Urfa to Aleppo

I can't add any pictures to this post as the connection speed is too slow in this Internet Cafe, and internet connections in this country are few and far-between, unlike in Turkey where nearly every hotel I stayed in there had free wi-fi. They're playing bad American elevator music in the background recorded on the flute. The "Flashdance" theme is on now.

Anyway, it has been an excellent few days. I saw a bunch of ruins in Turkey before I left the next day and the last couple of days in the Aleppo area too. I just finished touring the Dead Cities outside Aleppo and south by Apamae, including the old church of St. Simeon Stylites. Tomorrow, I'm heading out to Rasafah. I found a guy (of course) who was willing to drive there and back for a price, but it's an easy way to do it.

I completely forgot that this is a primarily cash-oriented country with few ATMs that actually work. Plus, once you do find an ATM, you need to withdraw currency in increments of thousands - not dollars - it's like when the Italian Lira was still functioning, and you had 100,000 of something in your pocket, but really the street value was only about 50 cents US or something.

The big adventure was getting here in the first place. No banks or money changers in Urfa would give me any Syrian money, so I withdrew dollars and Turkish money. Naturally, the Syrians won't exchange Turkish money, so I am left with a surplus. And then I took a bus from Urfa to Gaziantep, south to the border crossing, hooked up with an unofficial cab driver who was running goods over the border - apparently visa restrictions between Turks and Syrians have been dropped between the two respective countries, so people hustle stuff back and forth now in their trunks. They're suspicious about big trucks, but car trunks seem to work great. But along the way through the border, I had to have my temperature taken - they're freaked out about H1N1 here, so I had to pass the inspection and receive a clean-bill-of-health card (first time I've ever had one of those - haha). So, then the cabbie guy dropped me at the "bus station" on the other side of the border, which was really just a mini-bus holding point. However, I still didn't have any Syrian money. The guy on the bus next to me was kind enough to pay my way for me. It was really only the equivalent of 50 cents, but that's not a completely tiny amount here, as cigarettes cost 75 cents a pack and two liter bottled water costs 10 cents.

Okay, so I finally get to Aleppo on the bus, but the station is plenty of kilometers from anywhere, and I still have no money. A guy I shared a cigarette with at the bus station (me no Arabic, him no English - sorry, I'm starting to speak like a cave man; that's what several days speaking pigeon English and even worse Turkish and then Arabic has done to me) got me in a cab with him and we drove into the old city. I finally handed some busboy outside of a restaurant ten dollars, and he changed the money for me, right there on the street. By this time, it was 7 pm and the sun had just gone down. After wandering the old city for an hour looking for an obscure hotel in the dark (the souq is close and confined at night - minimal lighting, and the streets are narrow and maze-like). I finally found the hotel, but they were full of course. So after finding my way out of Bab Antakya - the Antioch Gate for the old city in medieval times - I fell on my old stand-by from the last time I was here: The Hotel Baron (built in 1909, but it isn't refurbished much or anything). However, they serve beer there.

Converted 50 Euro with the guy at the desk, and I finally had some cash for dinner and some beers. Ah. Met three motorcycle dudes at the bar - two had been travelling from Italy by cycle and are heading to an unmentionable country (never know who is watching this blog over here). The third had just finished riding all the way from England and was on his way to visit his son in Tanzania. All three had fascinating stories about breaking down in Bulgaria, meeting each other initially and by chance (they didn't know each other before) in Istanbul and then accidentally meeting up again in Aleppo - what are the odds, since they all went their separate ways and are on different time schedules? Made my simple trip by bus seem like a cake-walk of course. We had beers together and chit-chatted a bit about travel experiences and stories. Apparently the Italians were delivering some sort of letter from the mayor of their town to the mayor of Bethlehem. They were from Assisi, and I think the two cities have some sort of relationship, not unlike Boulder with Dushanbe (and the silly tea-house they have there).

Syria is clearly not doing as well economically as Turkey, but it's still a very friendly place. And the archaeological sites are wonderful, if only I can keep finding the occasional ATM that works, so that I can pay for hotels and food and transportation. I forgot that last time I was here I brought buckets of cash, and apparently that's still necessary. I also had to find an adaptor for electricity in the souq - which was a pretty cool experience for me too, I actually had to buy something practical there instead of a carpet or olive soap or a keffiyeh. Electricity here is the eastern European standard which uses two smaller plugs than normal European - which has thicker plugs. So now I plug my American cords into my western European adaptor and then plug that into the eastern European adaptor and then into the wall. Sweet! But it's necessary for all the silly gadgets I brought, most importantly my re-chargeable camera battery.

And ultimately all is well. The Rasafah trip will be great, and I'll get to see the Euphrates again, although much further along its course where it will be wider and probably murkier. I think the road swings by the Al-Assad dam and lake complex which should be of interest as well. The days after that are uncertain: I may stay another day in Aleppo, as although I was able to delve into the souq and visit the Citadel, the Great Mosque, and several hans (caravansaries) inside the souq, I wasn't able to fully get lost in the city like I wanted to do. Then it's off to Homs and then Palmyra before Damascus and Bosra (I think). I've curtailed my plan to get really close to the Iraqi border for some of the sites, because I'm a little chicken, but maybe the Palmyra hotels will run something out there. At the very least, I'll be able to visit the grand Ummayad-era desert castle, Qasr al-Sharqi.

The Dead Cities pics turned out great, as well as some of my stuff from my last full day in Turkey, so I'll upload some as soon as I can find a place with a faster connection.

As usual, the trees and agriculture even in such an arid climate is rich and varied - today, I saw pistachio trees, almonds, figs, olives, apples, pomegranites, wheat, corn, peppers of many different kinds, cherries, sunflowers, etc. Also, of course, there were cows, goats, sheep, and lots of chicken-houses too. Naturally too, there are no pigs. This country is so not mono-agriculturalized like in the States where it's only corn and soybeans for miles.

Okay off to get some dinner; inshallah, I will find some cherry kebap along with hopefully some excellent jalapenos (there is no tilde on this Arabic keyboard).