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The day began at 6:15 in the morning. We meet the taxi driver at 7 a.m., but Charl was asleep and we departured at 7:30 to Amman, where we have to take a shared "service taxi" to Damascus, in Abdali station. We arrived to Abdali, and after a little hassle in the negotiation with the taxi drivers, we paid 21 JD for the three back seats of a modern taxi. The habitual passage of this kind of cars is two people in the front seat (near the driver) and three in the back seats. If one prefers to have more space, you must buy the vacant seats. An old man called Ali, who come with us, bought the two front seats. He goes to Damascus for a visit to the hospital, we supposed to be treated in a visible lump in the neck.
In the road that cross both countries, David had to go to the WC, or "toilet" as is called here, in a gas station. Indescribable experience. We interchanged some words in english with Ali. He asked us for our mobile phone in order to make a long-distant call (!!). The transit through the border takes two processes in two different borders: the Jordan exit and the Syria entry. In the Jordan side it was a quick transact and with the surprise of not having to pay 5 JD for the exit tax, because we were on transit due the short time we stayed in jordanian territory (a little more than 24 hours). In the sirian side it was different. The passport check is exhaustive, and after looking to us with a bad face for a couple of times, finally, the official gives his approval. Weird place this border post, a big room full of soldiers processing passports with old IBM computers, under the close surveillance of an official walking behind their backs.
After the moment of tension in the border, we continue towards Damascus, where we arrive about midday. The surrondings of Baremke station are completely collapsed by a big traffic jam as we never haven't seen before. After leaving Ali, some streets before, we must get out of the car before arriving to the station due to the traffic jam. We noticed that Ali forgot his luggage in the car. The taxi driver helps us to find other taxi driver who took us to the hotel Al-Majed. We haggled the price with the help of a pen and a notebook, because his english was non existant. It was 50 SYP ($1), after he asked for 100 and we offered 25. Syria is a cheaper country than Jordan, and maybe the cheapest we have ever been. The hotel is nothing to remember. It smelt as naphthalene, few smiles and advance payment of 30$ per night. At least the bathroom is clean and the water have some pressure. We are pretty sure is possible to obtain rooms for a cheaper price but we don't want waste more time on it. The rooms have a signal which indicates the orientation of the Mecca.
At the evening, we changed money in the bank of the Yousef Al Azzma square. The new city is more quiet during the evening. We went to the old city and the Souq, to walk and have the first impressions of the real Damascus. The souq is very animated, obviously aimed to the locals, and nobody harrases to anybody, unlike the egyptian souqs. Street sellers don't put objections to our requests for taking pictures, but neither show a little smile. What can we do?...
During our walk we found the Ruqayya mosque, where the daughter of Hussein is buried, the main protagonist of the shiite schism in the Islam. We go inside without problems, Yolanda with the usual tunic. The inner side is amazing, with alot of mirrors and marbles. The sepulchre is accesible from two sides, one for men an other for women. We took photos without flash for not disturbing the emotion of the moment.
Next, we visited a hammam (turkish bath), a madrassa (quranic school) an a khan, a place used by old merchants to leave the camels and horses, and now is being rehabilitated for cultural events.
We had dinner at the Al-Kamal restaurant, near the hotel, a quite simple dinner for 450 SYP. On the way back, we met with Bayan, from the ThornTree forum from Lonely Planet, who works as the public relations of the hotel and we got a better room for the next day.
Lastly, the anecdote of the day: when we were returning from the old city, and due to the traffic jam in the square where Sharia Al-Nasr ends, we decided to cross the square between the cars instead of passing through the underground tunnel, just as other people we saw. When we stopped in the middle of the street, a police man appeared and recriminated us in arabic our behaviour. We apologized in english (we wish to speak arab) and then he began to act nervy, requesting our passport and making jokes with gestures of putting us handcuffs and take us to jail.
As a trick in this tense moment, we decided to act the fools and speak in spanish. The situation got worse when two local boys crossed the street just like us, and the police man, to continue with the joke, had no choice but to recriminate and urge them to go back. The boys ignored him, he began to scream to them, and they laughted at him and at the situation.
In this moment, the situation became surrealistic, and the police man requested reinforcements with his whistle and several other police men appeared with sticks who pursued the boys, that could not believe what was happening. With the pragmatism that characterizes us, latin people, in these situations, we used the opportunity to disappear into the crowd in the middle of the confusion.
The incident was not big deal, but it's not a good idea to underestimate the peculiarities of the police systems in these countries and its attitude with a problem caused by a foreigner. It's frequent to be transfered to the closer border because a minimal problem like this. Oh My God, only 48 hours in middle east and we almost go to jail.... :)
Above, the place of the weird incident.
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