Day 27 On both Sides of the Euphrates
SYNOPSIS: I visited two 3rd Century fortresses at the Euphrates and walked a lot. In the evening, at Deir Ez Zoor, I stumbled across an impressive memorial to the Armenian genocide.HALABIYYA AND ZALABIYYA - FORTRESSES BY THE REBEL QUEEN ZENOBIAAny rebel queen has my sympathy. I heard mention of Zenobia at Palmyra and was intrigued by this queen who faced off the Romans. At one point she became too power-hungry and fought where she should have accepted a generous peace treaty. That was the end of her. You have to know when to stop!I owed her fortresses a visit being so close. Lonely Planet warned that it would be difficult to get home from Zalabiyya, but they should also have mentioned that it was nearly impossible to get to Halabiyya in the first place unless, of course, you have your own car. Then it’s no sweat, just 8 and 12 km off the main highway. I did not have the luxury, so I found myself dropped off at the turn from the major highway this morning with no hope for a taxi or a microbus. What can you do? A journey of 12 km starts with the first step and from there it is thumbs into the wind, like the olden days. I thought I was in remote places yesterday… Today I was definitely off the beaten path. I walked for one hour through two little villages before the first car picked me up and took me to Halabiyya – the larger and more preserved of the two fortresses. It is an impressive place perched on the hillside. Outer walls and some mountain top buildings are still preserved. I looked at them from below and decided not to hike up.Along the way I saw the living quarters of the villagers. Cloth tents for the animals, mud brick or concrete houses for the people. Gray, gray, and more gray. Today, even the sky was gray. What accented the landscape were the clothes of the people. And they came out to see me as their dogs announced my coming. I was harassed by a good 25 dogs today. Once one or two dogs in the village started barking, all the other dogs chimed in and came racing out to the main road where I was peacefully walking along. They snarled and barked at me giving me a good show of their importance. I am sure they are as bored as the people. I ignored them and just kept walking. The kids ran out to see me yelling just about any foreign word they could think of. Most of the time just “hallo”, or “time” or “what’s your name”. But one 10 year old also yelled the f-word at me. I wonder if he knows what it means. I waved a friendly hallo back and kept walking. If the kids would not stop following, I offered to take their picture – that did the trick. They were thrilled and satisfied to let me go after a giggly inspection of the photograph on my digital display. I tried to picture growing up in a village like this and could not. I hardly saw any satellite dishes. There are just the huts, the animals, and the other kids, the grownups. What do they know about the world, growing up? Do these kids read? Will they ever get out of their village? Will they go to college?Halabiya is a huge palace-fortress right at the banks of the river. Today, the road goes right through it. The sign is rustier yet than the signs yesterday. I could not make out a thing. Nobody there, no guard, no entrance fee. It’s there for the walking. If you would hike up, you could spend hours there. But I was even more fascinated with all the life I encountered and the river and the panoramic views that I kept going.I crossed the Euphrates on a pontoon bridge made up of many pontoon boats, a metal superstructure, and wooden beams. There were two guards, one at either end letting down a metal chain for every car that came. But they did not charge anything. Why not leave the metal chain down and go home?! Now there is a boring and pointless job. In the middle of the bridge I stopped to watch the ducks. They have to paddle hard to stay in one place. And they do. Just as pointless as letting the chain down! Why don’t they get out to the islands and stop paddling against the current? They could have a relaxed afternoon instead of getting nowhere by using up all of their energy.After another hour of walking, I got picked up again and dropped at the turn to Zalabiyya. But at the wrong mountain! I climbed and walked just to find myself looking over to Zalabiyya which was at the next mountain. So, down I had to go and up again. I almost felt like the ducks… And I almost said “to hell with this mountain of rubble”. Why put all this energy in to getting there? But the better voice in my head won and I did climb down and up just one more mountain. I am glad I did. It was not in vain: From there I had an almost as good view of the Euphrates valley as from Dura Europos – almost. I was way up high – I realize that heights don’t scare me, but more and more they give me such a horrible feeling in my stomach that I think I will faint and then I am scared, because what if? What if I faint? Then I will fall and I will be gone. So I am scared. I dared as far to the edge as I could without provoking that sense of fainting. Beautiful. Lush and green. Serene, except for the noise a factory made in the near distance of crushing rocks.What the Lonely Planet also does not mention is that once you are in Zalabiyya, you should not trace your steps but make a big circle by taking the road back on the other side of the river. It is even less traveled than the one I was dropped off on this morning. But I had all afternoon and knew that I could make it. I walked another good while before I got a short-distance lift. And then, I caught a microbus! Just as I would have expected to, on the other river side. So, going home was no problem at all despite Lonely Planet’s prediction. It was the getting there that cost me time, but allowed me to see life a lot closer up than so far. And I got some walking in. Since I have no more Nutella here, I am beginning to lose some weight. I don’t know how much, but I can tell that my custom-made money belt is starting to fall off of me…In the evening, I roamed the streets of Deir Ez Zoor in search of a place to get some food. I came across a huge door with stone letters “Armenian Church or the Martyrs”. I tried the door, but it was locked. But somebody inside had heard me and opened up. This was a beautiful sandstone compound with an octagonal church. Inside, a pillar in the middle was surrounded by an opening which allowed the view into a lower church. At the ground floor the pillar was surrounded by bones laid in the ground under glass. But down there it wasn’t a church, but a whole vault dedicated to the genocide the Armenians experienced at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1915. Horrible images, artifacts, commemorative oil paintings and text to document this atrocity of mankind. Very well done. I am glad, I got to see this.And that’s it for today.Tomorrow, I will be in transit to Raqqa. It’s an even less touristy town than Deir Ez Zoor. Lonely Planet warns that if you don’t have to stop there, then don’t! Hotels, and all are supposed to be horrible. That makes me feel good about it… But I want to take a day trip from there to see the famous Lake Al Assad. So I will go nonetheless. I will miss this hotel!Good night.