The Golan Heights
After breakfast, we said goodbye to Harry – he was leaving Syria early – and set out to explore Damascus.
It is continually inhabited since the 3rd millennium B.C. which makes Damascus one of the oldest cities on the world. It is hard for me to imagine how ancient this land is. We did our sightseeing – the Old Town, museums, mosques, the madrasah and so on. Damascus attractions are well described online and in guidebooks. I will not bore anyone by repeating here the known facts. This post is mostly photos of Damascus and its people that caught my eye.
We happened to see Damascus on a national holiday. September, the 15th was the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. The holy city of Damascus was full of guests and pilgrims. The crowd at the market was so thick that I was afraid of getting lost in it. My sense of direction is non-existent. Had I been separated from the group, I would never have found the way out.
Dinner in the Orient is a long affair. The food was served in such quantities that far exceeded our ability to consume it. Some dishes remained untouched and we did not want this food wasted. Learning from our experience, we started to ask not to bring so many plates and to speed up the service a little but it did not always work.
When we returned to the hotel in the evening, I was dead tired. All I could think of was catching up on sleep but our guides suggested to go the bar. I did not want to miss that and went with the group. So, we walked to it.
The bar was tiny and quite dark. Apart from us in the bar were four local men who sat in the corner and smoked in silence. The music was popular Western songs that made us all to get up and dance. My tiredness was gone in an instance. A bust of energy came out of nowhere. We laughed and danced like there was no tomorrow providing free entertainment for the men in the corner whose eyes did not leave our group.
I was painfully shy as a child. If someone who I did not know asked me a question my mind went blank. I blushed and either said nothing or blurted out something stupid that made the asker to doubt seriously about my mental health. This person would immediately take their leave and never approach me again. When I was a teenager, I did not go to dance clubs or parties knowing that I would feel utterly out place there. It took me decades to overcome this shyness and I still have some of it in me. And there I was, dancing away in a night bar in Damascus. If I had been told 50 years ago that I would do that, I would have never believed it.
We returned to the hotel at midnight. Now, truly exhausted I could finally get so much needed sleep.
Natalia, I read all your blogs concerning our trip to Syria and I found your description correct, interesting and easy reading. Well done. Erica and I liked also the visit to a supposedly difficult country and our group. Harry was strict but fair. I hope we’ll have the opportunity to meet again
in March.
Tracey, thanks for reading my blog and your comments. Harry was strict with us for our own good. He felt responsible for our safety and well-being. Wishing you the best and hopefully, we’ll meet next March.