Not very Palmyra

Ok I am over being sick, and I did well on the midterms.

Every time I sit down to finish writing about some of the trips I've take around the country, it feels like homework, and I quit before I'm finished. So to get through it, here's a quick and dirty version.

The first trip I made outside of Damascus was to Palmyra. What can I say about it? Before I came to Syria I knew very little about the ancient places that tourists often visit. I had studied politics, modern history, and Islam. I never really have known much about the Babylonians, Phonecians, Romans, or anyone else who had been in the area before the Ottoman Empire, and I can't say that I've taken the time to learn much about them since I've arrived here. Without any detailed knowledge of the history, most ruins start to look the same after a while. My apologies to anyone who is deeply interested in these things and wanted to read my take on them. I wanted to be creative about it, but I have too much else to say and I've had too little time to write. Here is what was going to be the first paragraph of a longer tale of the trip:


I stood there, nearly 100 miles east of Damascus, looking up at the night sky. There were no clouds, and I could see as many stars overhead as I had ever seen. The wind was like a pack of race cars tearing across the desert. The fumes from their engines defracted the light of the stars, making the constellations tremble. Soda cans cut into pinwheel shapes and strung across the front of the Bagdad Cafe spun in resonant harmony with the tumult.


A little thick on the poetry, isn't it? Once you set that standard for yourself, its hard to keep it up. Anyway, that was the scene at a rest stop on the way home from Palmyra, and easily my favorite part of the trip. The rest of the day mostly involved standing under the midday desert sun looking at ruins and trying to listen to a tour guide who spoke too softly and with too thick of an accent to really learn much of anything. Merchants wander the ancient sites trying to sell you soda, headscarves, cheap jewelry, and other odd things. All in all it was fairly interesting, but I'm a lousy source if that's what you're into. Highlights included watching the sunset from a fortress on top of a mountain, feeling a little like Indiana Jones ascending the interior of an old tomb on stairs that no tourist would be permitted to climb in America for fear that they would hurt themselves and sue somebody, and, of course, seeing the night sky from deep in the desert.

Ok, at this point I have renewed hopes about describing Malula and Bosra, both of which I thought were more interesting. Quinetra also deserves a seperate post, but that will be more about politics than travel.