Essplorin'

In Lebanon, sometimes the funniest and most delicious memories are made when you have no idea where you're going. Last weekend, my parents and I took a drive to Ehden, a pleasant summer town in the northern mountains. We hiked along cedar-shaded, rocky paths that stretched through the seemingly untouched countryside. After about three hours of hiking, wewere famished and decided to take up our hotel's recommendation for pizza. Her words were "there is a place in this country that makes pizza." Good to know! So it had to be the best.

After about half an hour of winding uphill past beautiful mountainside villas, asking almost everyone we passed for directions, we found what looked like a house with little white plastic tables and chairs scattered on the front porch. When my dad asked a smiling woman about the type of pizza she served, her cheerful reply was "extra large, large, and medium." He asked about the toppings: "Oh, you know, peppers, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes..." We all thought that sounded fine, so we ended up ordering the largest size. When it came to the table, my parents and I chowed down on the soft, gooey pizza and surprisingly finished the whole thing. Our late night winding adventure was well worth the time and effort.

This past weekend, we had a similarly serendipitous experience. We set out on Sunday afternoon to explore a new part of the country. Our guidebook told us that the Afqaa grotto in Adonis was the mythological site of the first kiss shared between Greek goddess Aphrodite and the god Adonis. Cool, huh? Having no real idea where to find this place, our sense of adventure took the best of us. We piled into the car and took off down the highway.

Along the way, we got lost. My dad must have asked about twenty different people for directions because there were no signs anywhere, and many of the roads marked on our map didn't even exist. A few of the people we asked were barbecuing in their backyard, so they invited us to have dinner. We declined to be polite, but their generosity to three complete strangers lost in the mountain towns of Lebanon was heartwarming.

When we finally found the cave, after driving in circles and almost falling off a few cliffs, there was no way to walk up to it from the road. Convenience is not usually of prime importance here. We could smell some delicious food from the highway, so we parked near the rocky cave and walked down a shady staircase. With our ghostly skin and shorts, my family and I didn't exactly blend in with the tables full of boisterous, sun-baked Lebanese visitors. We definitely got a few stares! My timid nature came through full force, and I became convinced that we were crashing a family party. I walked back up the staircase to hide until my dad got the message.

It turns out I was just being paranoid. A young man came back to enthusiastically convince us that it was, indeed, a restaurant. We all climbed into lawn chairs, prime seating for people-watching, and waited to see what would happen next. Since we were told that our food wouldn't be ready for half an hour, my dad went to check out the Adonis cave while my mom and I chatted about life, love, and the whirlwind of travel we will embark upon next Monday.

The food soon arrived: a steaming plate of fresh "batatas" (french fries...but it sounds more exotic and less unhealthy that way!), tabbouleh salad (chopped parsley and tomato with lemon juice), hummus, soft pita bread, and skewers of spiced grilled chicken and lamb.

After lunch, my dad informed us that the cave was really difficult to reach, so we decided to skip the climb and instead bought some tart, sun-scorched apples for dessert before attempting to find our way back home.