Hama, Syria

The trip to Hama was interrupted by a short visit to Crack de Chevalier, a beautifully preserved Crusader castle that seems almost untouched by time. The castle was so well built it never fell to the Arabic armies. As it became clear the Crusades were failing and the armies began their retreat, a small garrison of 200 soldiers was left to hold the castle. The castle remained unbreachable. When it became clear that no aid was coming, the 200 soldiers abandoned the fort and in return were granted safe passage back to their lands.

We stayed in Hama for three nights and hired a car to take us to the near by sights. The first day consisted of an old palace, some bee-hive houses and an afternoon with some Bedoiuns beneath a long forgotten castle ruin. Tea with the Bedouins also turned into a bit of a fashion show as the ladies took great delight in dressing Anelia in a variety of their fine gowns and scarves and insisting she posed for pictures. Day two we traveled to the Dead cities, cities that grew up out of the rocky Limestone fields in central Syria and were abandoned for unknown reasons leaving only the ghosts of the past. The first of these cities was our favourite with enough of the structures still standing you could almost see the old city in its glory. Unfortunately we couldn’t quite capture the ambience of this place on film. We ended the day at Apamea., another Roman city of which all that remains is the well preserved 2km long colonnaded main street. The third day a young Syrian boy attached himself to us and acted as tour guide for our walk around Hama. We toured around the city of Hama visiting the souq and stopping to wonder at the magnificent water wheels. These huge wheels and a complex aqueduct system were amoung the first of their kinds dating back to 7^th century AD and were perhaps the first used in an industrial capacity. In the souq the young lad who’s name escapes us (yes the name always seems to escape us but honestly you meet at least a dozen people a day as they stop to ask you where you are from and what your name is and if you like Syria and most of them are named Mohammed, orAli or Abdul or at least a name somewhat akin to that) bought us boiled beans, lightly salted and covered in lemon, a sort of souq treat to munch on while you shop. Anelia spent most of her time trying to find the right moment to discretely drop hers in the street before finally caving in and admitting to the lad she couldn’t eat them. She felt very bad admitting it seeing as he had spent his hard earned cash on us but in her defence we had just finished eating supper at an absolutely fantastic restaurant and had once again ate so much our pants barely fit. In addition the beans were not exactly what you would call delicious. Jeff on the other hand ate every one of the damned things and spent the next 4 or 5 hours regretting it! Open a window somebody! Anyhoo, our stay in Hama was great but before we new it we were off to Allepo!

pic 1 - beans in the market pics 2 and 3 - Crack des Cheveliars castle pics 4 and 5 - tea at the Bdouin camp, Anelia plays dress up. pics 6 and 7 - water wheels in Hama pic 8 - the dead cities

pic 9 - the Roman ruins of Apamea