't been raining for a long time but when it comes to a waterfall lack of water is definitely an issue - the waterfall was dry. Yes, it was beautiful again but compared to the pictures we have seen in internet this was just a bare resemblance
It was quite scary on the rocky brigde
Lebanon has been very famous with the cedar forests in the past but unfortunately almost all of them has been cut down and now there are just a couple of protected nature parks where you can see cedar trees. According to the GPS that Joro had only 7km away there was such park. Well 7km are nothing so we decided to go and check it out. Well after just a few minutes drive the road became very narrow and really steep with a lot of U-turns. I am not sure that anyone was using this road at all as the only movement we saw was a shepherd who was sitting on the road and did not even try to move away when he saw our car coming by so we just tried to pass by him without injuring him. A lot of turns later there was still no sign of park or trees or even civilization when Joro decided to mention that these 7km were straight line on the map but the actual distance via the road was completely different. OK, that would not have been a problem if our gasoline was not almost over and there was no mobile coverage. At one point we even had to stop and look if the road was continuing as the hill was so steep that you could not see the asphalt. Finally we reached the bottom of the hill and the next challenge appeared - the other side was as steep as the one we just passed but this time we were going up and i was really worried if our small Kia will be able to manage it. Well we stopped the air conditioner at one point in order to have all the needed power for the uphill and suddenly after a turn we found ourselves in some peoples backward. It was not our fault it was the road that was going through there and they were quiet surprised to see a car coming out of nowhere but at least the civilization was reached. Cedar trees we did not see but you have no idea how happy we were when we saw the gas station :)
