Day 3 in Syria:

We hopped a bus to the eastern part of the country to go to Palmyra … an enormous site full of ruins of the ancient town.. On the way there it was interesting to see signs with the km to Baghdad posted (its the highway connecting Syria/Iraq). What a difference 70km makes! Theres a Crusader castle perched on top of the hill overlooking the site .. Inside the town there was a complete theatre.. the main street of Roman columns .. excavated buildings .. and the enormous temple of Bel, complete with a walled courtyard still intact. Just outside of the city was the valley of tombs with large rectangular buildings jetting out of the sand all over the place – probably 30 or more .. most of which were crumbling .. one complete tomb that we were able to climb to the top of and have an amazing view of the valley. Palmyra (or Tadmore in Arabic) is set on an oasis that is covered with palm trees. It was my first time actually seeing an oasis and that alone was amazing – out of nowhere in the wasteland of the desert arises a valley of trees and ruins … its a spectacular sight. =)

After a full day of wandering around we hopped back onto a bus and headed west to Homs .. a smaller town with nothing to offer to tourists and little in the way of housing. After eating at a cafe we realized that we were the only females on the streets and hordes of guys began hollering at us and following us…. it wasn’t a threatening feeling, just one of amazement on their part. They simply didn’t know what to make of us. We ended up walking down some street and finding a scumy hotel to check into. It was seriously the dirtest place I’ve ever slept – but at 250pounds ($3US) for both of us .. we were willing to endure the never-before-washed sheets. All in all .. it was a horrifying experience.

Day 4 in Syria:

We awoke very early in order to leave as quickly as possible. Hopping a bus another hour west we found ourselves on top of a mountain at the Crac des Chavaliers, a gigantic castle overlooking a gorgeous and very green valley – everything you imagine a castle to be in childhood fantasies. We wondered throughout the castle for quite awhile until our hunger drove us down the mountain in search of a schwarma/falafel stand. As we hiked down the steep roads through the village surrounding the castle we once again found ourselves to be the center of attention.

Now imagine for a second: two Saudi men wearing their white dresses and red/white checkered kofeyas (head covering) walking through the center of a tiny Texan town carrying a guidebook of America…. thats exactly what we were to this town!

We noticed that because it was a holiday all the kids were out in the streets .. and after an impromptu game of football (soccer) with a boy in the street – we found ourselves parading through groups of 5-8yr old boys all playing with toy handguns and machine guns. It didn’t take long for them to see us as the perfect walking targets .. luckily only a few of them actually had pellets/bee-bee’s in their guns … the first time Chivon got hit I thought for sure that kid was going to die – she went into attack mode .. but after seeing grown men willing to defend the boys’ actions she backed off and we kept going. As we got farther down the mountain we found a group of boys hiding among the tall grass and trees to our left and it became a real-life version of dodging the bullets coming from the bushes – and let me tell ya – bee bees hurt a lot! I was really quite shocked to be honest. Anyways, we eventually made it to a bus stop and with the help of several locals we were able to make it back to Homs and then eventually on to Amman.

Its too bad that our last experience had to be getting shot at with pellets/bee bee’s .. but that in no way represents our general experience in Syria – the people were really friendly. However, the towns were very polluted and I found it especially hard to breath in Damascus. Neither Chivon or I had realized just how gorgeous/nice Jordan was.. when we crossed the border we started shouting hallelujah .. the others in the service were all Jordanians so they totally agreed with us, hehe. People are extremely nationalistic with posters of the country’s leaders posted everywhere ..and we were so excited to see King Abdullah greeting us as we entered Jordan. =) I’m really glad I got to see Syria – but I missed Jordan a ton .. the air, the city, the dialect of Arabic, the familiarity…. and I’m soo happy to be home.