Beirut or Bust, Or, There have been six power outages while I have been writing this piece…

Normally, travelers and trade between Damascus and Beirut flow over the anti-Lebanon Range, through the Bekaa valley and down to the Mediterranean. However, the Israeli Air Force has bombarded the road and border crossing along this route. As a result, it has been impassable since approximately August 2nd.

The alternative, and now only, route follows the coast northward through Tripoli to Daboussiyeh in Western Syria. On August 4th we traveled upstream on this road, against the heavy ebb of traffic escaping the war.

Despite a sign with an arrow and the word “Lebanon” in English and Arabic script, the turn off the Syrian highway is easy to miss. It seems too small and too poorly maintained to be the road to Lebanon. Instead of an artery capable of conveying a country’s lifeblood, we find a capillary.

A short distance from the highway, where the road begins in earnest, the track in a state of severe disrepair – or has it been bombed? Just beyond this rough patch, three piles of earth have been mounded up in the middle of the road. There is no difficulty circumventing them on a motorcycle; automobile traffic has also been passing. The northbound heavy trucks and buses, however, cannot pass.

Dozens of trucks are parked between the dirt mounds and the Syrian Border, a space of about 5 kilometres. Many have containers or are tarped over, concealing their contents. Are these weapons awaiting transshipment?

Further down the line of trucks is a series of three eighteen wheelers with flatbed trailers. Three large metal boxes are loaded on each. They appear to be unused diesel generators. Industrial equipment is not weaponry, but so far the smuggling paradigm still essentially fits.

Then, two large yellowish water pumps; piping; more generators. Next is a series of automobile lorries loaded with new cars of various makes and models, covered in dust from the trip. Now these clearly are not weapons.

It becomes apparent that the trucks are being used to evacuate movable assets to avoid their destruction. Once the trucks arrive in Syria, the earth mounds on the road prevent them from traveling any further. (Perhaps the road has been blocked precisely to prevent the goods from being sold in Syria). As a result, the trucks have been parked just a few miles north of the border, their drivers apparently having returned to Lebanon to ferry up more trucks. The trucks continue in a long line. There are 40 or more in total.

Exiting Syria is relatively painless. They allow photographs of the large line-up of northbound traffic while we wait to have our passports stamped. One other group of foreign eccentrics is also trying to enter the country. A skinny, older chain-smoker; a chubby man with a greasy pony-tail wearing a vest with 23 pockets; a pretty and unusually tall young girl with too much makeup, fifteen bracelets and Syrian colours draped around her: journalists.

After clearing Syria we cross a river on a still-intact bridge. A massive line of trucks is backed up across it. We stop to take pictures at a small shack flying a Lebanese flag, but are told to stop by the Lebanese guards.

An Arab man approaches wearing a golf shirt embroidered with the words “Sydney, Australia.” He asks where we are from. I reply, then return the question, offering as a joking reply “Australia?”

“Yes, how did you guess?” He replies. I point to the shirt and he smiles, seeming to have forgotten that he was wearing it. He tells us that the river marks the border. We are now on Lebanese soil. He adds that the Israelis have been thinking of destroying the bridge. Probably this is a guess based on the air traffic in the past days.

I look back. The bridge is long enough that two or three trucks are stopped on it in the unmoving line of traffic. Even with a fly-by prior to the bombing run, the trucks would not have time to move. The drivers might try to flee on foot, but I doubted they would make it before the fighter returned on its bombing run. Anyway, with targeted weapons, I’m not certain pilots make “passes” any longer. Many of the strikes have also been carried out by unmanned drone, probably flown by remote control from Israel.

Is the shack with Lebanese soldiers the “border control” I wonder? These are times of war after all, and the usual formalities and controls on life disintegrate. It is partly for that reason that I have come. Who cares about a few extra bottles of whisky in my bag when the country is facing destruction?

In fact, we find the border crossing a few kilometers ahead, functioning quite as usual. The Lebanese are accustomed to war, and things must get far worse before life as usual shuts down. Disappointingly, the only question the border guard asks is whether I would like a 15 day visa for 25,000 Lebanese Lira, or a 30 day visa for 50,000. There is no suggestion that this is an unusual time to travel, nor any interrogatories about the purpose of our visit.

