Two Day Tour of Syria

After the morning tour of the Kraqk Des Chevaliers, we stopped to have lunch in “the tents out back.” As we cautiously approached the tents, we found everyone was sitting on low seats on the floor and a buffet table was filled with “starters” – lots of salads and vegetables. As we started in on our food, the 5 “very native looking Syrians” also pulled up low seats next to us and began playing and singing traditional music. Check out the movie I made. The instrument they played looked like a washboard with a violin string. One of the gals in our group decided to get up and dance with the music so it was quite entertaining. The main course was brought into the tent with much fanfare, but, when I saw how many flies were landing on it, I decided I had had enough to eat. I still remember how sick I got in Morocco eating dates that were popular with flies.

After lunch, we took off for Palmyra, a great ruin site in the western part of Syria (en route to Damascus). Again, there were camels there available to ride but I’m holding off till we get to Egypt for a camel ride. These camels looked a bit healthier than some we have seen. After several hours of viewing the ruins, we again boarded the buses and headed for Damascus. We started to get worried when the bus driver would pull up to the local people and ask them where our hotel was. We finally found it and had about 40 minutes to change clothes and get ready to load back onto the buses for our special dinner in Damascus. The hotel was about 20 minutes outside of town at the convention center area of Damascus while the dinner was downtown Damascus.

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but Syria had just held its election a few days before. They have a socialist government and the President is the son of the old President. Every so often they hold an election, but no one runs against the President so the vote is easy. If you vote, the answer is “yes” so he gets re-elected. I have been amazed at the number of photos they have throughout the country of the President. They are absolutely everywhere. I have taken a collection of the various photos. Apparently these will stay up for about a year. It’s sort of “unpatriotic” to take down his photo. Some people even have his photo on their cars.

That night while we were having dinner, there were many fireworks celebrating the successful “reelection” of the President. At first we weren’t sure we were hearing fireworks, but, once that was confirmed, we were amazed at the duration of the fireworks. It made it difficult to hear the music our belly dancer was playing for the entertainment after our dinner.

The next morning we headed out to explore Damascus. They took us through the souk, and then down “Straight Street,” which is mentioned in the Bible. After hitting a few more local highlights, they let us wander around on our own. Unfortunately, by then we were out of the shopping district so we ended up at a café waiting for the buses to come. As we drank our beers, we noticed a group of men unloading bags of something from a big truck. They would hook the burlap bag with a claw, then put the bag on their shoulders and back and carry it into the building. Our group then decided that some of the men in the group could also do that, so we wandered over to check it out. Turns out the bags contained apricot seeds that would be ground up for women’s facial scrub soaps and each bag weighed about 90 lbs. Check out the photos of hauling the apricot seeds. It was pretty interesting.

On the way back to the boats, we had a break stop at the “Bagdad Café.” We were still in Syria but the road to Iraq was one left turn away from where we were heading. We all tried to get the photo of the Bagdad turn sign, but it came up pretty quickly and I don’t think anyone caught it. I was shocked to see that while “resting” at the “Bagdad Café,” which was literally in the middle of nowhere, we had cell phone coverage so I could text a message back to Steve. As soon as we were 100 yards from the Café, we were back in the desert without cell coverage.

Once back at the boat, we had another couple tours of Syria. The next day was a tour to Aleppo. Stephanie and I tried to take the train on our own so we didn’t have to take their tour but we couldn’t get our passports back so we were stuck taking the tour. After visiting the Citadel with the tour, we skipped lunch with them and headed straight for the souk by ourselves. It was great fun to gain our independence from the tour group. She and I are getting very tired of the pre-arranged tours.

Lebanon

The next day was our 95 nautical mile trek to Lebanon. The wind was still in our face so we decided to sail a bit and see if we could minimize the amount of time we had to motor. After 4 hours of sailing, we looked at our track on the Chart Plotter and realized we were 10 miles away from where we had started. So much for actually sailing. We then put on the engine and headed south into the wind. During the night one of our boats identified a Lebanese warship so we all charted his location on our charts. Then, a few hours later, we had 3 different warships, so again we all charted their locations. We had to stay west of a line that was 12 miles off shore and most of us were doing that. The three warships ensured that all of us stayed the 12 nautical miles away from Lebanon. The plan was to go straight south, then do a 90 degree turn and sail into the harbor of Jounice. Sugilite was in the back of the pack because we had been assigned the latest arrival times. They needed to get the bigger boats in their berths before the smaller ones came in. I was downstairs sleeping when Stephanie called me to come up. Seems we had another warship very close to us. The men in the boat didn’t have any shirts on and were waving and yelling at us. I didn’t see anything that would lead me to believe this was the Lebanese Navy, except for the big machine gun. They told us to turn immediately towards land, which was contrary to the instructions the EMYR Committee had told us to follow. I contacted one of our head guys on the radio and he basically said to do what they said (i.e. – forget the waypoint and head in towards the harbor and away from the guns.) The gunboat also stopped a few other boats in our group, so we all turned in.

