Middle Eastern Christmas

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Well it's been a couple of weeks since I lost posted anything but we've been so busy! I'll try and remember what we've been up to and note the highlights...

After getting back from South Lebanon we took advantage of having a car and went driving around the Chouf Mountains and visited the Chouf Cedar Reserve - a nature reserve to mainly protect the ancient cedar trees that Lebanon is famous for, some up to 3000 years old and it's the only place in the world this particular species is found. We hoped to do some hiking there but it's not allowed in winter because of the bad weather and risk of damaging the saplings, although at the time it hadn't even snowed at all there, but never mind. Instead we went for a drive through some mountain villages and found the most fantastic pass I've ever been up - the road wound up several mountains for miles, with loads of switchbacks and hairpin bends and steep slopes and of course plenty of potholes... it was so much fun to drive up and some fantastic views! It took about an hour just getting up from the last village and another getting down the other side.

I spent a night and day in Tripoli which is a small port city in the north. The old town was really quaint, and we walked around all through the early hours till past sunrise whilst Fouad took advantage of the lighting and quiet street take lots (and lots) of photos, with a couple of his friends who were lots of fun and kept me entertained in the meantime.

And then Dee and I have spent the past week over Christmas in Syria. We saw Damascus (the capital) and the nearby area for a few days a couple of weeks ago, and this time we saw most of the rest of the country. We got a combination of buses and taxis up to the port city of Lattakia, which was a very pleasant town and very cosmopolitan. Quite unlike the rest of Syria actually, it had an almost European feel because of the multicultural influences from all the shipping and trade. From there we visited our first big crusader castle, Qala'at Salah ad-Din. It was really spectacularm, situated on a massive rocky outrop in the middle of some really steep mountains and valleys covered in forests which gave some great views, and the castle was immense too! It must have been so much work to build and terryfying to attack, I can only think that the crusaders must have been really bad at defending it because apparently it took Saladin just 2 days to capture it! I hope the photos do it justice.

We then got a train to Aleppo, which is the second biggest city in Syria. The trainride (roughly 70p each for 3.5hrs!) started off very quiet and peacefully on an old but surprisingly comfortable train, but about half way a couple of other passengers in the carriage plucked up the courage to say hello to me (Dee was asleep at the time) and practice their English. Within just a couple of minutes at least a dozen people had come down the carriage and were crowding around listening in and asking their own questions and everyone else was leaning out of their seats. I was properly the centre of attention! They were all very friendly, they wanted to know who we were and where we were from what we were doing and simple things like that - I'm not sure why they were quite so interested or excited to see me and talk to me but they all seemed to enjoy it so I didn't mind. It all came to a very abrupt halt when the train guard came in and sent everyone scurrying back to their seats where they cowered whilst he gave them a proper shouty telling off for several minutes - I've no idea what that was about either but they were totally subdued afterwards and didn't come back - the whole thing was very odd!

I don't really like Aleppo, it is dirty and smelly, there's nothing particularly special to see or do that you can't find better elsewhere. It took us ages to find a takeaway stand that didn't cook its falafel in with meat juices. But we visited Qala'at Samaan from there, which is actually the remains of a fantastic basilica built around the pillar that Simeon Stylites sat on in ~400AD to get away from all the pilgrims coming to hear him preach (it actually happened right there, mad!). From Aleppo we hired a car, and then spent 5 days driving over 1700km around Syria, which was great! I'll have to write a separate blog about the driving itself because it deserves talking about, needless to say it was an experience!

We drove roughly along the course of the Euphrates river, from near the Turkish border in the northwest to near the Iraqi border in the south east. Unfortunately the road was several kilometres from the river and it was often foggy when we did get close to it, so we didn't get to see as much of the river as we hoped. We stopped off at a few more old castles and ruined cities along the way. At Qala'at Ja'abar we arrived not long before sunset. The caretake must have seen us drive past as he followed us up to the castle on his motorbike, unlocked it specially for us and gave us a private guided tour! His english wasn't great but we got most of what he tried to show us, and the views from the top looking along the river were spectacular. He invited us back to his house where he had a couple of other british people staying for the night. We stayed for tea and a chat but declined dinner because it wasn't vegetarian (a concept which baffles him and most people here) and also his offer to sleep there for the night because we wanted to drive on to the next place. We slept in the car most nights this week, finding out-of-the-way places to pull over near to whatever we wanted to see first the next day. That worked well actually, it made the most of night-time driving and daytime sightseeing.

On Boxing Day we reached Palmyra, a vast ruined city in the middle of the desert, which was once an important Roman trading city on the silk road to the far east. We climbed a hill to watch sunset over the ruins, very beautiful, and treated ourselves to a sit-down meal in a restaurant (it was touristy enough that they had vegetarian meals!) and a hotel since it was Christmas. (a day late I know, but shhh, we intended to do that in Deir ez-Zur the day before but the place was a complete hole!) We made it up to see sunrise over the city too, which was unfortunately a bit cloudy but still worth it, if only cos we got to explore the ruins almost to ourselves and mostly avoided the annoying touts trying to sell us cheap souvenirs. There was a lot to see, and I'm sure we didn't do it justice in just one evening and half a day. I enjoyed trying to figure out why things were built like they were, how they worked structurally (typical engineer, eh?) and where the missing pieces went.

Yesterday we stopped by another ancient city, Apamea, the sister-city of Palmyra in fact but further west in the foothills approaching the coastal mountain area. It was very misty there again but that made it really atmospheric. We didn't linger too long because we really wanted to find the dead cities before dusk. The 'dead cities' are actually a load of villages in a relatively small area that were all abandoned a few hundred years ago, but no-one knows why! Being built generally out of big stone blocks, many of the buildings are largely still intact, and where they have fallen down the rubble is still mostly unburied, if grown over. It was really eerie walking around them in the misty half-light, exploring villages that were just left. It was all too easy to imagine the people still being there and I managed to really spook myself when it got dark and I couldn't find Dee or anyone else left amongst the ruins! Very creepy experience. And today was spent just returning the car and getting the long busride back to Beirut.

I've not really said much about Christmas, but I suppose there's not a lot to say. Unsurprisingly most people in Syria don't celebrate it at all being Muslims, so it's not felt particularly Christmassy. In parts of Lattakia and quite a few towns in Lebanon there are christmas lights up everywhere (think tacky ropelighting and over-the-top displays covering the whole side of the building), but just walking/driving past them doesn't do much for the spirit. We tried singing Christmas songs in the car to get ourselves in the mood but we're both hopeless at remembering the words! I've been thinking a lot about family and friends at home all week, I hope you're all well. I really missed being at the farm for Christmas it sounded like you were all having a good time when I rang! I can't believe we missed the best white christmas in years and spent it in the desert instead! I think in future I'll plan my holidays for other times of year.

We're back in Beirut now, to spend New Year partying here, and then we'll leave Lebanon and Syria to move on to other parts of the Middle East.

Merry Christmas everyone, and a Happy New Year!!

A xxx

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