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Published: February 19th 2007
We blasted out of Palmyra stoked to have seen the sights but also glad to be leaving this odd little town out in the middle of nowhere.
The landscape was again the same monotonous beige type of earth. Not too exciting but not without its merits. The endless expanse of rocks sand and slowly rolling hills (and not to mention the rollicking buses) was really enjoyable to ride through.
It was a pretty uneventfull day. We ran into some sheppards that drunk all the water from my bottle and thought they were hard cases beacuse one of them had a gun. Pffffff.
Camped out in a sweet spot a few hundred metres from the road.
Good days riding and we covered 79km.
Really in the bike riding mode now. We rose early (well I bolted out of the tent at first light due to Specatacles unfortunate bout of excessing gas) did the usual routine of packing and breakfast and off we shot.
During the course of the morning the landscape slowly changed from a real barren wasteland to more hilly sections and gradually more and more green trees and srubs began to sprout from the ground.
Riding the bike was a fantastic way to see this transition from total desert to eventually full on flat farming land. A nice gentle feeling of achievement washed over me and I was truly stoked to be seeing, hearing, smelling; experiencing this landscape on a two wheeled leg powered machine.
About lunchting we rolled into the small non-descript town of Aqierbat. After being waved down by a frantic Syrian we were lavished with tea before an odd thing happened. The boys at this garage saw my camera and immediately wanted me to take dozens and dozens of shots of them. Seeing a great photo opportuinity I complied and proceeded to take dozens and dozens of shots of these guys- and as is general with my photography I got a couple of good ones.
Getting out was harder than getting in but we soon extracated ourselves from these photo hungry guys. Rode on at a good pace and got through the outskirts of another small town as it was starting to get dark. Being the hard cases we are we scoped out a builders shack as a place to stay for the night. It came complete with a bed
and kerosene stove- luxury.
We got settled in had dinner and were brewing some tea when a guy on a tractor rolled by. Long story short we got invited to stay at his place. Khalid prooved to be the complete host. There was copious amounts of tea great hospitality, not much conversation, very attractive daughters and and great sleep in a warm and comfortable bed. Probably the only bad thing was when I had to get up in the middle of the night and grope blindly around several rooms the outter walls of the house and open the metal gate to goto the toilet- fun and games I assure you.
Next morning Kahlid provided us with a breakfast of champions. After filling our bellies (with mine making some odd and consistent grumbling noises) we said our goodbyes to the family and rode off towards Hama.
The riding was pretty easy going and which was good as there was a-something-a-brewing in the gut of yours truly.
We arrived in Hama a great little Syrian town around lunch and I called it a day. Well after a few trips to the bathroom- soon to be the most frequented
bathroom on the planet by me. Blah!
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