Trekking to Sadd Shabrouh: A dam in Faraya Lebanon
Posted by: adonis49 on: March 31, 2020
Trekking to Sadd Shabrouh: A dam in Keserwan Lebanon
Note 1: Re-edit of “Trekking about Sadd Shabrouh”. Written in July, 2007 and posted in August 2009
Note 2: I opened a special category on my blog “Travel/Excursion” to collect all my trips stories.
Note 3: We have conducted an excursion in the the valley before it was inundated a couple of years before this trekking. We had enjoyed our excursion and ate at a “restaurant” there.
I woke up at 7:30 a.m. and the weather was sunny and hot.
I read the daily “Al Balad” that we received for free for an entire year as a promotion campaign. I performed my exercises and fed the chicken.
Joanna was busy calling: she was programming a walking trip to “Sadd Shabrou7” around Faraya. Joanna was also planning to end the day at Cherries’ for karaoke night in honor of her sister Ashley’s birthday. She asked me to join the trekking expedition and I agreed.
I packed a spare of undershirt and socks and a light rain jacket and some biscuit and peanuts and I waited for everybody to be ready.
We waited for Ashley to come back from mass because she was not aware of this “surprise” excursion. Cedric could not go because he hurt his fingers and the skin of his feet while playing wild basketball yesterday.
We drove off in two cars. Joanna took Ashley and retrieved Tony at St. Elie Movie Theater in Antelias. William took Adrea, Chelsea, David and I.
We met at Aoun supermarket in Zouk and they purchase a few items to eat.
Adrea waited in the car in the underground parking lot because she is pretty lazy. We resumed our travel around 2 p.m. and William picked up Hanane at her home at Ballouni and we met at Yuhanna’s house in Ajaltoun. From there, Yuhanna drove his car and carried Joanna, Ashley, Tony and Chelsea.
We arrived and parked our cars in the monastery parking lot and started our walk after getting some information and references from a passerby.
I wore a small towel under my cap and took the lead, hunched in a comfortable stature, and distanced the straggling group for 5 minutes and stopped and took off my top clothes and dried in the sun until they joined me.
I again advanced the group because I felt that keeping a fast and steady pace is relaxing for me, otherwise I will slacken off and my back might ache from slow walking.
I tried to investigate a promising path off the beaten road which was starting to bore me. Ashley asked me to backtrack. I figured it was a good path that ultimately would merge with the beaten road.
We waited for the rest to join us and it seems that Adrea had trouble with her shoes that she didn’t wear for quite a time.
I took the lead again and decided for another off path and William came after me, looking very frustrated and said that we should stick together as a group and keep to the road.
William and I took shortcuts to rejoin the group and then Joanna asked a driver for the best place to sit down near fresh running water and he gave her the direction of the path that I had already climbed before William came after me.
Thus, we retraced our walk; I suggested a path among the apple groves but they decided to take short cuts and climb a hill which took my breath out and had to sit down for a couple of minutes to recover.
We reached an area with a small waterfall “shalal” and a flat rock with no trees around.
Yuhanna and Joanna decided to go down among the apple trees to investigate the area. It was the same apple grove that I intended to cross before I was desisted from in order “to stick to plan”.
Meanwhile, William climbed the rock opposite the road to check if there is a nice area and I removed my tops and my shoes and washed my face and dipped my feet in the icy trickle of water running across the flat rock.
David stored in the icy stream the amassed small apples and pears that he gathered from the trees and we also let our water bottles cool in the water. I had a pear and enjoyed it.
While the remaining group was anxious to go down to the apple grove where Yuhanna located a “nice place” to have lunch, I felt as happy as a clam tanning in the sun, walking bare feet and cooling my feet and rubbing lavender flowers on my hands and having a smoke.
William was pounding on a stone and it turned out to be of silex and he wanted to transform it into a stone knife; he had seen a big silex stone, but when he climbed to retrieve it he could not find it again to bring it back.
Within 15 minutes, Yuhanna asked us to join and we went down to another stream of running water among the apple grove and Yuhanna was frustrated with Chelsea because she was venturing far off the group.
We had lunch. The chips were first to go and Joanna prepared us cheese sandwiches and then we ended up with the Oriole biscuits and other kinds of chocolate covered biscuits; I had also raw peanuts and kept belching for the rest of the trip.
Joanna tried her hands with the kite that she had sent to Yuhanna from London. She failed to make it fly. David and William drenched Hanane with icy water. I had a comfortable nap while people were chatting away.
Chelsea was a pain for the group in her wandering off, climbing and jumping off walls and rocks and being “har2a”. Obviously, she was a close second to my pain in the ass behavior for discovering new paths. We stayed and rested until 6:30 p.m.
The return path among the apple groves coincided with the path that I had suggested before we climbed the hill. I took the lead again with Tony who was anxious to terminate the trip. And I never stopped for an hour and a half.
William joined Yuhanna and Joanna to check on a camping area and Chelsea joined them. After a while we saw Chelsea coming alone grim faced and clutching her right hand and not stopping to talk to us: she had hurt her hand and was furious with Yuhanna.
Ashley decided to walk with Chelsea for the remaining walking trip. Ashley was even jogging in order to advance me. I kept my fast steady pace and even jogged for a short distance but could not catch up with Chelsea and Ashley. Thus, I arrived third to the parked cars.
William gave us a summary of the statistics of this trip, collected on his cellular. He said that he walked 17,000 steps and the round trip was 11 kilometers and it took us 5 hours and a half, including the resting period, and the average speed was 5 kilometers per hour as a group.
At the suggestion of Yuhanna we had dinner at “Istira7at Al 3erzal” in downtown Farayat.
I refilled many cups of hot tea. We had labheh, baked potatoes, hummus and cucumbers. I lent Hanane my light jacket to warm up. Chelsea would not relent and never gave the gang peace or any quietude. Tony brought up his dish to where we were sitting William and me, at the other end of the table.
Tony said that he usually sit in front of a wall at home to enjoy what he is eating and that when in groups, people eat a lot without noticing; William agreed with Tony and I sat next to Tony and we had a cigarette (the only two smokers).
By the time we paid the bill of 40,000 LL ($25) around 10 p.m. (I didn’t pay a dime: I had none) most of the gang members were exhausted and sleepy.
They decided to drop the karaoke part and go home. I sat in the back seat: David needs to feel entirely comfortable; William was driving.
Chelsea made herself comfortable and slept on my lap while Adrea was sleeping in the other corner, all crumpled up. David was sleeping in the front.
I was feeling good and full of energy. We arrived at 11:30 and the public electricity was still out since noon.
Mother was awake because she watched the interview with General and Deputy Michel Aoun along with Raymonde and Victor till 11:30.
I watched TV till 12:30 a.m. David slept at Ashley’s. Ashley and Joanna gave Tony ride home.
Note: In that period, Ashley and Tony were sort of boyfriend/girlfriend. They are now married with a girl.
Adonis Diaries 
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