Hello from Damascus! Well, hello from an email sent from Damascus to an undisclosed location in the DC metro area (thanks, Lindsay!) posted to the blog. As expected, Blogspot (in addition to Fbook and a few other sites) is blocked so I am being creative in order to keep the blog going for fear of never picking it back up...
SYRIA IS INCREDIBLE! I know the country name and the capital, Damascus, have more than their fair share of negative stereotypes, but our first few days here have been amazing. We made this country a stop on our itinerary after hearing such good things about it from people who have visited. Because we were told it is much calmer than Morocco and Egypt, I figured it would be a nice introduction to the proper Middle East and be better to work our way from Syria to Jordan to Egypt than the other way around.
We had a long time getting here, but it has been completely worth it. One would think it would be easier to fly between North Africa and the Middle East but it is actually quite challenging. After spending Thursday in a bus to Casablanca (and making a quick stop to see the Hassan II Mosque in Casa-- the only mosque in Morocco open to non-Muslims), we took the train to the aiport and hung out there for 6 hours until our very awkward midnight flight to Cairo.
Arriving at 6 am local time, we got a nice preview of Egypt during our 8 hour layover until our flight to Damascus. Apparently it is Egypt Air's policy to give you a hotel voucher if your layover is longer than 6 hours long and it definitely would have been nice to shower considering how long it had been since we had had one. However, they could not find the Egypt Air rep so they fed us and we spent our time in the frigid transit holding area until they let us leave for our terminal.
Arriving in Damascus in the evening, we successfully navigated the local bus and got to our awesome hotel where we have met a ton of people in various stages of traveling through the Middle East. It has definitely been nice to get tips on places to stay and hear their stories (eg. two Spanish guys have been WALKING from Rome to Jerusalem and are in their 6 month now) and, more importantly, to have a horizontal surface to sleep on!
SYRIA IS INCREDIBLE! I know the country name and the capital, Damascus, have more than their fair share of negative stereotypes, but our first few days here have been amazing. We made this country a stop on our itinerary after hearing such good things about it from people who have visited. Because we were told it is much calmer than Morocco and Egypt, I figured it would be a nice introduction to the proper Middle East and be better to work our way from Syria to Jordan to Egypt than the other way around.
We had a long time getting here, but it has been completely worth it. One would think it would be easier to fly between North Africa and the Middle East but it is actually quite challenging. After spending Thursday in a bus to Casablanca (and making a quick stop to see the Hassan II Mosque in Casa-- the only mosque in Morocco open to non-Muslims), we took the train to the aiport and hung out there for 6 hours until our very awkward midnight flight to Cairo.
Arriving at 6 am local time, we got a nice preview of Egypt during our 8 hour layover until our flight to Damascus. Apparently it is Egypt Air's policy to give you a hotel voucher if your layover is longer than 6 hours long and it definitely would have been nice to shower considering how long it had been since we had had one. However, they could not find the Egypt Air rep so they fed us and we spent our time in the frigid transit holding area until they let us leave for our terminal.
Arriving in Damascus in the evening, we successfully navigated the local bus and got to our awesome hotel where we have met a ton of people in various stages of traveling through the Middle East. It has definitely been nice to get tips on places to stay and hear their stories (eg. two Spanish guys have been WALKING from Rome to Jerusalem and are in their 6 month now) and, more importantly, to have a horizontal surface to sleep on!
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