Day 28 Before I start and write about today’s events I have to write about last night in our hotel at Latakia. Firstly we had 12 hours of the most horrendous thunderstorm that raged through the night. One clap of thunder felt as though it had broken the ranch slider door. It was really very frightening. We went down to dinner looking forward to a nice dinner and what greets us a flood!!! The rain was so heavy that it flooded the dining room. Well that didn’t matter we paddled our way in, sat down and ordered our dinner, flood and [View Full Entry]

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DAY 27 Last night once again the power went off just as we were about to eat dinner, this is becoming a common occurrence. I have to say that we have real concerns about being caught in the lift during one of these power blackouts. When we can we take the stairs instead but when you are fourteen storey’s up the stairs are not such a good option. One thing about Syria is the rubbish. It is just awful, there is rubbish lying about everywhere in great piles and heaps. New Zealand worries about the environment, and what we should be [View Full Entry]

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Day 26 I must admit last night was quite exceptional in that we really were the only guests in the Semi Ramis Hotel. The Semi Ramis is a very large Hotel and it was all ours for one night. Breakfast was interesting in that the restaurant was not heated and the breakfast was very basic with very little to eat. Our hotel here in Tartous is again a step down in standard to the previous two hotels. If we keep this up we will end up in a hovel!!!!! Although we have to say that the view from the Shanin Tower [View Full Entry]

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Day 25 Palmyra Ruins, I took so many photos on Day 25 that the blog has had to be divided into two blogs. The photographs in this blog are solely about the ruins of Palmyra. I mentioned the history of these ruins in the previous blog. We have just come back from dinner in Palmyra. Guess what, the power once again went out while we were in the middle of dinner and we couldn’t see a thing. It was really so funny and seems to happen daily in Syria. It doesn’t seem to trouble the local people they just crank up [View Full Entry]

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Day 25 We left Damascus at 8am for the desert town of Palmyra. The trip down was uneventful in that once we had left the smog of Damascus we drove into a rainy fog all the way to Palmyra. Yes this is the desert and it obviously does rain as we have the photos to prove it. It has also been perishingly cold, so cold that I still can’t feel my feet as I write this blog. On the way out of Damascus we passed through what was called the Workers City, it was such a depressing place with all the [View Full Entry]

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Day 24 We were picked up at the airport last night by our driver guide Abdull at 11.30pm. The flight from Jordan was all of 35 minutes and once again we were bussed out to the aircraft. The airport in Syria was pretty chaotic with people, soldiers etc everywhere. Abdull took us to our hotel it is just beautiful so luxurious and we are really enjoying staying here. Chelle had arrived earlier in the day and had a very relaxing day. Chelle is in good spirits and it is lovely to be with her again. We were picked up by Abdull [View Full Entry]

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Day 23, and we are in Amman for the day before being picked up by Issar and taken to the Airport at 6.30pm. Issar advised us that if we wanted to do anything in Amman we must get up bright and early in the morning, catch a hotel taxi and get to our destination before all the tour buses turn up. Once the tour buses turn up you might as well go home as they completely over run the site, and it is not pleasant, that is for sure. He also said that being Friday all the Traders would be shutting [View Full Entry]

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Day 22 saw us up bright and early as we had to travel back to Amman and the trip was 280 km’s from Aqaba. We had an amazing breakfast in Aqaba, there was every type of food imaginable, from fried rice to pastries. We could have stayed there and had breakfast lunch and dinner from the buffet. The trip back took us through desert to high mountains to cropping where they grew tomatoes eggplant, corn, apples, bananas grapes dates etc. It is amazing what a little water can do. We had two stops and yes you guessed it the toilets were [View Full Entry]

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Day 21 took us from Petra to Wadi Rum and then onto Aqaba. We started off our day at 8.30am all clean and tidy. That only lasted until we reached Wadi Rum. The first hiccup was when two bus loads of tourists arrived just before we did and all the ladies wanted the toilet. There were only two toilets and they could not cope, what a shambles, ladies were going into the men’s toilet to use the toilet there. Apparently we were booked on a Toyota Ute and we were to sit on the seats on the tray of the Ute. [View Full Entry]

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This is the second blog for Day 20 as we had too many photos for one blog. Day 20 saw us being picked up by Issar after lunch and taken on a twenty minute drive to Little Petra. On the way we passed through the Bedouin Village that was built for the Bedouin people who were living in Petra. The village was very interesting with goats, people , donkeys, children and cars everywhere on the main road that goes through the middle of the village. Everything and everybody seem to live on the main street. A New Zealand Lady by the [View Full Entry]

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