Antique scenes in Tadmor

Before we cycle out of Homs we follow Abdul's advice and ride to the grave of mister Al Hool. There are some interesting stories about this man. Like: in his lifetime he was quite tall, namely four metres, a giant! After his demise people had to build a special, very long tomb at his house. Dozens of years later the municipality of the town decided to shovel up his remains and remove the tomb, in order to make space for new houses. This is where it gets really interesting, because they never managed to even start the task; shovels broke down, people got sick and a truck driver even became paralyzed. Nothing worked to lift the large tomb from its place. Allah was protecting him, the people said. In the end the decision was made to leave it be.
We are looking through a small window into the garden and indeed see a white-plastered tomb of about four metres.

Like before, cycling goes well. On good tarmac we proceed eastwards, where Bedouin tents replace the stone houses of the town. Children play barefoot in the warm sand.
We pass several military drilling camps, with half buried rockets, camouflaged planes and dozens of tanks playing a wargame. Probably against Israel. Unofficial estimates say there are nearly one million soldiers defending a population of a little less than fifteen million Islamic Syrian souls.
Comforted by this information we sleep in the vast desert, under a pitch black sky filled with thousands of stars.

Three Bedouin children cheerfully wave us goodbye when we continue our journey to the east, in between two parallel mountain ridges. We can see the straight blacktop road ahead of us for kilometres on end. There's almost no traffic, except once in while when trucks filled with new foam mattresses pass us. They are all headed for Baghdad; apparently a lot of people in Iraq have sleeping problems, which we can imagine.
After sixty kilometres we approach a hill topped by a huge Arab fortress. We circle it and in the following descend the Palmyra oasis and the ruins of the old city of Tadmor suddenly emerge before our eyes. It's an amazing and wonderful sight, after sixty kilometres of nothingness. We find a small guesthouse and notice there are almost no tourists in town. Except for two other cyclists: Sabine and Ulli from Austria and Germany. They have met only a couple of months ago, when they were looking for a partner to cycle around the world with (www.pedalglobal.net). And: not just the cycling clicked.
It is still Ramadan. We stroll through the market stalls when suddenly a loud bang sounds and muezzins start singing their long awaited wailing message of the day. Within two minutes all streets are empty and everyone is enjoying a meal somewhere.

The shopkeepers in Palmyra are desperate. The threatening invasion of Iraq by the US caused most western countries to issue a negative travel advice for ally Syria. Very strange: we have never felt safer anywhere. There's no theft, no crime, no robberies and the people are just as friendly and hospitable as the Turkish. Thanks to this travel advice it is dead quiet in this beautiful place, which is very bad for the local economy. We feel it every time we pass a shop; everyone fiercely tries to get us inside and sell us something. Anything. The street vendors are even worse and actually a bit intrusive; after a while we walk around them keeping our distance.

The ancient Tadmor (City of Dates), which is now called Palmyra (City of Palms), for centuries was the most important stop on the camel caravan route between the Arab Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea for taking a rest and stock up on provisions. A fertile oasis developed around an old well, called Afqa, where olives, cotton, grains and dates grow. Being a strategic place the city was conquered by the Romans, Persians and Arabs, of which the Romans remained the longest period. And so, most ruins date from the Roman period. After all the old stones we saw in Turkey this ancient city is definitely the most impressive.

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Hundreds of stone pillars, standing up or fallen down, are surrounded by temples, statues, a tetrapylon, tombs, a fortress and an amphitheatre.
For hours and hours we stroll and climb the vast terrain and we can't get enough of the terrific carved and sometimes eroded stones.

High above these ruins towers the Arab castle of Emir Fakhr Edden Alma'ni. On our second day we pay a visit to the fortress. We are the only visitors, just like at the ruins. It's a feast to walk through the cool corridors, climb the highest towers and enjoy the splendid view of the oasis and desert.

The tombs are away from all the other remnants. In a valley west of the old city there are big and small tomb houses at every one hundred metres. Unlike most tombs they are not half buried but stand proudly visible in the landscape. Many of them are four stories high and open to visitors. Others are closed because of the danger of collapsing and again others have been restored. The latter don't impress us; they are either too beautiful or the concrete is very visible.
The original tombs are the best: we climb in them via partly crumbled stone stairs and enter narrow corridors with burial sites left and right, sometimes three or four stories high. This way of building made it possible to store about one hundred bodies in one single tomb. In some of the open burial spaces we find human bones. We always feel an exciting tension when we enter a ruin and look for the remains of a former civilization. It must be the same feeling archeologists experience.
This time, we don't find more than some bones and a dead owl. That's enough though.

We're on our way to Damask. The desert is attractive and frightening at the same time: a huge vast space with nothing but rocks and a lot of sand. It seems lifeless, except for the Bedouins who feel at home in this big nothing. It is an enigma how they make a living.
The only animals we encounter are wild dogs. Abdul, in Homs, warned us beforehand. His warning turns out to be right. Unfortunately...
Next to a deserted house at the left side of the road is a large group of dogs, staring angrily at us when we approach. There are at least fifteen of them and we both think that's fifteen too many. Slowly they near us and the road. The first dog is the largest and seems to be the leader of the pack.
We cycle on at the same pace. Well, at least that's what we try, although we probably do go a little faster now. Peter cycles between me and the dogs.
At the moment we pass the dogs their leader gives some kind of signal and suddenly the whole group starts running at us, growling and barking furiously, drool coming from their ugly mouths. I shout at them as loud as I can, and that's really loud. For one second the dogs seem to hesitate, but then they sprint towards us again. It's a terrible and frightening sight, those bloodthirsty dogs with wild eyes and sharp teeth. We cycle as fast as we can and Peter has grabbed the one metre long stick which he has been carrying for weeks now. He waves the stick around so the dogs can see it. When a dog comes too close Peter tries to hit him as hard as he can; unfortunately he just misses, but the dogs get a fright. After a couple of more sweeps they stop running and stare after us.
The adrenaline in our bodies was never higher and it feels like our heartbeat is over 300. Slowly our speed decreases to a relaxed twenty kilometres per hour.
We are still alive...