Woke up to the familiar sound of blaring speakers. I’m starting to hate the morning call to prayer.We had to be up at 6:30 anyways…
At 6:30 we all begrudgingly rolled out of bed. We grabbed a quick bite and headed out. The bus driver from the hotel took us to the bus company that goes to Damascus every morning. We got there and went to buy our tickets. However, the bus company did not want to take 10 US tourists across the border. They thought it would be too much of a hassle to wait with us at the border… probably true.
Anyways we walked back outside and attempted to find a taxi. We eventually found a set of brothers who were willing to take us in their two taxis. Most of this was due to our drivers persuasive bartering. Thank Hubly Bubbly (yes that really was his name..).
They agreed to take us all the way to Damascus for 50 dinar per cab. They also agreed to wait at the border free of charge. An hour later we were nearing the border. We purchased our exit visa from Jordan and arrived at the Syrian border.
The border checkpoint was expansive. It had a hotel, restraint, duty free store, money exchange, and of course the Syrian administration building for the border. We went in and found the foreigner line. We made our way to the front and quickly discovered we needed copies of our passports. We left and found a copier. After getting copies we went back to the Immigration Center. We turned in our passport copies and prepared to play the waiting game.
The way the Syrian border works is they collect all the necessary paperwork and fax it to Damascus. From there you either get rejected or denied. The average length of time Americans wait is seven or 8 hours.
We spent some time at the duty free store looking through all the cool stuff. Jake bought a watch, Henry bought some sunglasses. I decided to save my money. After the duty free we headed over to the restaurant to get some eats. I got a pizza because it was the cheapest thing on the menu. It was good but nothing to write home about.
Anyways we went back to the immigration office and waited. After an hour more of waiting our taxi drivers started to get wrestles. They started to ask us how much longer it would take and eventually started to tell us it was going to cost more. We of course refused because our original deal stipulated that they would wait with us. After an hour of arguing back and forth we told them we were only going to pay them half and would like them to leave. They threw a stink but eventually left.
We waited another couple hours but finally got the go ahead from the Syrian government. We were finally in the clear. We were lucky it only took 5 hours. A few more minutes of paperwork and our entry fee got us the necessary passport stamp. From there we left to find new drivers.
We found two drivers waiting like sharks outside the immigration center. We negotiated for a little before finally accepting. We got in and were on our way to Damascus. A few more hours of driving brought us to the Capital of Syria. The driver dropped us at the major bus stop and from there we had to catch a minibus to our hotel. We got swarmed by drivers wanting to take us. We eventually settled on one and were again on the road. After driving around in circles and asking everyone on the side of the road for help our driver found directions and headed off in the right direction.
We finally arrived at our hotel. We went in and were assigned to the roof. We moved our bags up to the roof which was covered in beds. We all picked a bed and decided to go see the city.
We walked around until we came to a juice stand that sold schwarma. I got 2 shwarma’s and a fruit cocktail. The Juice was really good. A little bit thinner than the stuff in Cairo but just as tasty. The Schwarmas were also delicious. The differences between Egyptian shwarma and everywhere else is that in Egypt it is served on a role without sauce. In Damascus it is served with a tasty sauce on a thick tortilla. I’m pretty sure I can never eat Shwarma in Cairo after this.
From there we went to the Souqs. A souq is the Arabic word for market. We went to Al-Buzuriyah Souq which is one of the biggest in Damascus. It is located in the old city, near the Umayad Mosque. We spent our night walking around looking in different shops. Henry, Jeanna, Mike, and I found an Ice cream place and got some Ice Cream… yum!
The Souq was set up as one long walkway which starts at the street and ends at the Umayyad Mosque. We were shocked when we came to the Mosque which was brightly lit and absolutely gorgeous. Around the mosque were many little shops which we looked through and eventually we found ourselves in the hand craft section of Damascus. After browsing for awhile Henry and I found ourselves entranced by the paintings that were on display in one of the stores. We went in and chatted with the owner. Neither of us had much cash on us so we decided to leave. Jeanna, Henry, Mike, and I decided to walk back.
We made it back to our hotel and went to bed.
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