When we got into the marina, the police had us stop at the gas dock and give them our passports, ships paper and crew list. They were surprised I was the captain of the ship but I gave them my best captain’s smile. They let us get gas so that was a plus. Most people were told to get it when leaving. We then went to the “rat pack” area – multiple rows of 7 boats tied together between two docks. We successfully joined the group. I sure hope there isn’t a big storm with so many boats rafted together as that would be big trouble.

The Lebanese shore pass doesn’t have any restrictions on it so yesterday Stephanie and I took a taxi into Bilbos to check out the ruins and shop the souk. In Lebanon they have discovered many fossilized fish, ranging a million years old. This was written up in an article titled, “A Fish Caught In Time.” I had read the article somewhere before and the guy in the shop showed me samples of fish from this area that are now on display in New York City at the American Natural History Museum. After they keep so many samples of each of the different species, the Lebanese government has allowed them to sell off the additional samples of fossils they have. I got several to use in our cottage in West Seattle. I’m just not sure where in the cottage they will end up – maybe in the kitchen or maybe in the bathroom. I also have the special sheets describing each species, its age and closest ancestor.

Today Stephanie and I decided to again make our own tour to Beirut. We took a cab to the National Museum only to find out it was closed on Mondays. We then started walking to the main part of downtown. We saw lots of military men, tanks, barbed wire and lots of big cement blocks to effectively control car bombers from getting too close to whatever they wanted to protect. The business section of Beirut is like a ghost town. It has all these new buildings, lots of outdoor cafes with tables and chairs but not waiters and no people sitting in the chairs. Apparently the town has been closed down for about six months. We then walked to the western section of Beirut. The Lonely Planet had said to look at the old Holiday Inn Hotel as it still looked the same as it had after it was destroyed in the last war. I had just taken a photo of it when this man in civilian clothes came up to me and said he was part of the Lebanese army and that I wasn’t to take any more photos of Beirut. I looked at him in disbelief, then saw the microphone cord and his earphone and told him we were just leaving. We walked a few blocks further and came upon the Beirut Hard Rock Café. We were hungry and it looked real safe so we went in to have burgers and nachos. As we walked into the dining room, we noticed there was only one other table of people in this huge restaurant. Again, it was a bit eerie. After eating, we struck up a conversation with the restaurant manager. He said the Beirut Hard Rock had won the “Top of the Rock” award from their headquarters for the best sales  performance in April (highest in sales.) Two weeks ago there was a bomb close by and business dried up for several days. A week ago they were having a football special on TV and the place was jammed with soccer fans. Another bomb went off close by. He felt obliged to tell his customers there was another bomb close by. The fans voted and decided to stay, have more beer and watch the rest of the game, bomb or no bomb.

The manager told us they now have installed bomb detectors as you enter the Hard Rock Café. They have eliminated all parking directly next to the restaurant. They have also hired security guards that regularly check the cars across the street from the restaurant for bombs. Life goes on at the Hard Rock. Tonight they are having Chicken Wings and Beer and great music – all you can eat and drink for about $16 US. He invited us to come back tonight. We’ve been told to not be in Beirut at night so we had to pass on the Chicken Wings. We are now safely back on the boat.

Tomorrow Stephanie and I are going on the official tour to another ruin as well as a famous Lebanese Winery. I talked with Paul on New Dawn last night and he had just bought 36 bottles of some Lebanese wine. He said it really filled up the back of his taxi. We’re hoping that the tour bus has lots of room tomorrow. We’re pretty low on wine right now!

In another day, we are going to have the experience of seeing how the “rat pack” of boats untangles itself. We’re all going to go in reverse, making sure we don’t hit each other. Of course, the boats that want to leave early for Israel are in the front.