Busy busy

We have been touring Lebanon like mad since Tiger-aunty arrived. I have so many pictures and stories that I don`t know where to begin. I`ll start with something short and easy because I don`t have much time right now. Remember back in August when I blogged about going to Byblos and looking at the fish fossils? Well, on Thursday last week, the kids and I took Tiger-aunty to Byblos and we were on our way to that same museum when my phone rang. It was the proprieter calling to see if we were free on Saturday to go fossil finding. What a coincidence! So, Saturday afternoon we headed up the mountain with our very kind host and a few other groups of people to look for fossils. Can you see the people on the pathway? We had to hike about 10 minutes to get to the spot:



We were so lucky to get to have this experience. There are only two places in all of the Middle East where these fossils have been found and both of them are here in Lebanon. Pierre (our host) is quite famous and has been written about in The Lonely Planet and in CNN`s science magazine. He is very passionate about his fish and very generous with his time and knowledge. Here he is showing us how to break the rock:



He even let us keep the fish that we found! Basically, you can keep anything you find unless it is something rare that belongs with the collection at the museum. We found quite a few fossils and got to take all of them home. Here is a sample of our find:


Can you believe those fossils are over 100 million years old?

And here we are hard at work chiseling the rock:







It was a really great afternoon!