Ive been through the desert on a horse with no name

---

Saddled up in the morning but not before the standard fallafels and lotsa coffee. And not before we met a mad Frenchman who was walking from France to Palestine- and I was thinking we were doing well, but this guy on his foot falcon blew us away. We had a quick chat bonding over personal propolsion methods through the Middle East- he then bounced away into the alleys.
_____________________
Exiting Damascus was a fun affiair I tell ya.
In and out and around; we swayed and sawm. Two odd creatures on odd bicyclets huffing heaving pushing our legs to crank the beast and move forward; in a direction towards the unknown.
A direction to test and try us. For discovery and finding a small part of ourselves that may brew and grow. Spaw and light the way when times grow dim.
___________________

So we got through the city in an unscathed manner. There were trucks buses dogs and people to contend with. An an odd deep and thick smog that tasted not too goodly.

Into the vast relentless Syrian desert we peddled. We clocked up a nice 78km for the day. And camped in a small water created ravine for it was a touch windy and cold that night.

The next day we woke packed the tent had a munch and were off like a pair of road runners. The desert was prooving to be a great place to ride. Nice and flat while not too exciting to look at after a while it just sort of becomes qiute glorıous in its silence and sweeping bredths of land. A graceful place of solitude and peace. Well apart from the odd Mercedes full of shotgun toting Syrians. While I would usually be wary of a darkened Mercedes with a shotgun pointing out the window I couldnt refuse the offer of lunch. So the Spectacle and I cycled alongside our new friends and we had a great lunch of bread, fruit, hummus, tea, olives and cheese.

They didnt get any birds.

On ward we cycled for the next few hours. While we are doing this trio together most of the riding is done alone. Alone with thoughts, alone with music (thank the maker for MP3 players), and just peddling along feeling your legs move up and down the lungs breath in and out. And keeping out of the way of the odd battleship of the desert. The bus! These things own the roads out here. They signal their approach from about 300m behind with a deep gutteral bellow of the horn. In a matter of seconds, which is just enough time to move over to the very edge of the road, these hyper speed ships of the desert holler past at at least 120 km/h having a tendancy of taking a massive vaccum behind them that can rock and roll a rider to distraction. Good fun and repeated scores of times daily.

Towards the end of the day we found ourselves sipping tea at the curıously named Baghdad Cafe. They were a bunch of cool school bedouin brothers and offered their tent-out-the-back as a place for us to stay. Of course we accepted! They gave us a smashing meal and were great hosts- thanks boys!

We soon adjorned to the tent where Ahmed got a fire going with quantaties of kero, ensuring that we would be warm and tosty. I fell asleep feeling warm and happy- a million million miles from home but feeling just as content.,
Funny how things go sometimes!

---