9/30/09
Damascus is one of a few cities that I have visited that claims to be the world’s oldest city (Byblos and Sana’a being two of the others) so I got out my cell phone video camera and set off on a Michael Moore in your face documentary. This works out well because of all the baklava I have been eating I am now the size of him. I am going to have to day that Damascus wins being that Eve lived here. Damascus is also home to the world’s first alphabet just in case you play Jeopardy. And don’t forget to answer in the form of a question.
Damascus’s history is amazing. Yesterday I saw the prison where St. Paul escaped in a basket and went to preach Christianity to Europe. Today I was at the Cave of Blood where Cain murdered Able (and thus becoming the world’s first murderer) and I also visited the place where Eve took refuge after the fight between her sons.
Eve: “What are you kids doing in there?”
Cain: "Nothing Mom"
Eve: "Are you teasing Able again"
Cain: "No Mom"
Eve: "Able, is Cain picking on you?"
Eve: ABLE
Eve: ABLE
Able: ???????
I did something that has never been done in the history of backpacking. I got a free ride from a cab driver. 17 years after my first trip and after so many dodgy, bullying, conniving, cheating cab drivers over the past five years I get a free ride. I have given up trying to figure out local transportation (signs are in Arabic on the buses and cabs are really cheap) that I just hop in a cab and mumble out the address in Arabic. I was trying to find a restaurant and it would have been a 10 minute walk so the cab driver said there was no charge. I have already prepared my speech for backpacker of the year.
The reason why I was trying to find this particular restaurant was I realized that I have eaten nothing but chicken shawarmas since I left the Philippines 10 days ago. Speaking of which, the flooding in Manila is about the 4th or 5th time in the past 5 years that I missed a natural disaster by a few days (I just left Thailand when the tsunami hit, I was in China for the big earth quake and I was in Africa for a few disasters as well).
I don’t have time to go to Israel this trip and there has to be some planning to get back into Yemen and the UAE so I might wait to go my out of Yemen. The Syrians don’t come out and ask if you are going to Israel but they do ask where are you going next and where are you going next and where are going next… I think by the time I finished answering I would have been traveling in the year 2070 so the grave was my final answer.
Continuing with Syria stories the Meat Puppets are the band that I am listening to the most on this trip. I forgot how talented they were.
One more river and that is the river of Jordan. Off to Jordan tomorrow.
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