Day 37 Transit and Visits
SYNOPSIS: In order to roll three days into one, I hired Ali one more time to take me from Aleppo to Tartous via taxi. Along the road we visited the crusader castle named Salahadin and the Phoenician site of Ugarit. I met Hassan, my host for the next few days in Tartous.WHY A SISTER AND SIX DAUGHTERS STILL WILL NOT GIVE ME ANY ANSWERSWhen I calculated the remaining days in Syria, I panicked. There is still so much to see and so little time left. Where did the time go?! I wanted to take the train from Aleppo to Latakia in particular, to be able to report to my brother Christoph, the train engineer, about the state of affairs of Syrian trains. To get from Latakia to Tartous, I would have had to take a taxi to change to an overland bus again, as train service is infrequent and unreliable. That would have meant a full day in transit seeing nothing along the way… I figured that three days in a hotel and local transport would add up to what Ali would charge me to go by taxi and see the important sites along the way. A tourist per day is worth gold to him as he can make more money going a fun route rather than working all day in Aleppo. Even though taking a taxi very much goes against my travel principles, time is of the essence now and Ali deserves it.I said goodbye to Aleppo the evening before, looking at the citadel at night one more time, roaming some of the deserted medieval streets of the souq just one more time, and feeling very, very sad. Aleppo was home to me like not even Beirut. There was something special about living in the Khan and being part of a life-style of which few traces still exist anywhere in the world. Not to glorify it too much – I would not want this to be my permanent life. I would miss the cultural diversity and richness of our American life way too much. Nonetheless – Aleppo, its souq, and “my” Khan will have a special place in my heart for the rest of my life.We met at 6 AM in the morning. No to worry about an alarm clock. I get blasted out of bed every morning at 4:15 AM by this unusually long, extra prayer. No matter how deep I push in my ear plugs, this prayer is broadcast with a force for which no ear plug can pose an obstacle. For the first time I had heard that prayer in Deir Ez Zoor on a Friday. Here in Aleppo, I have had the pleasure every day. All I understand is “Shukran, shukran, shukran Allah… followed by lots of syllables ending in what sounds to me like “Istanbul.” Then the whole thing starts again and again and again for a total of about 15 minutes. The words seem repetitive. I asked Ali about this – how is there a 6th call to prayer every morning at this ungodly hour and for this extended time? He said that a lot of people are very angry about that even though they are Muslims, but nothing can be done; not in Aleppo. He mentioned that this is the “good time” of the year. During the summer months this prayer comes about at 3 AM in the morning and one hardly can sleep at all since the last official call to prayer is much later than it is now. If I understood him right, it is because in Aleppo there are a lot of very religious people and they want this special prayer. He also said something about particular times of the year and that this is the week gearing up to Mohammed’s birthday, a national holiday. For that, strict Muslims also add a lot of extra prayers. Makes sense now. So, with the help of the Muezzin, I was up bright and early.We headed West and reached the famous Qala’at Salah-Ad-Din or castle of Salahadin. It is an impressive Crusader castle at a fantastic location. If I think about the contrast to Palmyra, Deir Ez Zoor, Raqqa – it could not be more of a contrast. From the tree-less, rocky, cold desert I am coming to a warm, lush, fertile area full of orange and lemon trees, cherry, apricot, and apple trees in bloom, rolling hills all green and covered with conifers. It is beautiful. The castle was impressive, but at the wealth of crusader castles in Syria, this is just another one and I will spare you the details. There is still one to come. To me they always are most interesting for the view and the location. Otherwise, crusader castles do not make my heart beat faster. I am sure this is different for people with a bent towards military history. What impresses me if anything, is how they took care of their water supply. The two cisterns I saw at Salahadin blew my mind. Rain water was collected in underground rooms that could hold up to 48,000 gallons of water!From here we passed the city of Latakia, the most important Syrian port town, to get to Ugarit. Again, I am grateful for the archaeologists who make sense of piles of rock and a few remains that don’t look like anything. Ugarit made world history. This is the town credited with the invention of the Phoenician alphabet which is the precursor to all Western writing. Among other things, a clay tablet with the 30 cuneiforms listing the letters was found here! But really, the site is a lush, grassy area with lots of two-foot high walls, thousands of rocks on the ground and nothing much else. What caught my interest were old water pipes and drainage channels which were covered, moving alongside ancient roads. This was a clean city. The Middle Ages in Europe could have learned a few things.In Latakia, we picked up Hassan Ali, my new host in Tartous. He is a professor of engineering at the university of Latakia and had been lecturing that morning. He commutes to Tartous twice a week – what a teaching schedule!!! He prefers to live in Tartous which is closer to Lebanon, where many of his relatives live. They are all Lebanese nationals and were separated by the civil war there. I am not sure if Hassan will tell me more. I will ask. His sister (yes, he has one!) had made us a wonderful dinner of stuffed grape leaves and filled zucchinis. We went for an evening stroll to get a sense of the layout of the town. It was 26 degrees (Celsius) during the day and 21 degrees at night (For my American readers - that’s all in the 70’s but I forgot how to convert). As far as I am concerned, this is summer!I have a small room here which normally is Hassan’s office. He has a comfortable two bedroom apartment in the center of Tartous. From here it is only three blocks to the Corniche – a waterfront promenade which very much reminds me of the Corniche in Beirut. His sister lives just two blocks away. We went to visit and to thank her for the dinner. I found out that she has six daughters and one son – there are my women! I was so excited to meet them. And I did meet three of them. One is a hair dresser, one is still in school, one is a teacher and recently engaged. But... none of them speak as much as five words of English and neither does their mother… I am not sure I will manage to get to talk to a single woman for any extended time here. I am running out of options. LGood night.