You will want to begin early. Later, it will become hot, very hot, and you will be glad to have set out under a still-ripening sky.

Your starting point will be one of many ancient Maronite churches along the trail: a squat, boxy thing, its door built purposefully low to force Ottoman conquerors off their horses before entering. Do not mind the remnants of last night’s party, strewn across the courtyard—simply step over the garbage and the flowers and, before you begin your descent, imagine how it must have felt to worship, here above the Holy Valley. Imagine how it must be to have something to worship, in a world where your grandfathers and great-grandfathers didn’t cross oceans to leave this country and their religions behind. You have thought a lot about prayer in the past two years. Not too far from here, a profusion of suffering makes you wish that you knew how.

Around here, after you’ve already lost track of how many staircases you’ve descended, the land will remind you what it means to have legs, and what it means to feel them, muscles tightening, contracting, waking up. You will have already passed two or three more ancient churches, built by the Crusaders—stone walls, wood ceilings, sticks formed into crude crosses outside. Pebbles on the ground next to one spell the word paradise. You will have already begun to sweat.

Words will fail you when you attempt to describe the beauty of this place. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen, it’s breathtaking, it’s spellbinding, et cetera, et cetera. Cliffs drop into the valley from impossible heights, caverns enchased across their surfaces like sockets in bone. Lebanon is a country defined by karst topography, which means limestone sculpted by water, which means dramatic vistas, which means caves forking deep into the earth. You will wonder if this had any tangible effect on your ancestors, something that could still be lingering in your DNA. You will be unsure of what that would even entail.

You will encounter your first monastery here, built into one of the many natural caves, its back wall rough, unhewn, wet-streaked stone. It is cool inside, and you will realize that you have already sweat through every layer of clothing on your body: your lightweight long-sleeve, your socks, your underwear, your shorts. You will stick to a bench and rest a while in this cave of ghosts. This valley is a place of hermitage, monastic isolation in service of contemplation and piety, which you suppose is why you’re here. You will not see many people on this route, not today. Not in this heat. Sunscreen and electrolyte tablets are recommended.

Your aching legs will, eventually, bring you to the bottom of the valley. Be careful, as this next section is long, flat, and exposed overhead. Your neck will become slick with moisture. You will almost feel it sizzle as sweat slips beneath your shirt.

Your guide—a local, more in touch with this place than you could ever hope to be—should divert you from the trail here, taking a left into the bushes. You will find yourself in a glade where water falls gently over mossy tendrils, dribbling into the river beneath. You may take your mid-morning break, perch on a rock, enjoy some trail mix and green tea.

Once you leave the glade, the day will have become hotter. At this point your shoes will be soaked through as well, and your backpack will cling to the moisture across your back.

Across the valley you will see another cave, high in the rock, an empty, gaping eye. This is the cave some two hundred Maronite Christians were huddled into during the centuries of Mamluk and Ottoman persecution. Sealed in, besieged. There are many caves like this. In this one, the Mamluks and Ottomans managed to sever the internal water source. Centuries later, archaeologists discovered dozens of human remains, including eight natural mummies, preserved in the orifice of the earth. You will think of a cruelty that you struggle to understand, which persists, not too far from here. You will think of how it feels to die of thirst. In other caves, you will see black streaks across the ceiling, from where the belongings of the Maronites were burned, once all attempting sanctuary were massacred. Clothes, tools, food, books, children’s toys. Not burned alive, though the phrase will still come readily to mind.

Every once in a while, you will have the thought: “I’m literally in the Middle East right now.” Then, you will admonish yourself for remarking upon it, for the way the region has become inextricably linked to violence in your Westernized brain. You will realize how much you genuinely expected to witness a bombing at some point, how misguided and morbid your imagination has become.

The next monastery marks the halfway point on your journey. If you’re lucky, you will hear men practicing liturgical hymns in the courtyard, sung in the ancient Syriac language. The only word you’ll recognize from your limited Arabic is the word for martyrs.

Do not miss the tomb of Saint Marina, or Marinos, whose gender-bent hagiography feels at once progressive and deeply antiquated. Saint Marinos lived as a monk. When accused of rape by an innkeeper’s daughter, Marinos chose false confession and banishment over uncovering the secret of their birth sex. In this cave, they were made to raise the resulting child, fathered by a crime they could never have committed. In death they did not wish to be unclothed, yet this posthumous disclosure became key to their veneration. You will try and fail to have some sort of spiritual revelation here; all you will think while standing in the cool, airy space is how tomb rhymes with womb, how the caverns both nurture and kill, how the land opens itself to those who hide.

