Rocks and Heads, ouch!

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Welcome again to the trail that follows my slithering existence. There are a lot of fresh smells for you to experience this time around. I do hope some of them tickle your fancy.

As some of you may know I'm still in Damascus, which has been great so far. Over the past week I've seen and done a few new bits and pieces and met a bunch of new people. As Masumi works during the days I've mainly been sightseeing on my own during the days and enjoying company during the evenings.

On a short walk around her area I was introduced to 3 cafes, one of which I've almost become a regular at. Over here coffee is considered to be made solely by Nescafe... come from a tin and require little more than the addition of hot water... gravely mistaken they are, but people pay for that stuff in cafes, etc. However, there are a few cafes around that serve espresso, and this is one of them. They make a fine cappuccino, a fare late and as I discovered in my most recent visit, not too shabby a caramel iced coffee. They also make a fairly mean Caesar and a roast beef sandwich to melt your socks off. A full meal and a cup of coffee each cost the handsome sum of $13 or so… and that’s one of the more expensive places…

I’m not sure if I mentioned how cheap many things are here, vegetables are so cheap I don’t know why you’d eat anything else, a kebab (it has a different name here which I cannot recall at present) will cost you the best part of 40 cents and beers can be purchased (rarely however, as it is a Muslim society) for less than a dollar each. Taxi’s start at about 6 cents and a five minute ride will cost around 30 cents. However, these are the expensive way to travel, there is a city bus system called “Service” (minibuses) which will take you around for 5SYP (8 cents).

I’ve visited the handcrafts centre, which sells a variety of traditional handcrafts at very reasonable prices. There is also a mosque inside which I’ll put a photo up of. Next to this is the city bus terminal, a dusty flat under one of the city’s main roads where the service and larger busses come together to take folk around. It was here that I purchased my sunglasses, as my eyes were in a deal of pain over here. They are Oakley copies… the guy quoted 300SYP, or close to $7 and I gave him a 500… I only got a hundred back and upon questioning this he gave me a polite smile and said ‘400.’ I’m not much of one to argue and I guess he picked up on this; I also don’t really care much for money so I can only hope that made his day. You’ve got to be a little careful of situations like that over here, but all in all they’re kind folk and everyone’s willing to help out.

One rather hot day last week I was walking through the city and taking a few frames, when for the first time since my arrival I was asked not to take a photo. I don’t really see why as I was simply taking a photo of a round-a-bout with a nice fountain in the middle, but there must have been a government complex or something nearby that I hadn’t seen. Either way, the nice soldier with the Kalashnikov AK47 was very polite and simply asked me not to press the shutter, to which I kindly agreed, partly because he was so nice, and partly because I imagined that a slug from that weapon may have hindered my walk home.

After this little incident I crossed the road and made my way into a park filled with people. I can only liken what I saw to picnic grounds back in Australia, so many happy families gathered together, skipping children and folk kicking around balls. Everyone was out with their families and the vendors around the park must have been making a mint. I purchased myself a sweet pastry with some sort of brown filling in it, which was exceptional. I believe I got ripped off there too, but who am I to know? Many of the gentlemen in the park were partaking in a favourite activity of many Syrians, the smoking of water pipes. Folk carry these things everywhere, including a little gas bottle to heat the coals required to smoke these party-bong-like contraptions. Restaurants also provide them free of charge so everyone can smoke away wherever they go.

On Easter Sunday morning myself, Masumi and Miki, a friend of Masumi’s, made our way to a ‘souq’ (Arabic-style market) which was an amazing experience. There we purchased a few things, and at the mere sight of us people offered us free bits of Arabic food to taste and take home, asked for their photos to be taken and generally enjoyed the fact that a few people had come so far to see their country. Following this we ascended the mountain behind said souq to a mosque at the top. It was very hot and the girls had a little trouble climbing, but they made it. At the top we had a view of Damascus and sat down to rest for a while. We had forgotten water but were quickly offered sandwiches and water by some picnic goers nearby. After this we decided to take the short tour of the mosque’s interior as it has quite a famous story attached. It is the cave ‘Magharat al-Dam’ and is said to be the place where Cain killed Abel with a rock, which one can pick up and hold. There is now an opening in the rock face shaped like a tongue, and a hole in the roof of a small cave inside the mosque that constantly drips. They say the mountain mourns for the loss of this life and is crying.

Monday involved the collection of my tickets home… this meant a trip to the rather upper class Emirates office in Damascus. It was almost like being in another world in that place… after waiting a fair while and finally getting to the counter I was told that I needed the receipt for my money exchange to collect the tickets… so back to home base and out again for the tired solider… After finally collecting the tickets I felt I had achieved my day’s goal and sat down for a beer. After this I made my way to the handcrafts centre again with Masumi to organise a few gifts. This sorted out after Masumi had a short encounter with the guy in the shop over prices… we headed for a café to have coffee. There we met a friend of Masumi’s and sat down with him for a while. He was very friendly and after finishing our coffees we were invited to his house to have a drink or two and meet his wife and son. This turned into a very long evening with more drinks than food and the result was a spinning head. Anyhow, during this night various discussions were held; one of which involved me joining his family in a trip to the coast the next morning, which I did.

So, upon returning home in a bit of a state myself and Masumi continued our discussions late into the early morning… I was awakened by said lady in the morning to find that I’d gone to sleep on the lounge room floor… have a guess at the state I was in the night before. We made our way over to Muto’s (the guy we’d met the previous day) house and I had brekky with them before making our departure and Masumi headed for work. On the bus we were a little worse for wear and slept a fair amount of the way. We arrived in Latakia in the afternoon and found some hotels to check into then had a bit of a squiz around the city. There wasn’t much there and we’d agreed to meet at a restaurant called ‘Spiro’ at 7 so I had to kill some time. Unfortunately I happened to walk past a school at home time… hehe. I was assailed by many a student who wanted to see if the iota of English they’d learned so far would get through to a native. I was also accosted by many a passer-by and spoken to. All this over with we met at the restaurant and were equally unhappy with the meal we’d been served. We also tried Syrian beer for the first time and decided it would be better used to clean mould of shower-heads. Then we made our way to another souq and seeing nothing worth looking at worked our way to a fairly cool café on the roof of a building that had a fairly varied theme. There were Chinese style pearl pieces in amongst fishing nets and an overall Jamaican feel about the whole place. Strange as it was, the ice-cream was good. Then I returned to my under-construction (extremely cheap) hotel.

The owner of the hotel was kind enough to wake me in the morning and I went to meet Muto again as he’d hired a car for us to drive around in. We then went to collect his family and made our way, in a sort of not-knowing-the-way kind of way to a castle that had been taken by the Crusaders and retaken by Salah ad Din… This was really cool, despite the rain. We spent a while rummaging around the ruins and then headed back for some lunch. We ate a good deal and then I headed back to Damascus.

I’ll leave you there with the knowledge that at least for now I’ve not been executed for something and I’ll return with the rest of my journey shortly.

Peace, love and mungbeans.

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Photos

The Mosque
Cain killed our man Abel here they say

Salah ad Din's joint
Lots of fun and games to be had with Syrian leaders and the Crusaders in this castle

Comments

[mum]

what a truley amazing place it sounds. wish we could be there but looking forward to the stories when you return.