Herve Pura Vida

stop in a small village and then have a falafel. After asking the owner where we can find a hotel, he is inviting us in his house and feeding us like a sheikh. We are spending the night drinking tea in several houses and are sleeping very well. This is the first time in Syria and it will not be the last that the people show us the signification of a culture in Syria (and in general in a moslem country): the hospitality. During all my trip the people invite me to their houses and are incredibly nice. I am getting a flat tire near a petrole station. We are asking them if we can sleep here and after an hour, we are getting a huge meal near the sobia (the local heating with diesel), they're preparing us a bed are putting an english movie on the tv. Better than in a hotel !!! We are leaving the motorway for a small road, we're in an another world, a very old one. This for me is amazing, after having problems with the climatic's conditions, the bad roads, now I can't drive because of the people who always want you to drink a tea or eat something. I love this country ! We are passing Hama, Homs and visiting the Crac des Chevaliers, an very old castle still in good shape.The cities are not especially beautiful but the life in it is very fascinating. The globalisation is coming but still not replacing the old tradition of way of living (but it's really coming).
After Homs I am leaving the canadian guy who wants to be as soon as possible in Palestine and I'm starting the ride in the desert. There is few villages on the road and the people are, one more time, very nice and offer me hospitality very quickly. I appreciate because the nights in the desert during the winter are really cold. As soon as the sun disappears, the temperature falls down and it starts to freeze. After the no-ending mountains in Turkey, the road in the desert is finally flat and very quiet. On the way there is a lot of military installations, a very strategical place and Irak is not far as well.
Palmyra, the largest place of roman ruins out of Europe. A beautiful place where a lot of ruins where destroyed after an earthquake. Palmyra was rich and prosperous and a lot of centuries ago, thanks to the oasis and the strategical place between Teheran, Damascus, Bagdad, the silk way between Europe and Asia and the doors to Africa. I am spending my quietest new year in here and am starting to drive to Damascus. I meet a lot of bedouins. In reality I spend a lot of time riding my bicycle as well. Through this desertic vastness, so relaxing.
One evening I'm finding a kind of bed along a house. I'm deciding to sleep on it outside and suddently are coming 2 men with scarves on motorbike. It is therirworkshop for reparing cars and trucks. After the effect of surprise, they're inviting me at home. After a second day driving and a night in a restaurant, I'm breaking on the third day for the 4th time my front rack (always an another piece break). This time I cannot repair it and I'm driving very carefully. Suddently a motorbike is coming. This is the man who invited me at his place 2 days ago. He is telling me that 3 kilometers away, he has a second workshop for cars and trucks. The desert is a small world. After reparing my rack, drinking a few teas, I'm taking the road again. I love this ride through the desert, I meet a lot of nice people and see a lot of animals (yes, even some crazy dogs who run after me) Later, a military car is passing by me and is stopping along the road. They are stopping me..to offer me tea. After drinking tea, we're putting my bicycle in the car, taking a small street in the bush and I'm getting a meal in the military camp. I cook a little in Syria because I get food from everybody. They are even giving me supplies for the roads so the food was never a problem for me. They're bringing me back to the main road and during the evening I am reaching Damascus.

