Last night we dined with friends at the Phoenicia Intercontinental Hotel, one of Beirut's landmarks which had been restored after the civil war. Alongside it stands the haunting skeleton of the Holiday Inn Hotel, and nearby the St. George Hotel ruin. One of these friends had lived in Beirut throughout the civil war and we were fascinated by her stories of life in the city during the civil war. In the morning, all the HOG participants gathered in a designated car park, registered, and then waited for instructions. With around 250 motorcycles and 340 participants, there was a lot of organizing going on. We waited in the hot sun while we were arranged into groups of around 60 bikes each and eventually the bikes and riders erupted into an impatient cacophony of loud revving Harley engines and horn blowing. Finally we set off on the three-lane highway out of Beirut with a murky layer of smog hanging in the air, and followed the coast road north, toward Tripoli. It is a heavily built up area all the way and it was a relief to turn off east towards the mountains. With our group of around 60 bikes, we followed a narrow road that twisted and turned into the hills, sometimes with a very broken surface. The route took us through the impressive canyon of Wadi Tannourine and we were now on roads that bikers love: great mountain scenery and lots of turns. We stopped for lunch at 3.30 at Al-Mrouj Restaurant in Laklouk, an isolated rural area. Around 250 bikes were parked in the lanes outside while 340 people poured in, all hungry and thirsty, and we had an excellent typical Lebanese “Mezzeh” meal. We began to meet people we had met on other Harley rides, such as Indji, an Egyptian girl from the Cairo Chapter. Along with 16 others from Cairo, she had ridden her own bike all the way to Lebanon – one of the few girls here riding her own bike. After lunch, our ride continued deep into the Lebanese mountains. After about half an hour's biking, the narrow mountain road led us over a hill and a vast, unoccupied valley of Lebanon opened up before us. We rode for miles and miles of twisting and turning mountain roads, with no sign of habitation except for the very occasional bedu encampment. Our group stopped for a while on the edge of a mountain to watch the lights in gloom of the valley below as about 100 Harleys growled their way through the valley towards us. We then finally arrived well after dark at the Mzaar Intercontintal Hotel, a luxurious 5 Star Hotel in a ski resort. Tomorrow, another day of touring Lebanon awaits us.
