“If he falls, let go of him!”

I don’t usually write about regular hiking events since Amr of Roaming Syria is taking care of that. But this time, it is a really special hike. Special because Ghalia of Cocktail took part in it. You may wonder why it is special! Well, if you knew her, you would know that her participation in such an event is a BIG thing ;) Especially that this hike is considered one of the toughest hikes in the area!

We also had the privilege of accompanying Samer’s fiancée, Reem. Samer, by the way, is such a nice a guy that none of us had even met or known, but we feel like we know him so well after we heard a lot about him.

We started early in the morning from an area called Afra and went through the mountains towards Bloudan.

Mainly, it was up and down the mountains all the time.

We stopped for breakfast and an hour break somewhere on the way; we found a good spot with nice shade and a little spring of water.

It turned out that we were not the only ones who felt thirsty!

With a breakfast that consists of eggs, cheese, meat and noodles, always comes the tea!

After the break some people wanted to warm up by doing some sword fighting with sticks!

We resumed walking; it was wonderful scenes all the way, mountains, trees, hills and valleys.

A couple of hours later, we stopped for a second break, this time a shorter one near by an even smaller spring of water.

This time, we had to wait our turn to drink, as another group had been there before us.

The goats at that area were somehow surprised, maybe to see Ghalia with us, I may think!

We hit the road once again and the hike was getting harder and harder and for few times, I stopped and felt really helpless, I wasn’t in the best fit for such a hard walk, I had been on medications for few days and my body was exhausted, yet I wanted to go on this hike in particular.

Up in these mountains, we came across lots of trees that I had never seen in my life except for the cedars, I guess, it’s not an exclusive Lebanese symbol anymore ;)

Few hours later, we finally got to see the town of Bloudan. We were glad to see it, it deserved to take a photo of us with the town view behind us.

Louma, Amr and myself

While we were descending the last mountain, the sun was descending; it had done her job for the day and lightened our path during the entire walk.

I had to slow down and witness the sunset, even though we were late and it would have been really dangerous to get dark before we get to the town! But who could resist not admiring this spectacular view!

Finally, and after a difficult descending we reached the town, despite all the tiredness we had experienced during that time, I was in full energy and feeling so active!!

It was a hike for pros, we were all glad to have done it and were even gladder that we reached a concrete ground!

While Ghalia, Reem, Louma and Reema, who had their first hike ever, did pretty well, something tells me it may be the last as well!

In case you wonder about the title, I heard it when we were descending the last steep hill, we were in a row of three, myself and one of the hiking girls was holding my backpack and another girl was holding her hand, I was in the lead. While we were struggling not to fall, the third girl told the girl in the middle: "If he falls, let go of him"! :-\ I guess they say something about trusting women on your life ;)