The final step for entry is to clear the motorcycle. This requires the purchase of insurance, followed by a stamp of the carnet de passage en douanes, a kind of special passport for vehicles that controls their import and export. While it is impossible to be certain, the insurance appears to be selling at the usual price. I am reassured that those who live by assessing risk have not yet placed a premium on us. Then I remember contracts: probably there is an exclusionary clause for Acts of War. Anyway, they’re not selling life insurance.

While Jon, the owner of the bike, takes care of papers, I sit in the area where vehicles pass and are inspected, writing in my journal. My writing is in fits and starts as I am distracted by the faces of the people in the vehicles passing through. One after another, they pull up with windows down and hand over their papers. Most of the drivers are men, and most smoke cigarettes.

The children, more than the adults, make eye contact. The adults don’t seem curious to see the redhead writing in his journal in such an improbable place. Something else must be on their minds – or they have seen much stranger sights. The children do seem curious. They look neither happy nor sad. They are serene, and far too serious for their age. Without understanding it, they know that something important is happening, and that very likely their lives while not again be the same.

As we leave I ask the customs officer how many foreigners have crossed today and he says: “Two,” which I understand to mean one Texan, and one Yukonner.

Lebanon is beautiful. The first stretch of road after crossing the border is overhung by tall, old trees that form a solid canopy, like those to be found in peaceful, rural places where people have been living for a long time. Their shade is soft and soothing.

We soon make Tripoli. The port was hit, but we bypass it and follow the coastal road for a few kilometers beyond the city, then climb onto the highway. The highway is almost entirely free of traffic, and Jon opens up the throttle a bit, enjoying two lanes all of our own. It is not far, however, before we reach the first of four detours.

Between 7 and 8 a.m. in the morning the Israeli Air Force struck three or perhaps four main bridges on the northern highway. At the last exit before each hit, people have placed tires, barricades and tape to signal that the road ahead is impassable. At the first of these we take the detour. At the second, third, and fourth, however, we slip under the tape and drive out to the scene of the destruction.

We are not the only ones who want a look: at each bridge we find many Lebanese photographing the destruction with digital cameras and cell phones. Most look very calm, and some even amused or cheerful. Some are throwing rocks over the edge to see how long they take to hit the valley floor below; a few cover their mouths in shock; I see only one woman fighting back tears.

The first exploded bridge to which we come (the second detour) is a scene of massive destruction. The span was approximately 200 yards. The entire surface of the road now lies in a twisted mess at the bottom of the valley, perhaps 150 feet below. On the seaward side just off the edge of the roadway, smoke is still rising from the wreckage of a small flatbed truck. It is not immediately recognizable as such: the bed has been separated from the cab, like an ant whose abdomen has been severed from its head.

Not knowing that the bridges had been struck that morning, I wonder if the wreckage of the truck has already been reclaimed as a kind of shelter for refugees. Perhaps the smoke is from a cooking fire. However, speaking to a woman in French (this is a Christian district) I learn that this truck was crossing the bridge as the missiles struck only hours before. The vehicle is still smoldering. The driver, of course, is dead. There may also have been one passenger.

On the north side of the collapsed bridge is a billboard quite common in Lebanon. It depicts a person eating a massive bacon, cheese and mushroom burger from the Hardee’s fast-food restaurants. The slogan reads “Don’t bother me, I’m eating.” The sign is riddled with holes.

I assume the holes they are shrapnel. However, on closer examination, one can make out distinct, relatively small holes in the north side of the sign. On the south side, a single large chunk has been torn out at each place where the sign was hit. Bullet holes are always larger at the point of exit than entry. If this is true of shrapnel too then the sign could not have been damaged by shrapnel from the bridge, which would have flown northward. It appears that the pilot laid down machine gun fire in a north to south direction before bombarding the bridge. However, I was not able to find any eyewitnesses to verify this conjecture.

The second bridge to be hit is near Casino du Liban. The damage is much less severe. The bridge is still sound. Only the southbound lane has been hit, seemingly only damaging the roadway. The rebar and concrete around have exploded upward and stand like frozen splashes of water from the surface of a swimming pool just after someone has canon-balled off the diving board. We are able to pass on right shoulder with the motorcycle.

