Crazy sights and sounds to be had in Syria. A dramatic change in wealth from Turkey and as they have very few tourists, we were quite a spectacle to the locals throughout.
Took a tour of the city Allepo on our first day, dominated by its 12th century citadel with enormous but empty moat and extensively carved throne room. The city has a population of 4 million and I`m sure all of them were visiting the souk (covered markets) the same time as us - holy shit, shove me in it! You can buy everything from fabric to camels, prescription drugs to cookies. Also visited the old hospital complete with quarters for the insane where we thought about leaving Chinny...
Our journey into the desert was broken with a stop for water in some town, name unknown, where we were accosted by a bunch of school children jumping and screeming for a chance to touch these strange people. A few miles further into the desert we came to the Rasafa ruins (mentioned in the Old Testimont). These ruins are well off the beaten track - in fact we had the place to ourselves. Felt like we were the first explorers to find this place, particularly when we crawled down this black shaft which surprisenly opened up to two huge underground cisterns lit up by small holes above - very errie but very cool.
From there we moved onto explore the ancient trading points and oasis of Palmyra. Once a massive city visited frequently by caravans traders - some consisting of over 3000 camels. There is still excellent remants of the ancient temples and tombs set in the heart of the desert - some 50 hectares in all.
Next we visited Crac de Chevaliers, a well preserved Crusader castle dating back 850 years complete with the knights round table and views stretching out over the Syrian and Lebanese Mountains.
"All roads lead to Damascus", reputedly the oldest continuously inbahited city in the world, and thats where we based ourselves for a few days to catch up on washing, shopping and chilling before crossing the border into Jordan. More to come...
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