WOW! Lebanon has this funny way of self promotion. The made the world's largest hummus plate. The world's largest tabouli, and a couple of other things. They want to market that they do things the best. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not, but either way it's always marketed as such. So when I heard that they had a place in Lebanon in the final voting for the new seven wonders of the natural world (New Seven Wonders) I was completely skeptical. I thought is was just more bogus bullshit that every country tries to do. But, my family wanted to show me this place and so I went along. I didn't begrudge them any either. I really don't have a problem going to see pretty places, it's always enjoyable to me. So we drive to Beirut and then north about 20 km to Jeita. We take the airtram up and go to the upper gallery first.
OH MY GOD! I had no idea. I had come to the Grotto before (15 years ago) when I was a kid and remember going in a boat inside a cave and not thinking anything too amazing about it. Well, since then they've opened up another huge section of the caves. It was completely and utterly stunning every step. So far they've made (The least intrusive possible) walkway that goes nearly a kilometer into the cave. They are working on extending it to over two kilometers. I was just totally shocked and in awe. Having grown up in East Tennessee around mountains I've been into a few caves. I've also been to a few around the world because they are generally tourist attractions OR wine cellars. I don't particularly care for the tourist traps, and generally am amicable towards wine cellars. This trumps them all. I have never seen a cave so gorgeous on the inside. (Jeita Grotto Tourism Page)
I don't want to sound like a tour guide because it's not necessary. If you come to Lebanon for any reason, you should go out of your way to see this. I'm not kidding. Of course the tourism part of it that makes things annoying is that you can't take cameras inside. They want to sell their own pictures. I understand that from a business point of view, but the sad thing is I can't post any interesting pictures of my own here (even if my pic uploads were going through).
After the upper cave we went down to the lower cave and took a small boat through the underground lake, also pretty cool. For me the problem is that I can't take it at my own pace. There are lots of things I'd like to stop and look at closely while touring the underground lake and cave, but I'm at the mercy of the boat operator. Anyway, the lower cave is stupendous as well, but I was just absolutely blown away with the upper cave. DAMN!
Come to Lebanon, go see the grotto.
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I wanna see! Your enthusiasm makes me think of Dante walking through Paradise. "You can't see this, dear reader, but let me assure you that it's very impressive."
ReplyDeleteI'll have to take your word that the upper cave was the more spectacular because the photos from the Jeita Grotto site make the lower cave look more impressive. That's exactly what I imagined traveling down the river Styx would looked like.
So whether it's more like Heaven or Hades it certainly looks otherworldly.