The third bridge has also only been hit in the southward lane. The missile struck just in front of an unfortunate van that plunged into the crater. Its front wheels now hang in the void underneath the bridge; its rear end protrudes up. Sky News has a satellite uplink and is broadcasting live with the van in the background. I hear the anchor say that the driver later died of injuries in hospital. They go to a retired Israeli military commander in Tel Aviv and I listen to the half of a debate/interview between the anchor and the Israeli military man. The broadcast wraps up just in time: a tow-truck has arrived to extricate the vehicle.

The strikes in the southbound lane are consistent with a desire to destroy only Hizbullah’s capacity to import weapons, and not the ability of the Lebanese to flee danger. Of course, the premise itself is flawed: borders are porous and there is almost always another road. With the highway damaged, the Lebanese have merely resorted to the coastal roads. We passed six or eight large liners transporting unwitting cattle southward on these roads, so there is no trouble with heavy traffic. In any case, where there are mountains there will always be smugglers.

The bombardment does add to the cost of doing business. It adds time, danger and difficulty premiums. This can be an effective strategy insofar as it diverts resources and effort toward mere survival rather than aggression, and it may diminish the return on terrorist investment and the rate of flow of weapons.

Even in the conventional battlefield, victory rarely comes in the form of a checkmate. It is normally conceded once the outcome is made clear. A fortiori, social movements and guerilla fighters are rarely if ever defeated by direct confrontation resulting in defeat. They must be convinced ideologically, militarily or economically, or by a combination of all three, to surrender. Indeed, destroying these bridges was clearly not capable of placing Hizbullah in checkmate. Nor did it appear to bring the movement any closer to capitulating. The strikes took place in Christian areas, generating Christian casualties. The principle effect is to damage the Lebanese economy during and after the war (by creating massive reconstruction costs), and perhaps to foment solidarity between the Christians and Muslims.

Before leaving the last bridge, we meet a retired British military commander who is a security consultant for Sky News. We learn that they are staying at the Movenpick resort. Lovely place, apparently. He has just finished two years in Iraq and this is a holiday in comparison.

“How much is beer here?” Asks Jon.

“To be honest I don’t know – Sky News picks up the tab on everything. We just charge it.”

We begin talking about the war.

“I don’t know why they don’t just stop this thing. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Hizbullah are good, but the whole goddam thing is so fucking stupid. I don’t know why Bush and Blair don’t at least say that this fighting should fucking stop.”

We exchange a few more thoughts before the conversation ends as such conversations always do, without any kind of resolution. The security consultant then puts his finger on the preposterousness of his (our?) presence in a war zone, although I am not sure if he understands his words quite as I do:

“But hey, it’s room service for me tonight. [Pause] He said caringly.”

We laugh. The sun is setting over the Mediterranean and the light has been perfect for pictures this evening.

(Check bloggingbeirut.com for photos -- I'll try to post some here later)

Classes are out!

I didn't hang around Cairo long.

Over the summer I met a Texan classmate named Jonathan in a roundabout way. We began with the Yukon in common: he had visited on a trip up the Alaska Highway to go roughneck in Dead Horse, Alaska.

Anyone who has travelled to the Yukon -- or whose first cousin once did -- tells me about it. This is supposed, I gather, to make us friends. Perhaps it is a way of telling me that they too come from hardy stock, or that we share the frontier spirit? They are just like me, because once they set foot on the permafrost out of which I grew.

But they don't know that the Yukon is not a place. It never has been: It is an idea; the spirit of an age. This age is an age long past. So the Yukon attracts old souls, those who have lived many lives. These are they who congregate at the ends of the earth, finding in finis terrae australis the echo of the aurora borealis.

Let me give an example. The Canadian beaver was imported to Tierra del Fuego in the early 1900s in order to create a fur trade. It was so successful that today it has flooded the forests around Ushuaia and completely destroyed them. It is a bane and the locals seek -- in vain -- to destroy it. I do not know whether they have begun dynamiting the lodges, which is the best method, based on our experience in the Yukon. But what I mean is this: the beaver must have felt as I did arriving in Ushuaia. In going to the furthest point on the globe from its origins, it had, in spirit, returned home. And it prospered.

