The AFS Headquarters was in Baalbek, where we had to come for orientation, training in vehicle maintenance, inspections, repairs, rations, and re-assignments. AFS Volunteer George Collins, who later became Professor of Art History at Columbia University, filled us in on the history of the Baal religion and of these ruins dating from the first millennium BC.

Allegedly, during the celebrations of puberty (Spring Break?), naked young men and women worshipped at the temple of the Sun God, got drunk at the temple of Bacchus, and wound up at the temple of Venus to make love.

Location: Baalbek Temple Ruins, Lebanon.