Last update: Monday, September 05, 2005

Endless desert road in Syria. Click for large.

The next couple of days we had a nice "holiday" in Aqaba. Spending our days reading in the sun (35 degrees), snorkelling through beautiful coral, playing with the dogs Suzy and Melba ("Zwabberkont") and chatting over an original German cup of coffee with a German couple Norbert and Irma.
Originally we planned a diving trip, but taking in account the shallowness of the coral grounds in the red sea, a lot can easily be seen by snorkelling. So why spending piles of money on diving so close to the shore? 

But still it wasn't a total relaxation, because in the back of our minds was always the hostile situation in the Israeli occupied Palestinian territories, which seems getting worse and worse by the day. The newspapers were full of bad news of new fighting's. And now and then we heard gunshots by soldiers, practising on the other side of the red sea. And it feels very weird, here we are, having a holiday, and just a few km further, there is a war going on and people are dying.

In Aquaba we took our time to get some information about Egypt. Since we wanted to return home through Syria, overland travel through Israel is not an option. So, Egypt by car-ferry from Aquaba to Nuweiba. In total a 6 hour return trip carrying a car and 2 people for somewhere between 500-600 US$ including Jordanian and Egyptian taxes. However Egyptian 'baksheesh' might very easily top the 600 $US line. A return ticket from Amsterdam to Cairo goes for half of that at the moment. But well for that kind of money we probably have first rank seats and get to act ourselves (main character roles!) in the Egyptian border 'show'.

But that wasn't all as our information went, independent car travel between Luxor and Cairo goes with military escorts since the roadside show of the Islamic brotherhood has taken residence somewhere between that route. On top of that 4WD vehicles are not allowed to cross specific Egyptian borders, but Nuweiba seems to be no problem as the kind lady at the Egyptian consulate told us. A nice rule which might probably bend forth or back just by the look of our helpless 'baksheesh' faces. And to make matters a bit more fancier, the parliament elections and the Middle-East crisis also stirred up Egyptian live as we read in the newspapers.
Next to all this tourist travel seemed to have dried up because of the Middle-East crisis as we heard from a lonely biker, a fresh arrival from Egypt. Something we experienced ourselves in Aquaba. And well Egypt is a first rank baksheesh country, so being there with a sort of eye-catching car (as we noticed in Iran)..... yes we can gues blindfolded now, it goes for a lot of baksheesh for sure.
Because we didn't know how the situation is going to develop and if other countries are going to get involved, for example Syria, we decided to head back to Turkey instead of going to Egypt.

So on Wednesday, October 25, we left Aqaba and drove through the desert to the Shaumari wildreserve. We had promised Aqel we would pay him a visit. While driving, we saw the sky getting darker and darker, and suddenly we were in the middle of a sandstorm. And after that: rain. That is a weird experience, seeing rain in the desert.
A pity Aqel wasn't at the reserve  because he was spending a few days with his family. But we had a nice cup of tea with the rest of the crew.

The next day we drove to Amman to get a Syrian visa. Well, to get it, it would take 2 days and we needed a letter of recommendation from our embassy. So we decided to get it at the border again. It had worked for us the first time.
We drove further to Umm al Jimal, to see if we could camp there on the parking lot. We asked the people of the Tourist Police, and it was no problem. In fact, they were so pleased to see some tourists, that before we knew it, we were in the middle of a guided tour. Umm al Jimal are the ruins of a very large city, founded in the 1st century BC. It's build from large bricks of black basalt, which why it is preserved so pretty well. Real special were the thick doors of stone and the construction to store water.

We thought that Friday would be a perfect day to drive through Damascus. Because most shops are closed there should be less traffic in the centre. The Jordanian border was easy. Quick and no hassle for baksheesh or something like that. And after paying a departure tax (they sure love taxes) we could leave Jordan.
The Syrian border was again one big bureaucratic event. Police everywhere, looking very important. No signs, so you just go to the first office boot you see, to learn that you have to be at the next one. And there you find out that you still are at the wrong one. And we don't know why they have computers, because everything had to be written down in books also. But we do know now what for they need the 750 Syrian pounds. One clerk is running with it to the post office (every Syrian border has one) to buy the stamps, which in fact is the visa.
To avoid the Diesel tax (100$ for 7 days) we decided that our car was suddenly transformed into a benzine car. Nervous of getting caught, but trying to look very calm, we passed customs. Phew, it worked. Nobody had noticed we actually had a diesel car. And to be honest, it isn't hard to notice.
The traffic in the centre of Damascus was indeed less chaotic and in half an hour we were at the camping. And what a coincidence, just a couple of hours later, Norbert and Irma, the German couple arrived. They had a lot of trouble to get into Syria, because Norbert has the same name of somebody else, who isn't allowed to come into the country. After 2 hours he finally was able to convince them that he was somebody else, by comparing the birth dates.

Cats testing our chairs to the max at Damascus camping.