This spirit cannot be acquired by setting foot in a place. It cannot be tamed, bottled and sold for mass consumption, as they do the "mud of the Alaska highway". As the Singaporean military propaganda reads: that mud on your face is the soil of your nation. The only place that mud does anything is on your face, not in a can on the bookshelp at home.

That is why it means nothing to me when people tell me they have been to the Yukon. This idea, which I struggle to express, is encompassed succinctly in the distinction between Cheechakos and Sourdoughs. They are two worlds apart, though both have been to the same places. But when the Trappers and Gold miners didn't realize is that Cheechako and Sourdough are states of mind, not mere matters of time spent in a place. Some people born in the Yukon are still Cheechakos, and some people are Sourdoughs before they ever arrive, though they have never heard the word. That is why many people I knew growing up struggled to leave, while I dream only of returning.

Generally, two kinds of people visit the Yukon: retirees, and hippies. Both come as Cheechakos, and leave as Cheechakos.

The retirees, needless to say, have a style of travel that is approximately 10 to the power 15 degrees removed from mine. Of course, like everyone, I think my way of doing things is best, and therefore I cannot agree with them. Floating casinos and restaurants with a view to Glacier Bay? 160 ft. land yachts towing hummers as their "town car"? No thank you.

The hippies I resent too, although I find the girls cute, especially in Dawson. Predictably, they are all from large cities and have bourgeois upbringings that embedded the angst they now seek to dissipate through travel and closeness to the real people and places of the earth. Usually they have a sibling who is an investment banker or lawyer. They will give you a URL where you can see some sweet digital pictures of their friend wearing peasant dress in Guatamala, showing solidarity with the salt of the earth. Predictably, they fall in love with the Yukon (which they think they understand better than the locals), go home to Toronto, and make webpages telling others exactly how to go to the places where they too can find themselves. All of the best mountaintops for Yoga, I'm sure, are listed.

It is like writing about Bedouin hospitality in the Lonely Planet. The Bedouin are famous for their hospitality because offering of food and water to strangers is essential to survival in the desert. In search of an authentic Middle Eastern experience, innumerable "desert travelers" have taken minibuses out of town for the day to experience this and write home: "Dear Mother, on his way to Dimascus Lawrence of Arabia stopped here just like we did. That's where we're going too, mother." (read with British accent for full effect)

Now you'll find the Lonely Planet still telling of Bedouin hospitality, but with a useless warning not to abuse this hospitality. The warning is a moral disclaimer so that the editors won't feel bad about ruining this place and that tradition. Full stop.

Confession: I have a lonly planet. However, my rule of thumb in Cairo was to focus on visiting anything NOT in it. And I didn't tell anyone about it later, as I have taken to no longer telling much about the Yukon except the long winters and killer mosquitos. I cannot reconcile love for a place with the fact that sharing it will ruin it. I cannot reconcile having travelled to many places thanks to lonely planet with my hatred of being able to tell immediately upon visiting a place whether it is in a guidebook or not by the number of foreigners there.

What happens to a very few souls when they travel North, or to other ends of the earth, is that they open a line of communication with their previous selves. It is a sudden, tingling connectivity across eons of time and light years of space. I cannot explain it except to liken it to a feeling of deja vu on a level thousand times more profound than the experiences with which that phrase is usually associated. It is an inexplicable belonging; the sensation of a massive presence -- so large and unmistakable, yet completely indescribable.

An artist looks at a stone and knows that in it lies the statue of David. How can it be gotten out? Travelling to the North may be a glimpse of the David. I have uncomfortably incubated emotions without expression then read a poem that hatched them in a few inspired and infuriating lines. Travelling to the North may be like reading that poem.

Until that time, these things are an itch that one desires to soothe but does not know how to scratch. It is like having, as Blaise Pascal said, a God-shaped hole in your heart, but the hole is filled by empty space, silence, and nothingness.

Having referred in a previous post to Louis L'Amour, maybe now I can added to my gilded list of sources Jean M. Auel, who wrote the Clan of the Cave Bear series. I read these books by headlamp on the school bus at around age 11 or 12 (it is dark in the morning and after school in the Yukon in winter). You will understand shortly why, along with cowboy novels, I remember these books so vividly.