You will pass olive trees sprouting from ancient terraces. Once, people lived among these groves, at the bottom of this valley. Over time, they relocated to the villages on the cliffs above, leaving everything below semi-abandoned. You will pass squat stone farms, uninhabited save for the goats. You will think of displacement, empty buildings. You will think of the olive trees burning, not too far from here, ash falling across similar terraces. You will have already passed a grove of burned trees today; your guide informed you that this was the work of an arsonist. The branches, like the roofs of the caves, were black.

You will have already had food poisoning for several days. You will feel that your body rejects this land and this land rejects your body. Your language comes out of you the same as your sweat and your shit: viscous, halting, untextured, unrendered. This whole trip, you will not manage to pronounce your family’s village in a way that anyone will recognize: you can’t form your mouth around the qaaf or the 3ayn or even a rolled r. You will be met with confused expressions, requests to repeat the word. Every time, you will feel deep, reddening shame.

Note the large stands of stone pine trees, silenced by the heat. You will hear no branches rustle, no birds, no squirrels, nothing but a constant, insectile hum. You will realize you have come to this valley expecting to hear answers. Today, it is too hot for answers. Besides, you won’t know the questions. Besides, your mind will keep returning to somewhere not too far from here. Besides, you wouldn’t even know how to ask. The only animal you’ll see is the occasional chameleon. Your guide tells you that following one will lead to treasure, then scoffs.

You will eat figs here, fresh from the branch—small, but sweet and delicious. You will think about the wasp that lays its eggs and dies inside each fig, each fruit its own kind of womb, or tomb.

By now your legs will no longer be in pain. You will have lost the ability to feel them. Your breaks will have become more and more frequent—whatever brainpower the heat hasn’t cooked away will be devoted to worrying that you’re inconveniencing your guide. At this point, you will have just started the ascent.

It’s further than you think, really. Far, but not too far. You’re basically there.

You will pass through a town that reeks of goat shit. It is the only still-inhabited town along the route, though as you approach, it may seem empty. Hopefully your guide will have warned you about the smell, giving you the chance to swish some mouthwash and prevent yourself from vomiting. While making your way along the town’s sole road, you might become acquainted with one or two of the local goat-herding dogs, who will stand in your path and bark, loudly, stopping you in your tracks. You will begin to bake in the heat of the open road, soldered in place, unsure of how to move. You will recall every dog that ever lunged at you in childhood, every bark that ever made you jump. You will think of the dogs that rip people to shreds on command, not too far from here. You will think of police, military. You are a trespasser. Your guide will call out to the silent houses for help.

After several minutes, an auntie will appear and shoo the dogs away. They will trot off, just as agitated and exhausted by the heat as you are. They will lie on their stomachs in the shade. Small children will poke their heads out from their homes, gawking and giggling. In the centre of town, you will find a spring: a moss-covered alcove, a rusty pipe encircled by a coterie of saints and virgins. The water will be warm but fresh.

You are approaching the end of your journey. The goat-shit town and its stench will recede, falling away beneath you as you continue, against all odds, to climb. You will walk on top of a covered canal, concrete gleaming hot and white. No water rushes beneath you, not now. You will see other dried-up falls and springs. You will worry for the future of this parched land, in the coming years and decades. You will wonder if this is the first and last trip you will take.

You will stop in one final opening in the rock, which saves your life. Your sweat will slough off you like a layer of skin, endlessly regrowing. You will sit in the dust and notice that your legs are filthy—every speck of dirt clings to your wetness. Your skin will be hot, not warm, to the touch. After your breathing recovers and your heart rate slows, you will be able to look around at the walls of the cave and say, thank you.

The terminus of your route is a third and final monastery, inlaid in the cliff. There will be an eternity between its appearance in your line of sight and your arrival, an eternity of sun and sweat and stairs. It will be late afternoon and heat will radiate from its stones. You will feel like your body has forgotten how to be a solid. You won’t be able to focus in the small museum housing the Middle East’s first printing press. Instead, you will sit on a step and try to recall coolness and dryness into each centimetre of skin.

The last thing you will see in the monastery is another cave, extending deep into the rock, so deep and dark that you will not be able to see the back of it. It is a place of worship, as your guide will explain, worship and sanctuary. You will not stand in this cave for long, as the rock’s natural coolness produces a temperature possibly lethal to your overheated body. It will be cold inside, ice cold, and black. You will feel colder than you’ve ever felt. You will stare into the blackness. You are here. For once, for the one and only time in this sweltering nation, you will begin to shiver.

Luc Faris (he/they) is a Lebanese-Canadian writer and composer living on the unceded territory of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples in Vancouver, BC. He holds a degree in music composition from the University of Victoria and is halfway through an MFA in creative writing at the University of British Columbia, specializing in fiction. His musical work has been read by the Victoria Symphony and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and his written work has been published in the Spadina Literary Review and The /tεmz/ Review. Further information can be found at lucfaris.com.