Syria beyond politics: Damascus to Palmyra

My only (newly acquired) Syrian friend Omar is not happy at all about my previous portrayal of his country. I would be sad to lose him to an article, so I sit down to think positive. To warn you, I am no good in lavish descriptions of natural wonders and sun’s trajectories, although I did like those in Syria. The only thing I liked about Damascus was the view from my hotel rooftop onto the steep mountains of sand, covered in housing, which told of the city’s size and made you want to explore its surroundings. So I’ll skip Damascus. Once we drove out, my interest in Syria grew immensely. Mar Musa monastery, around 100km from Damascus, was our first destination, and it was literary in the middle of nowhere, as you can see on the photo below.



Mar Musa was supposed to be a solitary pondering spot for Moses a long time ago, and it was rediscovered only in the 1980s by an Italian Jesuit. It has been rebuilt since, and a cave-like church, high up on the hill you have to climb on foot, resembled nothing I had ever seen before. Its frescos were very much what I like to think of as Orthodox Christian, while father Paulo, the Italian, wore clothes that to me made him look like a Muslim cleric. You also had to take your shoes off when coming into the church, which was carpeted, much like a mosque. It was full of locals, who were brining goods to present to the monastery, a tradition similar to ours. Although the place itself did not give me any religious sensation, the remoteness of its location made me shiver. I later on heard, from somebody’s Syrian guide in Palmyra, that Sufism was in fact practiced in Mar Musa, which is a mystical approach to Islam, although father Paulo would never admit to it, since he got a lot of support from the Jesuits. Whether this is true or not, I do not know, but I was fascinated how artfully religions were blended together, symbols of all used by all, something that would be difficult to imagine in the Balkans.

Our next destination that day was Maalula, the only Aramaic speaking village in Syria (Aramaic is the language which was used by Jesus). Upon our arrival to the St Serge and Bacchus monastery, we discovered a massive crowd of Iranian pilgrims, which was another proof of not only religious tolerance between Islam and Christianity, but also their mutual exchange. In fact, it seemed that the biggest divisions were within the Christian community, and within the Muslim community, rather than between the two, and that seemed to be the rule everywhere. Maalula, and especially this monastery, felt truly special. Regardless of the crowds, it would have been the perfect sport for meditation, if we had the time. Yet, we could not have known about it in advance, and as it was getting dark, we had to hit the road back to the capital.

The next day’s ride to Palmyra, one of the largest Roman city residuals in the Middle East, continued to keep me entertained. We saw everything from enormous heavy industry in the middle of the desert to beige sand mountains covered in black volcano ashes from a long time ago. The border to Iraq was so close, and the catastrophe tourist in me kept lurking around road signs, taking photos of them, to be able to later boast of my geographic location at the time. I cannot describe how cool that felt (It was also a way to ignore the driver, but just you wait, I will devote a whole special section to our drivers).



We stopped at Bedouin tents/café conversions on the way to Palmyra, got dressed up as Bedouin women and were ripped off buying their crafts. I did not mind getting ripped off there though (unlike Damascus), since their goods were clean, well preserved and original, so now I have memories from Syria to savour, as expensive as they were.

Just before Palmyra, our driver showed us a huge mansion, which was being constructed for the president of Kuwait (or it may have been Qatar). Since both Kuwait and Qatar are in fact Emirates, I am not sure whose monarch it was in the end, but it was definitely of royal size and complexion. They even built a camel racing ground, as this was super popular among the Arab aristocracy. Finally, they would take their falcons out there to hunt, since falconry was the ultimate penis enlarging exercise south of Syria. We even saw a Saudi with a 200,000 euros worth falcon hanging on his arm, while he was having coffee (the guy, not the falcon) at the Four Seasons hotel in Damascus. All was good, until the bird started to spread its wings and a woman at the next table got increasingly worried about the fate of her burger. I am not sure why Palmyra was so popular for displaying oil opulence, but it was probably the best spot in the world to combine endless desert surroundings with flocks of tourists who could admire them along with the ruins.

Palmyra was spectacular. There was this castle up in the hill, which had nothing to do with the Romans. I think it was an Umayyad construction, but it fit in rather nicely with all the columns and theatres, all beige, the colour of sand, against a bright blue sky. There weren’t many people around, so I really made the most out of the peace and quite, so happy to be out of the Damascus energy draining bustle. We walked around the ruins for a few hours, and even met a local who spoke Serbian, since he studied engineering in Prishtina 30 years ago. He had quite a bad breath, so we had to get rid of him at some point, as much as we were pleased to hear our own language.



As the night fell, and at this time of the year, this was already around 5pm, we tracked back to our hotel (Dedeman) and to my most orgasmic excitement, we discovered the best jewellery store in Syria inside of it. Exactly what I was looking for all over Damascus. I bought Bedouin golden plated earrings and a massive, weird looking necklace, thus quenching my thirst for Middle Eastern jewellery at quite a decent price. I needed no more from Syria. Yet, that night got even better.

We ended up in a Bedouin tent across the street. My mother and I, all alone. They were supposed to have some tourists visiting later on, but at the time, they devoted all their attentions to us. They stared, they touched, we stared back, but did not touch, and I pulled out some Arabic words to communicate. It felt kind of good that my Arabic was better than their English, although I hardly speak any, so my vanity was satisfied. We made bread with the woman and her daughter, while men were behaving like kids, trying to capture our attention away from the women, by playing music for us, and wanting to take photos. The old man in the photo below was playing his weird looking instrument in the corner, and staring at us the whole evening. He literary stared, no blinking at all. It was the most professional stare ever, so determined. I loved it.



My wooer was a big man who claimed he was 30, but looked closer to 45, who had “no Madame”, as he put it. I was forced into dancing with him to the grooves of his mates, following which he gave me a pen and a piece of paper and said “e-mail”. So I wrote my e-mail address, and my mother, the guardian of my chastity out there far in the desert, flipped out. It was quite funny. She claimed I was giving him “false hope” as we say it in Serbian, and that he was now going to get on our case. There was no way I could make her believe this was their usual tourist treatment, and that her daughter was not special after all. Here’s a video of the dance, maybe you can judge for yourself whether there was a little special something between us (and if you think there was, don’t tell my mother about it). As other tourists fled in, we had mansaf, a local dish of lamb and rice with yogurt, which was delicious, danced a little bit more, and managed to dodge my wooer’s invitation for a motorcycle ride around the desert. I need not tell you how well I slept that night, lulled by my new jewellery and Bedouin rhythms, eager to hit the long road to Allepo the next morning.