In the Valley of the Horses, the protagonist Ayla is to have her first rites with the cave-man Jondalar. He is an expert in this art, and very experienced. He has made many girls tremble with pleasure on her first night where others would only have inflicted pain (keep in mind, according to the story they are cave-men).

Ayla is not a virgin (in fact she has been a mother), but she has never had an orgasm. As the slow, passionate evening evolves under the heavy warm furs of their cave, Ayla cries out to Jondalar: "I want -- I want, something..." She cannot finish the sentence because she does not know the word for what she wants. She has never had it and she grew up with the mute Neanderthal.

Travelling to the ends of the earth may be like finding release after crying out your whole life: "I want -- I want, something..." Growing up in the city, you never had it. Surrounded by civilization, we live amidst a neanderthal world with no word for ecstasy -- with no knowledge of the most profound expression of human nature. But you need not find the words: as the act alone suffices, so too does the silence, the open spaces, the nothingness. Thus, for a few travellers, travelling to one of these places is necessary to recognize something in themselves: The Wilderness.

These are the Sourdoughs.

I realized, I know not how, that Jonathan was a Sourdough. So I thought it might be good if we did some travelling together, and he apparently felt the same way about me.

Jon had imported his BMW motorcycle from Texas earlier in the year, as the license plates clearly revealed (indeed a little too clearly, considering where we aimed to drive -- without, I should add, the usual .12 gauge that only a Texan or a Yukonner carries as a matter of course). I couldn't have dreamt anything so preposterous, but a Yukon-Dallas motor-cycle team crossing the Middle East on a bike with Texan plates seemed just right to me. Though the trip itself would prove less glamorous, the idea at least would burn down civilization and all its categories. From the wreckage the wreckage, we would rebuild a kinetic Utopia known only to us, and existing only as long as we kept moving. Like the Masai, if we were captured and held, we would die.

So after a twenty four hour setback due to a brake failure (the brake light still flashes from time to time, but Jon assures me he had it fixed) we set out across the Sinai to Nuweiba. From Nuweiba, a ferry to Aqaba allows you to circumvent Israel (necessary for entry into Syria). We then headed up through Jordan, and yesterday crossed the Syrian Border.

There have been many incidents along the way to which only my journal shall bear witness. I wish to tell for now only one.

Sometimes there are Visa problems, crossing into Syria. You have to get the visa through the embassy in your country if Syria has diplomatic representation there. However, FedEx-ing my passport to Ottawa was impossible. It would have taken too long and would have nailed me to Cairo since, as in all police states, travel internally in Egypt is impossible without a passport. I had heard, however, of people who did not have the visa entering legally (perhaps the policy set internationally has not trickled down) or with bribes.

Bypassing Amman entirely, we stopped a few kilometres from the border to eat a massive amount of fatty food (in anticipation of the wait) and discuss the options. First try all border crossings. Second, I thought I was prepared to walk across if I was denied and meet Jon in a Syrian town on the other side. The other option, if sanity prevailed on that given day (never known until the morning of) was to take a plane to Cyprus or mainland Turkey from Amman. A distant fourth was my original plan: scuba diving in Sinai. (I don't know whether I subconciously don't like diving, but every time I plan a diving holiday I hatch elaborate and impromptu schemes to involve myself in whatever local events are making headlines). We also discussed how one bribes border officials discreetly, a matter with which I had no experience.

Clearing out of Jordan with us were three Yellow dukes of hazard cars with Syrain plates: the Amman Damascus taxi service, Est. 1971, and operating with the same vehicles since. We saw two disheartening sights in the no-man's land between Jordan and Syria.

First, the line of traffic back into Jordan was massive. Every car was getting the automobile version of a cavity search, slowing things down to a crawl and leaving us wondering what the passengers and driver were being subjected to indoors. It would take hours to get back through if we were turned around, and all we would do is head for the next border crossing to try again.

Second, observation towers were visible on hills to the east. Under a powerline lay a distinctly well-groomed tract of land with no vegetation, about 40 m wide. Jonathan shouted: "mine field." I was looking for the signs. I had told him earlier why I thought the tactical value of a minefield at a border, unlike in a combat situation, was increased by signs. In Tierra del Fuego there were minefields near the ferry port, and they were marked in Spanish, English and German. I told Jon I thought it would be the same here. There were no signs, but this was clearly a minefield.

