Last chapter

After another crazy cab ride me and my traveling-buddy Christoph arrived in Damascus. Although just having left busy Beirut the lively city, supposedly being one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth, immediately spoke to me. I preferred the souqs over Aleppo’s and the Omayyad mosque is sublime. Fulfilling my promise to eat the famous ice cream here (“It was okay”) I mostly wandered around the narrow streets in the heart of the old town or hung out in the nice courtyard of the hotel and read.

Reading is what we did a lot as well at our next destination, the monastery of Deir Mar Musa. An old, desolate place in the desert mountains restored by the personable Italian priest Paolo and his community. Not as quiet as hoped but still very interesting with a wide array of people and a long, spiritual mass every evening. I wanted to stay longer, one might even stay a few weeks, but the call of camel-races drew us to Palmyra.

The ancient old city here is marvelous – the races were a tad more boring, but still worth the experience. How the sun sets on the vast area of temples and colonnades is majestic. After two days I could’ve spend another one, but I’ll possibly return here and rent a scooter somehow. Even with all the tourist-minded commercialism here (virtually the only place in Syria to be hassled) , nobody seemed to have thought of this. And oh yeah, now seems a good time to mention that, when traveling to Syria it is a good thing to fix or forge a ISIC international student card, as entry-rates drop 150% with one.

Heading for Jordan I opted for just the must-sees in this Hashemite Kingdom. As it can be with tourist hot spots it was bad, but really bad. In my experience very few people were sincerely friendly, everybody was after my money and overcharged me for the silliest things and prices were high overall and sometimes ridiculous. But, in the defense of the people, I did only see the places that serve loads of numbers of buses of western tourists…

Besides Jerash the absolute highlight and a really stunning sight was Petra. Be sure to wander off and hike your way around. The mere color of the rock can be astounding and the numerous temples and graves will amaze you. I also did an expensive stop at the Dead Sea, something I had to experience and it was nice. My expectations of the Wadi Rum desert might have been a little bit to high, but I’m sure it is better if you have the time to hike. After a good swim in the Red Sea at Aqaba I took a flight home. Earlier than anticipated but I had personal, and happy reasons. Israel and diving at Sharm will have to wait.

Pictures of this trip upon request.