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14th june - 21st june

Overlanding across Afica in our Land Rover Defender: Syria

Andy Lees
2006-05-14 17:27:48

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we arrived at mid-afternoon, and inevitably we got lost trying to find a guesthouse in the sprawling city, with its push and shove traffic, flyovers and one-way systems. a hopeful (and hasty) left turn took us onto 'straight street' - one of the cities main sights. 'straight street', is (apparantly) mentioned in the bible and is where st. paul's sight was restored. today it is a covered souq, with all the associated hustle and bustle, spices, metalwear and clothing. it's just wide enough for the land rover to sqeeze between the stalls, at a crawl. in my still weakened state i couldn't help but think this was a great way to see the sights. the traders looked as though they wanted to give us the normal banter, but were a little confused and unsure to approach us, enthroaned as we were.

things became even more surreal when my mobile rang. it was my friend matt, calling from london. in my mind i could picture his surroundings, it felt like he was calling from another planet. i couldn't begin to describe the scene to him.

damascus - 20th june

we had found the guest houses in the end and they had been full. we'd ended up sleeping on the roof of one of them. surprisingly, we slept soundly, but the sun got up early and hence, so did we.

this time we saw the sights on foot. thankfully there weren't too many. we visited the great mosque, and claire had to wear a cloak in the interests of modesty. this was hot for her, but fun for me, as she looked like obi wan kenobi. it's nice to be able to see inside though, as often mosques are prohibited to non-muslims. we didn't even feel too conspicuous taking photos, as muslims and westerners alike were viewing everything though the screens of their camcorders.

we were still ill though, so in the afternoon we cheered ourselves up going to a pizza restaurant, followed by the cinema to see 'troy'.

damascus to jordan - 21st june

on the roof again. up with the sun again. this gave us a good, early start to get on our way to jordan. whilst leaving damascus, we witnessed by far the worst piece of driving i've ever seen (and i've seen some bad driving - particularly in the last month) as someone turned the side of their car into the front of the land rover. they didn't even stop at the sound of bending metal as they dragged the length of their car accross our front bumper. the bumper didn't move. crazy!

after that, we felt like we wanted to get out of syria, but we did stop on the way at the amphitheatre of bosra. unlike most of the many other amphitheatres we've seen, this one is almost completely intact, right to the top, including all the corridors, stairs and backstage areas. so much so that they were, in fact, setting up the lighting for an opera that night. unfortunately it seems to be the case in the middle east that wherever there is the slightest hint of a dark corner or covered area, people piss there. for this reason bosra's greatest asset - its intact corridors and stairways - are also its downfall. the whole place stank. lovely as the people were, it was definitely time to get out of syria.