Catching up

So, now we have had there great and busy days in a row... back late so only time to upload the photos before going out again to shoot some more.

It is Monday now, so we need to go back to Saturday, where we had an easy and late start. It was noticeable, coming out of the air conditioned hotel, not into the cool morning air but the hot furnace blasts of midday. We wandered around a bit dazed, to be honest and didn't really find the best places to see in Hama, before retreating back to the internet cafe and then the hotel. Fred stayed at home, while I went on a tour back to the places we had missed out on on the way over.
It was great. We wnet out in a 1950's Pontiac, with a re-vamped engine and superb suspension. Style! There wasJack and Anna who had just finised at Cambridge and Shannon and , two friends from Cappadoccia. All very friendly. We went first to the atmospheric Qasr Al Warden castle, the beehive village with the bedouin children so happy at having their photo taken. The bedouin family, who welcomed us into their house and gave us sweet tea, when we stopped outside their tents so I could take pictures of their sheep. Then the summit of Qalaat Al Shamamis (Weathertop), for sunset. Beautiful.

Yesterday, we arranged for our very own driver to take us to where we wanted to go rather than the pre-arranged trips. His name was Abdul and he drives and brand new yellow Kia, of which he is very proud. He is the only polite driver we have come across and although he takes the straight desert roads pretty fast, he is unusually careful, except when overtaking on blind hills and cutting the corner on blind bends. A good thing the roads are so empty here. He also gave us Arabic lesson so we know the Arabic for pistachio, olive, pomegranite, grape and sheep (or we did).

Anyway, we started off with the norias of Hama and then Sheizar. These are very large wooden waterwheels, which lift water from the Orontes River, onto aqueducts to feed the neighbouring countryside. They make an intriguing noise as they creak around the axels. Hama marks the start of the El Gharb, a low lying area, an extension of the Great Rift Valley in its Arabian guise. Flat and very green, given to growing cotton, tobacco, sugar beet, sunflowers, tomatoes and the like.

From then it was up to Apamea..... where one finds the remians of a once rich and great Roman provincial town, with a street of about 1,600 long, lined with column after column after column. An incredible site, perched on a ledge overlooking the El Gharb across from the coastal range. We were there still early in the morning so it was cool enough, with just three other visitors. We first popped into the museum in an old caravenserai (stables for horses and camels), where many dusty mosaics were laid out along with some sarcophagi. Interesting to note that the mosaics from the early Christian churches seemed very pagan and natural with lots of beasts and flowers. No Maria or Jesus on crosses (these cults, which became dominant, would have come later). We also stopped at the ampitheatre where a guy tried to sell us stuff he said he had found on the site, such as coins and a mould. Then, as we were about to go, we spotted a Litle Owl looking down at us. This was to be the first of three owls we saw in Apamea (and we would see one again in Palmyra the next day.) For the rest, we saw lizards, sparrows, a bee-eater and a kestrel up on the site.

After Abdul had treated us to a plate or two of watermelon it was time to press on, first through the green of the El Gharb and then up through the green and cool mountains, stopping first at the castle at Misyaf, before arriving at Crac des Chevaliers. The castle at Misyaf, was in the hands of the Assassins (known to anyoine who has read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons/Bernin Mysterie) for a number of years.

Crac des Chevaliers is the best preserved castle in the Middle East and was built by the crusaders and held by them for the longest period. Perched up on a hill, overlooking the plains below stretching out towards Lebanon and then acros the mountains to the sea and then up the valley we had just traversed. It was now cool, (very windy) and cloudy, we could almost have been on a summer holiday in England! The Lord of the Rings comparison would be Gondor, with the white stone and the two levels of defence, an outer rings and then an inner citadel. Although we were as good as castled-out, investigating the Crac was great fun, with its stables, hidden towers and stairways, climbing up the levels, walking along the ramparts and visiting the huge halls, for the knights and the kings.