The next day we strolled around in the souqs of Damascus and having a delicious dinner at Jarib Restaurant. On Monday, October 30th, we decided to drive to Rasafeh. Well, we never made it. We drove through the desert, trying different dirt roads, but even with help of our GPS we simple couldn't find the right way. Because thick thunder clouds formed ahead (imagine the fun getting stuck in soaking sand swamps) and only one hour of daylight left with Rasafeh some 80 km away we decided to camp in Palmyra and try again the next morning.
 

Cruising the desert again, trying to find Rasafeh (clickable).

The next day, after looking at the map, we decided that driving to Rasafeh by main road would be to far (about 400 km). Considering the information we had about Rasafeh, we just thought it wasn't worth the effort.
So instead of driving to Rasafeh, we headed to Aleppo. After a very stressful drive, we finally arrived at the beautiful camping. And there we met Norbert and Irma again. They have been to Rasafeh and told us that indeed, it isn't worth the effort. Too much locals trying to make some money one way or the other by hassling foreigners.
One hour later a couple from Switzerland arrived and we spend the whole evening together chatting about our experiences and hassles of crossing the border with Syria and our adventures of other holidays. What a lovely evening.

The souqs of Aleppo are something special, we found out the next day. If you want to do some major souvenir hunting, then the souqs of Damascus is the place to be. But if you want a taste of the authentic atmosphere, then Aleppo is where you should go. It definitely is a different world when you enter it. Small alleys with lots of meat stalls, spice stalls, stalls with nuts, with vegetables. All kinds of fresh products. But also lots of gold stalls and places to buy rugs. We had a great time exploring the sougs. And we got ourselves a nargileh (waterpipe) complete with charcoal and tabacco. That should bring back memories when we are home again, smoking the nargileh, watching pictures.

On Tuesday, November 2nd, we drove back to Turkey, together with Norbert and Irma. But first, the hassle of the Syrian border. This time we were at a 'big' TIR (Transport Route) border-crossing, Bab al Hawa. Too big, we found out. There were lots of "officials" helping tourists to get through to the official stuff in the right order. Ofcourse for a lot of baksheesh. And the real officials always find a way to make some extra money because something happened to be wrong about the papers you have or they just forget some stamps or so. And to get it right, well.....yes baksheesh!
Our passport control went without any trouble. So far so good. The second thing was the control and stamping of our Carnet. No problem here. On the question if we had a benzine or a diesel car, we managed to say calmly that we had a benzine one. Then some guy showed up out of the blue. He had a few words with the official, got our Carnet directly from the custom official and gestured we should follow him to his office.
In his office, he again fired the question at us if we had a benzin or a diesel car. Again we confirmed we had a benzin car. Then Arno had to show the car registration papers. Well, at that point we felt quite uncomfortable! Lucky for us there wasn't the word diesel in it. The guy didn't believe us and motioned us outside, to our car. On the way to the outside some other guy popped up, gesturing for our Carnet de Passage. Not letting the Carnet out of our hands he managed to plaster a postage stamp on the export slip of the Carnet while shouting some amount of dollars at us. Arno simply took our carnet and stepped straight to the Carnet stamping boot pointing at this silly stamp. Again a lot of Arabic at the Carnet boot and surprisingly the 'stamp' guy vanished in smoke. Definitely a rude scam to get a few dollars out of pockets.
Next we stepped outside with our man, suspecting we had a diesel car. We stepped in our car determined to head for the border station. Ofcourse the diesel sound and puff of black smoke was the proof the guy needed and told us firmly that this was a diesel car.
 
Oh boy, now we are in big trouble, we thought, imagining ourselves already in prison.
Watching our faces he told us that he wasn't actually from customs but that he wanted to help us. Now we understood, actually he was the guy running the tourist office at Bab al Hawa.
This whole performance was his way of making some extra money. So, after a lot of arguing, we paid him some 'bakshees' and he assured us we could get away with it, if we didn't stop the engine when we were at customs. He would be there to distract the officer. And it worked. We passed customs! After that, the last checkpost. Still nervous, because we could still be in trouble, we saw one officer wanted to check our car thoroughly. But lucky for us another one signalled him to leave us alone. And there we were, back in Turkey again!!!

Later we realised the whole masquerade at Bab al Hawa is simply a tourist scam. It doesn't make any difference whether you go by the book or try to avoid the diesel tax. There will be always something wrong with either your carnet de passage, the payment slips of the dieseltax, your insurance, or any other creative bureaucratic procedure on the way out to Turkey. The bottom line is pay or loose mucho time with inspections or worse, loosing some of your campgear due to 'sudden' importation laws.

On the way into Syria these 'tourist' guys (we saw at least 4 of them) will definitely approach you to help to get your carnet de passage stamped and maybe try to persuade you to skip the dieseltax and cut them in on the deal. This might help you the very first time, if you don't know how to deal with all this paperwork. But the second time you can surely do without their 'help'. At the Kilis border crossing we didn't experienced these hassles, it's small crossing with only a few custom officers around. But well we might have been lucky. And we did, because we could enter Syria without a pre-arranged Visa because of our Dutch nationality.

The Turkish border formalities where smooth and quick, no hassles here. But unfortunately we trapped ourselves into another border formality as we experienced  a few days later on our route through Turkey. Our next report will definitely fill you in on the fresh & juicy details :-)