Friday the 2nd was Easter in Syria (not on a Sunday) as this is the traditional holy day when nobody works. The mosques played their prayer calls extra loud as Jesus is a prophet of the Muslims as well, they just dispute his divinity. I recall that in the Umayyad Mosque there was a tower named the Minaret of Jesus where the big man is supposed to appear on Judgment Day. It's as good a place as any I suppose. Of course, there was a huge celebration in the Christian quarter of the Old City. I was over there with some 
Australians that I met at the hostel and we saw a school band drumming and trumpeting away in front of a church on the main drag and the streets were totally mobbed. When we tried to get into the a bar I ran into Matt and Raffie again and we eventually headed over to the discotheque. It was packed tonight unlike many of the other nights and we got to bypass the cover charge ($20) because it's cool to have foreigners in a club. Reverse racism rocks.
The next day was marked by a deep and lasting hangover that sapped any energy and will that I had built up to do a day trip out of town. I spent almost the entire day hanging out in the hostel's beautiful courtyard and finally got around to taking a picture of it. I read a book, practiced fervently on my uke, and generally lamented my pitiful fortitude. This night I went to bed at a reasonable hour and got up early the next day.
Sunday is the first day of the work week here and the tourist hotspots are slightly less packed with locals so I went out to see the town of Bosra. It was the capitol of the Roman province of Arabia, and had many great buildings erected over the years, but it's reverted into a small backwater over the centuries and today is a dusty town built around the generally small block of ruins. The most notable building is the ampitheater which is rather unusual for being freestanding and not built into a hillside. It was built in the 2nd century but over the next 900 years it had additional walls and rooms added to the outside turning it into a fortress with great live entertainment. 
Because of these improvements the place stands in great condition and miraculously weathered the many earthquakes that must have hit the vicinity. The other buildings in the area did not fare so well and are mostly a collection of ruined walls and columns. The columns at least are striking for their fine craftsmanship and the hard black bassalt stone that they were chiseled from. The elaborate corinthian column heads were the best that I've seen yet and looked like new.
I was there with one of the Australians from the other night but struck up a conversation with a man and his mother who were scolding the school kids tearing around the ampitheater. The guy was named Van and he used to be a game programmer a decade ago and he invited me to visit his home near Hama when I go to see the castle Crac de Chevaliers in the next week. He can see the castle from his balcony! After that we got some lunch from a rather poor tourist trap of a restaurant and caught the long bus home.
Later that night I was hanging out in the hostel chatting with some of my usual company when I noticed a familiar face, Laura from Palmyria. I remember that I had a very nice afternoon hiking the ruins with her and she and I went on a walk around downtown Damascus while her friends were still en rote from the Lebanese border. They are American citizens and she's not so they had to wait an extra six hours at the border to get fresh visas to enter the country. While walking we ran into my friend Jowen that I traveled with in Egypt and we areed to meet up the next day. After that Laura and I shared a sheesha and some tea and listened to some traveling musitians play kurdish songs on a greek guitar. Being close to the hostel, I ran off and returned with my ukulele to add some more flavor to the mix. I've got a great video of it, but I'm not prepared to add any youtube vids just yet... maybe when I get my laptop.
The next day Jowen and I went out to visit the scenic town of Maalula, an hours drive from Damascus. It's a charming-ish small town built in a steep canyon that happens to have a good spring and is known as one of the few places on earth where the people speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus and of the movie Passion of the Christ. There's also a convent there dedicated to St Thecla who was an early female convert to Christianity and was saved from persecution by an unlikely series of miracles. Jowen told me about another traveler that we had spent some time with, Brandy, and she apparently left Syria in a huff after being spit upon by a local reacting to her shorts. Men will get some strange looks for wearing shorts but it's nothing short of scandal for a woman to wear them. In some countries (Iran) the western women can't even have their hair uncovered and men can't wear short sleeved shirts. There are some claims that long sleeves and pants somehow make you cooler in the heat by holding in the sweat but I don't follow. There were some nice views but not much else of interest and we rode back to meet up with Laura, Lauren, Saadia, and Adam (most of the Palmyria bunch) for dinner. We also took along another Canadian, Braiden, and two Palestinian guys the girls knew.
Dinner was a real treat! We were led through the seriously twisted alleys of old town to a huge restaurant inside an enclosed courtyard willed with fruiting orange trees, flowers, and a languid fountain. The food was fantastic and I spent an extravagent fortune at $10. The conversations were as good as the food and we all shared some strange tavel stories about awful local dance styles, tasteless sales pitches, hygene problems, and some bizare stuff from back home. Afterwards we found a stand making chocolate waffles a-la-mode and then we moved towards the bars to finish up the night right. 
Actually we spent a couple hours drinking in the street as that's cheaper and less crowded than the bar right next to us. As we passed the time I won a beer chugging contest, Jowen got into a lighthearted scuffle with a little kid in a leather jacket, and we talked to a man who drives around town in a Jeep with a live parrot and we got his business card. 
It had a Jeep and a parrot on it. Once we were ready we moved onto a club across the street playing some swing music and we had the place to ourselves. There were 7 of us so that's enough for a decent crowd on the dance floor. I did a little swing and everybody showed off some great moves. I thought that Laura in particular was a great dancer but I hate to choose favorites. Finally the night was over and Adam and the girls caught a cab to the airport so as to return to school and the rest of us went home.Ok, one more day on this giant posting. Today Jowen left to visit Palmyria and I'm supposed to meet up with him at a hostel in Hama in a couple days. Finally I have a deadline for leaving Damascus. I met up with Braiden from last night and we wandered all over the Old City looking at the markets, looking for decent sandals (a failure), and eventually we settled down at a cafe in the shade for cokes and sheesha. We talked of our trips... mine an escape and his an exploratory venture during the university years, and we talked of life. He's interested in political activism and wants to be an idealistic professor at a Canadian university. Sounds great! He also taught me how to play backgammon and I think that I like the game a lot. It's a great blend of skill and luck at the dice and always a good way to pass the afternoon. Finally we wrapped it up with some shawarma sandwiches and a trip to an internet cafe. Maybe we'll go out tonight once more. After all, I just can't say no to Damascus.
No comments:
Post a Comment