We waved at the humvee with .50 calibre machine gun mounted on top and they waved back, smiling.

The two kilometres between the exit and entry points are full of beautiful olive orchards. I recognized them as olives from my visit to the Olave farm in Chile. I said to Jon:

"This is where you would have to get out, on the Syrian side of the minefield, and try to pick your way through the orchard." I knew, though, that this was not an option any longer and we would have to make it be proper means. I was just fantasizing about my missed career in the special forces as forward recon. No one would ever have been better, tougher, more capable of learning local languages or E&E (Escape and Evasion in SAS jargon), but my file would have shown a lengthy record of discriplinary problems and clashes with superiors.

We missed taking a picture of the "Welcome to Syria" sign. Jon said,

"Should we go back?" But we both knew the answer was no: this wasn't tourism.

"They don't really like pictures here, I heard."

I got out my camera though, and kept it handy but out of sight. There were two more "welcome" signs along the way. Having missed the first, I said to hell with the second as well. By the time the third came I took a picture, thinking that if I didn't there might be a forth. It was getting kind of weird to have so many signs, but I guess the Syrians are really friendly people. Maybe that's why they didn't make the Axis of Evil cut. (Axes, like the Trinity, lose something of their mystical attraction if they have more than three components). I was sure the friendliness would soon be gone and we would see blood flowing in the streets once we cleared the border.

The border was a relatively orderly, if bureaucratic place. I couldn't smell the smoke of funeral pyres where babies are burned yet, but was sure they were just around the corner. We went in to get our passport stamps. I asked Jon what my story was, so that we'd be straight if they questioned us separately. He just smiled and said, "see what comes to you man." Total improv: I love it. I remember when a girl from work at the Supreme Court was trying to sneak her boyfriend across the border to the States. They had plans A-F all worked out, ahand contacted relatives as far away as South Africa to go over the cover story in case customs called. It was clever, and a better job than I could have done, but totally banalized the one bad thing she ever did in her entire life, and made the one chance we had of being friends so uninteresting to me. But that's the thing about lawyers: they brake the law, they just do it in extraordinarily boring ways.

But I had a bothersome rational streak myself that caused me to show Jon a false marriage certificate (I was married in Whitehorse two years ago). It was necessary to stay in the same room when travelling with Elizabeth in Egypt.

"I'm going to visit my wife in Damascus. She was working in Lebanon but has been left homeless by the Israeli aggression and is in a hotel in need of my help." I thought this might strike the appropriate chord: married good, girlfriends bad; Lebanon good, Israel bad.

We met Americans who had been waiting 3 hours (6.5 by the time we left; probably were turned back later that night). They were of Arab descent (or so I thought), but it didn't really seem to be helping their case. In fact, I later learned that one of them was Michael Perez, a Cuban immigrant who "accepted" (the word has the correct religious inevitability to it: you might as well just give up and recognize Truth) Islam in Miami 9 years ago and then married a Moroccan girl in Michingan. Since, he has become an activist in favour of Palestinian rights, and was deported from Israel. Wow, I thought I was struggling with my identity.

Yet, all of this planning for the worst proved to be farfetched imagination: nothing but an attempt to make my life more interesting and fraught with peril and hardship than it really is. The whole thing reminded me of a much sexier but equally unnecessary night crossing of the border to Tibet I recently read about on the Internet. Within a record-breaking 3.5 hours -- and for less than the cost of the visa from the Embassy in Canada, not including FedEx fees -- I had a single entry visa into Syria.

We cleared the bike with the Carnet de Passage and revved up down the open road to Dimascus. I let out a "YEEHAA!" that I thought Jon would appreciate. And he must have, because he joined me in wailing the same off-key call of the open trail.

We didn't realize there was one more police check, about 100m down the road. No problems, but hitting the breaks and having to show our passports again was a crushing anti-climax. As we cleared through, another "Yeeha" seemed too embarassingly preposterous.

It was dark now. In silence, we turned onto the road to Damascus.