A new personal best on the heater in the room last night- 24 degrees! Not even rising room temperatures can prevent me stealing myself away front the tranquility of the palms, ruins and desert and heading for arguably the oldest continually inhabited city on the planet- Damascus.
The bus station lies on the outskirts of town, so a taxi it is first thing this morning. My driver is in great form and he conducts a short lesson in Arabic for his ill educated student. He then takes me into the ticket office and procures my ticket for me, whilst the language lesson continues. Finally I'm escorted on to the bus, and waved off along the highway. Have I ever told you I love taxi drivers?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Catalonian Joachim arrived on board just before we left. Our paths appear inextricably linked. We speed west along the road, watching the goat herders tending their flocks and the tent dwelling migrant workers going about their every day lives. This area is mining country and a number of large scale excavations and operations mark the land.
The first sign of Damascus are the grey looking suburbs of the city, perched high on the mountain walls that surround a considerable part of the it. A number of people have told me that the capital is very laid back, but my first impressions of the centre highlight to the contrary. My arrival in town is initiated by a quite farcical 90 minute walk, attempting to locate the hostel. It's made all the funnier as the bus dropped us pretty much right outside the place, before people started pointing us in all manner of different directions. It was a sort of human pinball with people sending us right back in the direction we had just arrived from. Joachim and myself even got split up on the streets, as one man started leading us in person to where he thought we wanted to go. I had to laugh as, finally making it to the hostel (I'd actually located someone who knew it) the owner informed that a long haired Spaniard had just taken the last bed only ten minutes ago- Joachim had a guide book and a personal guide too! However, there are beds on the rooftop. I don't need to be offered it twice. Besides, I can't not stay here after the time it took for me to find it.
It's time to leave the noise and commotion of the central streets. So, I head for the more historical area of the walled city and citadel, where the traffic is still busy but purely human, with the odd cat chucked in every now and then. I marvel at the Grand Mosque- the ornately and colourfully decorated gates and marble tiled floors. It's a lively place of worship, full of exuberant children and proud parents. I sit and bathe in the sun, feeling relaxed despite the crowds.
After some street Pida a small group of us from the hostel make our way to the Christian quarter, right the way along "Straight Street" towards the promise of beer. "The Saloon Bar" is definitely the smallest bar I have ever been in- compact and bijou, you could say. We sample the local Syrian Beer for the first time as well as the Arak, which for some reason, the owner didn't want to serve to tourists (!). There's a real mixture of old LP covers on the tiny walls, including Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, and some funky 70's soundtrack from a blacksploitation film of the time. A couple of the group head on to a couple of clubs allegedly in the vicinity. Alcohol is hard to come by in this city and these small number of bars are tightly packed together in the Christian part of town. Good ol' Christians.
No comments:
Post a Comment