This Means War. So there we were, high up in the hills above Lake Qaraoun,... (Qaraaoun, Béqaa, Lebanon)
This Means War. So there we were, high up in the hills above Lake Qaraoun, hip deep in history. It wasn’t especially ancient, this snaking line of trenches and crumbling bunkers, certainly nowhere near as old as the immaculate 2,500 year-old Greco-Phoenician tombs we had poked around earlier that morning or even as old as the rusting truck we’d walked past outside Majdal Balhiss, which had probably come off the assembly line when the men who dug these fortifications were still at school somewhere in the dusty hinterlands of Homs, Hama or Deir ez-Zor. But it was history, nonetheless, one of the dozens, perhaps hundreds of crumbling military remains that litter the country. I’ve come across much better preserved trenches on the plateau above Dahr el-Baidar, dug in the 1930’s by the Army of the Levant back when half of French Mandate Lebanon was loyal to De Gaulle and the other half was under the sway of the Vichy regime and so the pass between the coast and the Beka’a was one more demarcation line in the war between the Allies and the Axis. These fortifications were more recent and despite their appearance, only dated back to the early 1980’s. The concrete had obviously been of such poor quality and so badly (or perhaps so hastily) mixed, that you could dig your fingers in between the rusting rebar and prise chunks off, if you were so inclined. Admittedly almost 40 years exposure to the elements hasn’t helped but as its still possible to find 2000 year-old concrete in good condition, I doubt that even when it was freshly-laid, this stuff offered much by way of protection. A sobering thought when nothing else nearby does either and this hillside faces due south and straight over into Israel.
by wsinghbartlett / Instagram