Birthday camping and balou balaa

Saturday was the first day of fall and also the weekend before my birthday, which meant 1 thing: goodbye-summer-hi-birthday-celebration camping! Anyone else gets thrilled thinking of all the packing and preparation before going camping? That was me last week!

On the way to Tannourine with a funny looking mountain

First day of fall

The plan was Balou Balaa, where my friends camped 2 years ago and I couldn't wait to go there myself. After getting stuck in a lot of traffic on the way to Batroun, we finally took the highway to Tannourine where slowly everything started turning green and the weather changed. Once we reached, we carried all our stuff about 15 minutes downhill, only to find out camping is forbidden there because it's a reserve... Sooo we had to crawl back up carrying everything and had to come up with a plan B. The municipal police showed us a place 2 minutes away, right next to a dry river (I'm getting a lot of those dry places lately) with a camping site...


No camping, no littering, no loud noises

...and so it began, setting up the tents, collecting wood and making fire. The whole day was cloudy and foggy everywhere, but after sunset they disappeared and we were left with a starry night. The temperature dropped to 10°C and the feeling of being around the fire with friends and away from home was the best; humidity on the other hand, wasn't. Not only we were looking like this, everything looked like it's wet, to a point where 2 of my friends couldn't sleep at night, because water was dripping in their tent.

The most essential thing during a freezing weather

My friends surprised me with a birthday cake and 2 of my best friends got me a shiny new gift box, with my old shirt and a "Just punked" note in it (Thanks guys). We eventually had to sleep and after spending a pleasant night shivering, finally the sun was up... Ahh, Sunday morning lazying in nature under the sun with nothing on mind.

Sunday morning and colorful tents

After breakfast a few of us went to Balaa again. It's a 250 meter deep natural sink hole with an amazing waterfall during the snow melting season and it has 3 natural overlapping bridges, made over the course of millions of years. Mostly, there were people rappelling (Must try that sometime!) and some like us, just there to see the place and take pictures. After getting back to the campsite and more lazying, it was time to pack and leave, getting stuck in traffic on the way back again.

I'm always going to places during the driest season, missing waterfall! 

3 natural overlapping bridges


I had sore muscles for the next 2 days, also a friend's birthday and my birthday surprise yesterday... That's why I'm writing about the weekend on a Wednesday!

If you ever want to visit the place, make sure it's the snow melting season so there will be a waterfall.


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