Pigeon Rocks

They don't sound like much, but the Pigeon Rocks were a highlight of my week.  My roommate E. and I walked down to the coast heading south on Tuesday and we found them quite easily.  They're well within the city limits and quite hard to miss:

We walked around above, taking pictures and watching the people swimming around and climbing up them.  Then a gentleman (well, several of them after a while) approached us offering to take us out in a boat around the rocks.  It was way too expensive at first, he wanted 37500 (about $25) to take the two of us out, but we talked him down to 15000 ($10) and we walked down the cliff to his boat.  The hike was a little treacherous, but Abu Mustafa was a great and jovial guide:

The boat broke down after that picture because he took his hand off the throttle, but he got it started again quickly enough.  The view from underneath one of the rocks:

The water was gorgeous:

We finished the boat ride and said goodbye to Abu Mustafa, climbing back up to the sidewalk above where I took a few final pictures.  An idea of how big the rocks are:

Some brave souls climbed up the crevice the cuts across starting on the bottom right of the rock on the left and were walking around on top of it:

I did have one interesting experience from the day which I will bury down here lest anyone get an idea that it was any sort of real problem, it's simply a part of being American in Lebanon.  As we were waiting for Abu Mustafa to pull his boat around, I struck up a conversation with two guys standing nearby (I need as much practice with Arabic as I can get).  It was very basic, hi, how are you, etc.  It eventually came around to where are you from, and I told them I was American.  Normally, this gets absolutely no reaction, and sometimes even a positive one.  This gentleman shook his head, and looked very disapproving.  After deeming his disapproval sufficiently obvious, he told me 'Ana hezbollah', which means I am Hezbollah (Yes, my name is Arabic for the pronoun I).  Supporting Hezbollah is not uncommon among Lebanese people, and I've had other people declare their support to me.  I usually, as I did with this man, get awkward and plead ignorance.

People who have expressed their dislike for America me often follow it with an explanation that it's the government they disapprove of, not the people, and this gentleman did as well.  Nonetheless, I would compare telling an American in Lebanon that you are a supporter of Hezbollah to myself telling an Iraqi citizen in the United States that I was a big fan of the Bush administration.  It's not considerate, and makes the other person feel uncomfortable.  But uncomfortable does most certainly not equate with unsafe in any situation I've had here, but I want this blog to be honest about what my time is like here, and not everyone I meet loves me.  Just most of them.  :-)