Avoiding Prison & Other Noble Vacation Goals by Wendy Dale Page B

time gleefully dangerous.
    My conversation with the man behind the counter went something like this:
    WENDY: I’d like to get a visa.
    LEBANESE VISA GUY: May I see your passport?
[Wendy hands over pass
port, makes eye contact. Smiles seductively. Man notices it’s an American
passport.]
Americans aren’t allowed to go to Lebanon.
    WENDY: Yes, but I’m a writer. [Then, in as sexy a voice as it is possible to
use when uttering words like “The documentation that I am providing
attests to the fact that the Lebanese Ministry of Tourism has hired me to
write some brochures,” Wendy says:]
The documentation that I am providing attests to the fact that the Lebanese Ministry of Tourism has hired me to write some brochures.
    LEBANESE VISA GUY:
[Man looks at documentation suspiciously, looks at
Wendy. Big smile from Wendy. A small wink. Man thinks a moment.
Then:]
No problem, beautiful lady. You want some coffee? 4
    [Wendy spends the rest of the afternoon drinking co fee at the consulate’s office chatting about what a lovely time of year it is for visiting Lebanon.]
    One of the disadvantages of vacationing in Beirut is that it deprives you of one of the greatest pleasures of taking a trip in the first place: the jealousy of your friends. I realized this a week before my departure when not one of the people I knew expressed the slightest tinge of envy at my impending visit. As I emphasized the phrases “international trip,” “vacation abroad,” and “on the coast of the Mediterranean,” they looked at me with a mix of fear and concern and mentioned something about bombs. (The good news, as I would learn later, was that they were small bombs. “Very small bombs,” as my Lebanese friend Hadi would helpfully point out.)
    Even my guidebook seemed less than optimistic. On the subject of the country I was soon to visit, it had these words to say: “If God created a training ground for the Armageddon, Beirut would be the stage. . . . Populated and run by tribes of fanatical gangs, the realities of Beirut would challenge even the most creative scriptwriter. Religion, drugs, war, love, and death all interact in this biblical epic of death and destruction.” This was not encouraging advice, but neither was the title of the book I was holding. Unable to find Lebanon listed in
Let’s Go
or
Lonely Planet,
the guide I had resorted to was called
The World’s Most Dangerous Places.
    On the bright side, the book had devoted an entire chapter to the country, including lots of important travel tips such as: “Kidnapping is a fine art in Beirut. . . . Have a driver meet you at the airport with a prearranged signal or sign. If not, take the official airport taxis. If you take a taxi, officials will write down your name and destination so the news media can get it right after you’re abducted.”
    Of course I wouldn’t be faced with such problems. I had Peter, a guide who spoke fluent Arabic, owned his own car, knew his way through Hamra and Achrafieh the way I navigated around Hollywood and Santa Monica. I had nothing to worry about—except maybe Peter. On my first day in Lebanon just hours after I had descended from my plane, before I even had a chance to adapt to the contradictory sights that bombarded my senses, intricately beautiful Byzantine arches side by side with decaying buildings that had been hollowed out by bombs, Peter informed me what he wanted to do: go sightseeing—in southern Lebanon.
    There was something ominous about this suggestion. In fact, during our phone conversation several weeks earlier when I had expressed a slight concern over my safety, Peter had gone out of his way to explain that violence in the country tended to be concentrated around certain areas, that all we had to do was avoid perilous places like the border between Lebanon and Israel, and everything would be okay.
    But now this was exactly where we were headed. I