August 24, 2000

We arrived in Aleppo around rush hour(which turns out to be every hour!) thursday night and we while trying to get our bearings we got touted over to get money exchanged (we mostly did this on the black market since the rates were better.) and after tramping around to a couple of rooms we finally got over to the hotel we picked out from LP, which turned out to be quite good. Situated in the Armenian/Russian quarter (incidently this also turned out to be the redlight district) we immdiatly meet this French couple who wanted to know if we wanted to go to Iraq. I told them that I doubt that they we allow us in with our US passports but he said it was possible with a group, after a cople of beers at the Baron Hotel, which used to be frequented by TE Lawarence, we decided it would be the adventure coup-de-ta (sic) a story to tell. As it turned out we only had single-entry Syrian visas and we would have to apply for multi-entry in Damascus. This was going to happen and we said our goodbys but the whole thing struck me as something out of a cross between the movie "the beach" and james bond!

We took a bus down to Horns to get to Palmyra, where we had to transfer over to this mini-bus in another staion that was a real pit of confusion, (this is where baksheesh comes in!) we took a real bumpy 3 hour ride out into the Syrian desert in a bus with no shocks, where Davi was the only woman and we sat on fold-out metal seats staring at the desert through broken windows listening to blasted arabic beats. Palmyra was once a very important Roman oaisis city that is quite intact in some places, considering its age. we rambled amounst the ruins chatting with the Bedioun.taking offers of tea and watching some amazing sunsets. Palmyra has a real laid back feel for an Arabic tourist town and we found the people there to be some of the most friendly anywhere.

After a couple of nights we took the bus down to Damascus. This was a real crazy place with planty of exhaust filled traffic boulevards and circles that were nearly impossible to cross without getting run over, and some of the best souks and markets built into the old Roman/Ottoman ruins. The Umayvad mosque was very peaceful place to chill from the traffic and souk chaos and we loved exploring all the endless back alleys in the Armenian quarters. We took a day trip down to Bosra.which was completly built on old Byzentine ruins that are still standing. Here we met this young kid about 16? named Mohammed, who was very bright and started to discuss politics with us. He was quite down on the US, which is understandable in this part of the world, but he seemed to base alot of the morality of America based on Clinton's shennigans from last year!...actually it was quite funny talking to him and he ended up giving us a free tour of the site as the sun was setting. We scrambled around on our last day trying to pick up some Assad souviners (Hafez Assad and now his son Basher Assad's picture are absolutly everywhere!, kind of in the old soviet-style peoples hero murals and the like). We both liked Syria mostly because the place feels so untainted by tourism and the and the hospitality of the people.

AMMAN, JORDAN

September 1, 2000

Amman became only a stopover point for us as we ended up entering Isreal on the same day that we left Damascus via bus, taxi, shuttle over the Allenby bridge and then a service taxi into Jeresulem. 3 countrys, 2 borders 1 day. We will be comming back into Jordan but we think that we may now do this from the south in Eliat to Aqaba as the exit taxes should be cheaper and we want to visit the Petra / Wadi Rum areas of southern Jordan.

PETRA / WADI RUM, JORDAN

September 10, 2000

After leaving Israel at the Eilat/Aqaba border we were in some ways feeling a little bit more relieved to be out of Israel. Although we were glad we visited, it's not some place I would want to go back to as its too expensive and uptight to relax, and that's what is about for us. We took a bus up to Petra, which is this Ancient Christian-Roman city built out in the desert, somewhat like Palmyra in Syria but more mysterious, (this was the place in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark), as the ruins are all surrouned by high cliffs and hidden narrow canyons that you can ride a horse or a camel through. We bought a 2 day pass and started the hike through the ruins which are quite amazing for the color of the rock and all the hidden little shrines carved out of stone. We met up with our friend Patrick and just wandered around for the day meeting up with various locals who wanted to show us more or just drink some tea together. At one point, after climbing into a long and narrow canyon we all sat down for lunch where all of a sudden we started to hear all this yelping and cries of "yalla yalla" comming through the desert bush. We turned around to find that we had some company, a bunch of goats and the Bedioun family who was just hitting the bushes with sticks to get them back on the track. By the time we wandered back to the guest house, we got there just in time to sit thorugh the Raiders of the Lost Ark video, which I think the guest house owners had seen far too many times!

We all left together Krissy, Patrick Davi and I by taxi to Wadi Rum. This was also made famous here on the travel circut by the movie "Lawarence of Arabia" and I am sure more than a few of us before have come to play out that fantasy. When we got to the town of Wadi Rum, we set up our packs under a open air tent behind the government run guest house, I think it may have been the only place in town that served beer. we walked up the dirt road to sip tea and talk to the youthful guides who were all hanging around. Here we met up with Abdullah, who after about 2 hours of bargining we got a price to take us out to the desert on a three night camel/jeep safari. we stocked up on food from his store in town and then proceeded to all climb in the back of his ancient jeep and we started out across the red rocky trails that criss - crossed everywhere. Abdullah was great, stopping for tea and letting us even drive alittle (patrick), we went on a bunch of short sidetrips, exploring some canyons and climbing over rock faces and sliding down giant sand dunes. We made camp out under the stars and Krissy got out her fire pois and we all sat back and banging on tin pots and cans making a darbooka beat in the background. The next day we met up with the camel guides who took us along for awhile before we met up with a bedioun family who shared some tea with us and we sat and watched the father play the zither and listen to their stories. That night we met up with another group who were sitting around a bonfire and we all had a huge meal together of masef and chicken with plenty of sweet tea to keep us busy. This night ended with us once again banging on pots and cans to make some kind of a "white-boy" darbouka beat, while the bedioun guides started to dance (with the females getting special attention) and a few sang a song or two. this was alot a fun and a bit surreal around the open desert fire under the stars, we capped it off with Davi going on a midnight camel ride and later we bedded down next to our camels on a sand dune, where we kept on sliding down the sand and woke up aways below with the camels wandering around above. Abdullah led us out and we eventually rode all the way back to his house outside of town.

Tired and exhuasted he invited all of us to come out and spend the night with his family in another town. We went over to the other neighborhood, which was defiently local, as we soon became the center of attention. Myself and Patrick went over to play this game on the dirt ground with the boys (similar a little to the game Othello) where we played with broken pieces of glass and and stones amounst the dirt and camel dung. The girls all stayed together in the house cooking. We had an enormous dinner of chicken masaf and rice and later his mom came out with another platter of pita and hummos. We sat up and talked late into the night drinking loads of sweet tea and meeting endless relatives who would keep showing up.

AMMAN, JORDAN

October 3, 2000

When we changed our flight to bombay we had to layover in Amman for 24 hours it was one of the longest 24 hours of this adventure as we were put up in a "transit hotel" a eupheism for a hotel on the outskits of an airport where they put up the passengers that have no visas, are getting deported and the overnight flight crews. Kind of the no-mans land of international airspace, the sequestered jurys of travel. It was a very sterile place, very isolated, bad food, a TV that only got Jordanian talk shows (basically 2 bediouns talking across a table) and lots of flourescent lighting! We had a strict schedule of eating times that were not flexible, and for some unknown reason we were not able to get outside as all doors were either locked or they led to nowhere.