Holy Valley

On Saturday May 8 at 7 a.m. the Camels headed to the Holy Valley with Dr. Issa and other Lebanese friends.

The Holy Valley was founded by the Maronites to flee from persecution. The untouched landscape was breathtaking to all of us. We hiked on the steep slopes heading to one of the monasteries where we slept for the night. For dinner we were invited to a local family’s house, where the view stretched across the valley and into the Mediterranean Sea.

Sunday we attended a beautiful Maronite mass in Arabic, had our breakfast and headed out for the second day of hiking. We first stopped to see the only hermit in the valley and probably the only one in the world. Unfortunately we were unable to see him. We continued our journey down the valley and over a river. We visited the chapel of Saint Marina, it’s a quaint little chapel. We persisted with our journey until the end, where we rested under a tree and had our lunch before getting back onto the bus. On the way back to Beirut we stopped for a celebratory ice cream, which was a great end to our weekend.