After the quiet desert, the very living big city, incredible traffic again. I ride almost 5000 kilometers since I left Switzerland and I think that I could remain a few times here. The same evening, I am meeting a french guy, Bruce, and we're going out to have some beers (waow, that was a long time.). He is explaining that in 3 days a intensive arabic lesson is starting in the university of Damascus. I think, why not ??? sounds nice.. When he is waking up the next day, he is asking me again if I still want to have a look. I'm going and decide to learn arabic. In 2 days, we're filling up a lot of administration's paper, having an aid test (obligatory, in case you are positive, as foreigner they put you in the first plane, as local people, you go in jail.), getting a letter from the embassy to subscribe to the university, finding a room in the old city and suddently I am sitting on the benches of the University (before I can understand what's really happening). I'm glad to relax my legs and to have my head working again.
I'm now a citizen of Damascus. I have a nice room in an old traditional house in Bab-Touma, the christian quarter in the old city. A magic place and probably one of the oldest places in the world. The merchants of diesel or vegetables come with their carts, ride by horses or donkeys. They yell or use their horne to inform the people of what they have. Within a few days, you know everybody here, the small grocery shop to the barber, or from the falafel seller to the fresh fruit juice seller. Sometimes I feel like I live in a small village because the cars don't often take the risk to drive through the very narrow streets.
The morning I jump in a bus-service, a small minibus where 15 people can find a place, and go to the university. In class, I'm more or less the only one who can't read and write but the courses are so intensive that after a month, I'm able to read, write and speak basic conversations with people. Far enough for me actually.
In the middle of the month, after having slept a few hours after a big party Bruce and myself organized in a club of the old city, we are going to the Golan Heights. Before that, in the streets of the old city, they are killing sheeps everywhere, the streets are red, full of blood, nice morning.. With other students, we're reaching the Golan Heights and with the company of an agent of the secret service, we're visiting the syrian part of the Golan, under the UN protection (a few kilometers from here, there are the israelien positions). A place where you can feel the death, everything is destroyed and the soldiers here don't have innocent faces. On the way back, a dead child, in the middle of the street. She just got hit by a car. A very bloody day. But Damascus is not only synonim of death. There is death, life, religious parties and simply normal parties as well.
After one party called "velo rouge" (red bicycle) and after the end of the course at the university, Bruce and I are taking the bus to Rakka. We're following the Eufrat's river and we're meeting a fisherman (the Eufrat is a river which comes from the kurdish mountains in Turkey, go through the desert in Syria and Irak until Koweit). The idea is to drive as far as possible down the Eufrat in a small boat. The fact is that we know that at any time, the police can stop us und bring us in the "normal tourist trails". After a meal in the house of the fisherman, we're renting his very small boat and we are going on the river. We will row during 3 days. The first night, we are making a fire in the forest and are sleeping under the boat (to get warmer and stop the wind). Along the river, everything is growing, everything is green. A bit further away and you see the desert again. A beautiful landscape. The second day, the river is very calm, we are enjoying a very sunny day and we are sleeping in a bedouins familly who is inviting us. The third day, the fog are joining us a few hours, until almost midday. After that, the journey is turning into an another "adventure". 2 syrians guys are stopping us (they have a motorboat, so anyway we have to stop). We're drinking a tea and then soldiers are arriving. After speaking 2 hours with the colonel, 2 others cars are coming: The muhabarats, the syrian secret service. They are taking the boat out of the water and then we know that we are not going to drive anymore. They are bringing us in their office for a few hours. After a few hours questioning, they're ransfering us to the headquarter of the secret service in Rakka. We're staying there a few hours talking to different people, then with the boss. They're bringing us to the hotel and we are making them pay for us (the food as well). The second day we're going to the headquarter (again) and in the immigration office. When you know that in Syria they live under a dictatorship and that all the opponents disappear in the offices of the muhabarats, it sounds terrible but actually for us, we're spending a good time with them. We're training our arabic lesson and are trying to say what we know in arabic and we are making a lot of jokes with them (fortunately they don't understand all the jokes, but we do.). The english translator tells me that they caught us because we were right beside a secret military base.. If he hadn't tell me that, I would have never known that it was a secret place..

The last weeks in Damas, I am getting my first real "holidays". Relaxing, reparing my bicycle (I got a new front rack in steel for usd 10.--, it took 5 hours on 3 days with two men, welcome in Syria), I am cleaning my materials and having a good time with the foreigners leaving in Damas. But now, that's it. The call of freedom is coming, I have to ride again. A part of my heart will remain in here, but the spring is taking place of the winter and it's already warm. If I want go to Africa it will be warmer and warmer, everyday. Now I know, after having suffered of the coldness, I will suffer under the sun (but I think to get hot is better than be in the very cold, we'll see.)

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