Syria & Jordan (the country)

Syria

After finally crossing the border into Syria (not a great experience) the first thing you notice is the massive pictures of their president absolutely everywhere, even in the back of car windows. Because of his nice ronnie, we christened him Anto. I think he’s about 70 now, God knows, he might even be dead? The second thing is, the border town looks exactly like you were in Call Of Duty 4.

That night we stayed in Aleppo in a hotel/dump, but at least it had a bed!

The next day we drove to the city of Lattikia which is right by the sea. As we were driving along, a guy in a taxi pulled us over and asked us if we wanted to stay in his Shallet. We said why not, and followed him to a place right by the sea. Lovely apartment, but it was actually his friend’s. They tried getting us to pay 100 US dollars per night but we got them down to 100 dollars for three nights. Not bad haggling, but we still probably paid well over the local price. Then the taxi guy then wanted us to give him 500 syrian pounds (about 8 euro) just for bringing us to the apartment. So we got him down to 300 syrian pounds (a fiver) and sent him on his merry way. The apartment was class! AIR-CON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every now and then we tried to venture outside but quickly changed our minds.

Check out the big screen TV!!!

For the next couple of days, we pretty much just sat around the apartment with the curtains pulled, the aircon on full watching the biggest pile of crap possible on our 4 English speaking channels (CSI Miami is definitely included in that). On the third day, Flinn and Megan arrived. We all decided to go outside and ended up getting completely rat arsed. We started with overpriced Heineken and finished with some horrible stuff called Bear Beer from Germany. It was 12% and tasted like it probably came out of a bear.

Flinner was so happy with his Bear Beer purchase, and I'm sure the shop keeper was happy with his hug…

After a while sitting outside a kebab place talking complete shite, these two guys about 50 years old pulled up in a car with sirens, yes sirens! But they blatantly weren’t the police. They’d almost no English, but great craic.

Then myself and Flinner hopped in the back and we went for a drive around with the sirens on. Looking back the next day, it was probably a pretty stupid move on our parts. Still, we did get a free can of XXL which was like red bull mixed with vodka in a can. Anyway, after about 10 minutes they dropped us back and we returned to the apartment with it’s glorious air-con for some more beers and at the end of the night, Flinn said: “guys, lets suck it up and watch an episode of Entourage”, so we did. What a show!

We stayed an extra day to recover from the night on the town! So… 4 days just 20 meters from a beach and none of us went down there once!

As in life, all good things must come to an end. We had to leave our air-conditioned lair and head further south. We only had a week in Syria in total because of the high diesel tax, so we headed on down to a 7000 year old castle in Crac de Chevalier (spelling probably way off) near Damascus. When we were about to set off, the jeep wouldn’t start as our battery was dead. That was about the 4^th time it had happened. After a good push, we were on our way, but we finally had to give in and buy a new one. We arrived at the castle just as it was closing, so we camped on the roof of a restaurant up the road and visited it the next day.

Have to say, it was an awesome castle. Would make a great place to play hide and seek, it's massive. Unfortunately, afterwards we had to say fare well to Flinner and Rootster again as they were heading off to Lebanon and Dubai for a few weeks. to see Flinner's sister and meet up with his brother Barry, the 6th Global-Slacker! Still, our paths will cross again very soon in Africa. Miss you guys!!!

On our way to the Jordanian border we had no fuel, no Syrian pounds and nowhere accepted credit cards. Eventually we got to one garage and the guy changed US dollars into Syrian pounds for us, but then told us he had no diesel. Lot of good that was. So we headed across the road to another garage but there was a massive queue of tractors and trucks, all trying desperately to get some diesel. When we drove up, the guy in charge called us over, blocked everyone else and let us into the top of the queue. Brilliant, 1000 Syran Pounds for a full tank of fuel (15 euro), and a lot of angry farmers. Good By Syria...

Next stop was Jordan...

Jordan

The border crossing into Jordan went relatively smooth, except for a 15 minute wait in the middle as absolutely everyone working there took a break because of Ramadan. Nothing can cross their lips from 4.30 am until 7.15 pm, not even water.

