wanderings, writings & drawings

Toilet stop approaching Syria

Early the next morning Hodge told me he was feeling slightly weird in the stomach. Strange, I was too. Not a good sign.

We had gorged at lunch in a local place, and so later had only eaten a small bar snack with our (compulsory) evening beer. The bar food must’ve been a bit dodgy… We decided to not have breakfast, just water, hopefully that would fix it, as we were meeting the taxi driver in the foyer at 7.30am, and heading north crossing the border to start our Syrian leg of the journey; 5 more exciting days in Damascus, Aleppo & Palmyra.

The border crossing was to be interesting as we didn’t prearrange Syrian visas. Several people had advised us several differing advices, (quite a common theme we were discovering), as so all we did know was that we didn’t know anything. The moral of the story is: get the visa before you go – it cost me 85USD to buy my right into Syria from the smurking official – (it said in the Lonely PLanet it would be about 6USD). And with simultaniously gurgling stomachs getting louder every minute, we just wanted to get outta there.

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A couple of hours later as we entered Damascus, our symptoms were worsening quick. We only saw the seemingly charming, alive city through the taxi window that trip, the next 36hours we took turns staring at and backing the porcelin bowl of our shared toilet, and moaning support across beds to each other in our crumby twin room, as we fell into a violent, violent, food-poisoned hell.

I will spare you the details, only saying, due to a series of good people, we managed to get an early flight back to Dubai the next day. We have been in recovery mode and after brief hospitalisation, antibiotics and bananas on toast, we are finally returning to life 8 days later.

A bummer of an end to out trip, but our spirits are still strong. Bedridden, I have been watching the news a lot, a devastating earthquake in Indonesia and tsunami in Samoa, and I guess it puts it all in perspective; we are very lucky.

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Author pondering how they did it all

We get to Abdali Bus Station and catch a local minibus up to Jerash, known for it’s Ruins, an hour northwest of Amman. It’s a gorgeous day – desert hot already and it’s only 11. We wander through the well-preserved Roman city, marvelling at their techniques so long ago, and shading ourselves from the hot sun with a rain umbrella.

Oval Plaza, Jerash, built approx 50AD.

My favourite is the Temple of Artemis, (she was the goddess of hunting and fertility), with its columns so simply stacked, yet still so sturdy.

Artemis Temple