Qalat Jabar

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Evening: arrived at Qalat Jabar late. Partly because my pronounciation of Jabar sounds a lot like the small dusty village Yabor, so people were very friendly and kept sending me there :-)
Qalat Jabar is an old castle by Lake Assad. Ahmed from the Hotel Al Jawahe recommended going there. He told me that I could sleep on an island, where there was a sort of tented camp thing going on. The picture he painted was very beautifull and peacefull, a nice break after busy Aleppo. Tents by the water, women bathing in the moonlight etc.
It turns out there was a slight mix up there. The guy who runs the place had not really opened up for the season yet. No camp. No tents. No nuffink. The owner ended up driving 45 km in the middle of the night (on his little 125 cc bike) to find me a tent that looked like it had been through several wars (including a few underwater ones) which was set up inside the restaurant he ran. An old matras and blanket was arranged, and voila, I had a sleeping place. So did several dogs who were barking inside the restaurant throughout the night, but I slept OK.

In the morning when I opened my tent I was greeted by an apparantly recent mummy dog, she was very sweet. Had some tea and went up to see the castle. There is not an awful lot left of the castle, but there are still some impressive walls and old buildings. I wanderred around, took some photos and headed of towards Resafe.

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