We then drove to Jerash to a hotel called the Olive Branch. As it was impossible to find, we had to ask a guy in a restaurant for directions. He had very little English but said he’d come up with us in the jeep. After I dropped him back, the cheeky little bastard wanted 15 dollars. Needless to say, my choice of words to convey my disagreement with his proposal were not very Christian. So we camped out in the front of the hotel, ate some absolute muck from their kitchen and hit the hay. Next morning, we just relaxed in the pool and messed about on the auld interweb in the lobby until the guy behind reception began to become quiet agitated with our lack of checking out. So we left.

Onwards to Petra. On our way there, we decided to have a dip in the Dead Sea. It has Jordan on one side and Israel on the other, hence the number of military check points. Swimming in it is one of the weirdest experiences I’ve ever had. The water was really warm, and it was like swimming with Styrofoam strapped to your body. You couldn’t keep your legs under you they just flew back up to the surface. You could honestly go for a nap in it on your back and not get a drop of water on your face. The only down side is when the salt gets in your eyes… It really really really stings, I’m talking like when you’re a child and you get shampoo in your eyes stinging!!!! No amount of blinking can cure it. Still, it’s something I would definitely recommend for everyone to try once… the floating, not the stinging!

After that we filled up at a station up the road, and after about 3 miles, the engine died as the morons had put petrol in instead of Diesel, even though we emphasised Diesel. After a lot of F-ing and Blinding, we took out the empty jerry cans from under the jeep, and I crossed the road to try hitching back to the station. While I was doing this, Podge hopped under the jeep and worked his magic by emptying the petrol out of the tank. I never knew you could do that!

Anyway, after many attempts to stop a car (I obviously don’t have the legs), I stopped the worst car possible… the police.

I couldn’t tell it was them as they had their headlights on. Anyway, the universal thinking on dumping a full tank of petrol onto a road is, it’s pretty dangerous… especially in a country where it’s so hot. After trying to get them to give me a lift back to the station (which they wouldn’t do as they weren’t licensed to carry passengers) they noticed what was going on under the jeep. In broken English, one of them waved his finger at me and said “no, no, no, very dangerous, very dangerous”. They were really sound though and let us continue draining it as it was almost done. Anyway, they stopped a diesel truck going by and we bought enough to fill the two jerry cans.

After throwing a bit of sand over the fuel on the road, we were back on our way.

The next obstacle we encountered were the directions to Petra we got from a few soldiers at a military checkpoint down the road. He said, “Petra… go left for 8 km, then right for about 50 km. The road’s not the best, but with your jeep you should be fine”. “Not the best” was the biggest understatement of the century. It started as a dirt track, then got a bit better for a few km, and then turned into a mountain pass that’d make the Sally Gap look like the M50. After about an hour of twisting and turning in 1^st and 2^nd gear, we eventually made it to Petra, very tired and weary. We checked into a cheap hotel and hit the hay for some well needed sleepy sleep.

Petra is one of the new 7 wonders of the world and more than two thousand years old (from the info book). They say you need to spend two or three days exploring it, but we had one. We were just in the gate and a guy on horseback showed us a different route to the normal tourist one.

Seeing as a bus load of tourists were ahead of us, we said sure why not. It turned out to be class. We were walking around up and down cliffs completely off the beaten track for about 3 hours before we saw anyone else other than a goat herder and his goats.

It was unreal. Then, by the time we got around to the end of the tourist route, almost everyone had left so we pretty much had it to ourselves. The carved facade that made Petra famous is called The Treasury (or Al-Khazneh as they say in Arabic) and was used in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade.

You know, the one with Sean Connery and the Holy Grail? See...

Anyway, after about 5 long hours of walking about in flippy floppies, we drove back into town for some well earned dinner!!!! Spent the night in the same hotel as last night. Expensive couple of days (ticket for Petra was around 38 euro each), but sooo worth it. Next stop… The Land Of The Pharaohs!!!