Fifty kilo's of pistachio-nuts for one hour of sex

Despite our latish departure from Idleb we'd like to reach Hama today. We cycle on the big road that leads almost straight south. It's not very busy on Friday, the Holy day of Muslims. The tarmac is beautiful and the landscape is slightly undulating which causes us to climb and descend constantly. Left and right are brown villages between thousands of olive- and pistachio trees. The verge of the road is covered in plastic bags that every shop gives out for free. From everywhere we hear calling and see people waving: "Welcome in Syria!" We decline most offers to drink tea: drinking tea with Syrians is very entertaining, but costs a lot of time.

Never before on this journey did we have such a lot of followers. The first follower that forces us to halt is a man on a moped with his (far younger) wife on the back. He just wants to give us a handful of assorted nuts, and then he leaves again with a content face.
Some time later a dealer in pistachio-nuts forces us to stop, although earlier we declined his offer to have tea with him. He follows us with a handful of nice nuts and urges us again to drink tea with him. We decline again and say goodbye. He wants us to accept the nuts and unwillingly lets us go. Two minutes later he follows us again on his moped. A persistent type. For the third time he asks us to talk to him; this man is so adamant, we can't disregard his request any longer. He takes us into his orchard full of pistachio trees, next to the road. When we sit down on the ground, he directs me to sit next to him. This is the right approach to let me sit as far away from him as possible, next to Peter. After a short 'conversation' about the nuts and how they grow, his real intentions are uncovered. The man asks Peter whether we are married, which Peter confirms. The next question is whether he can 'borrow' me for an hour. We end the conversation immediately and get up. Then the bidding starts: five kilo's of pistachio nuts. Peter refuses flatly and I get red in the face for anger. Ten kilos is his next bid. "No, we go away" Peter says. When the man notices that Peter is dead serious his offer goes up even more: fifty kilo's of pistachio nuts for one hour with me. Later Peter admits he hesitated somewhat at the last offer. But how to carry fifty kilo's of nuts on the bicycle?

A while later we're having a break on the verge of the road and eat a sheep cheese sandwich. Within five minutes we're surrounded by a group of boys and men. Like usual they want to know everything about us: who what where and why. I start sweating a little bit at the thought of pistachio nuts, but nothing is wrong now. These are very nice guys who want nothing but for us to join them and enjoy their hospitality. Not today though, today we don't want to be trophies. We go on to Hama. More and more my abdomen hurt: a stinging pain right below my ribcage. At first it only hurt when I strained myself, but the last days it hurts almost continuously. We have no idea what causes it.
One hour before dark we reach Hama and take a room in the Riad Hotel, an excellent and not too expensive hotel with fan, airco, bath and television in the room. When it gets darker we stand on the big balcony and look out over the town. The numerous minarets of the mosques have green strip lightning; the colour of purity, just like white. It's delicious to be here.

Hama is the town of the huge waterwheels, the noria's. Once they supplied the higher parts of town with riverwater, nowadays they're a tourist attraction.

The governmental anti-America-policy is somewhat comical at times. For example: our e-mail provider Yahoo! is forbidden in Syria, which is a bit inconvenient for us. Abdullah, the owner of the Riad-hotel, knows a secret way how to log in Yahoo, the internetcafe's don't have that possibility. We acquire another e-mailadres, this time from MSN that is an American company, but for one reason or another not forbidden. MSN is most definitely not our favourite provider, Hotmail is a lot slower and has only half the capacity of Yahoo!
Other typical American products like Mars, Coca-Cola, Bounty and Pepsi are forbidden as well. From a distance it looks like everybody sells them though. Coming up close they turn out to be fake: fake Bounty and fake Mars, with the same typeface, the same colours, the same print, but a different name. We buy a few and look for the country that produces them: Iran. The big enemy of vicious America, but if you can make money with it…

In the old Al-Kabeer mosque people are praying when we come to visit. We keep quiet and take a few pictures. Between goatheads, cowheads and entrails we buy our vegetables on the local souq. That night we have long conversations with Wendy and Rene, who - just like us - sold their belongings and travel to discover the world. Strange people, why do a thing like that?

The weekend is over, it's Monday and we cycle into another working week. We're on our way to Crac des Chevaliers, one of the or maybe the most beautiful castle the crusaders left behind 800 years ago. The weather is clear, but there's a strong southwest wind. Head wind, again. Around us we see okra growing, high on tall thin stems, as seedpods of a flower that's finished flowering.

In the village of Akrab we cause a stir by just riding into it. People haven't seen a lot of Westerners here. While we buy our vegetables, cheese and bread dozens of children and men circle around us. They help us to find the right shops, in return we tell about our journey. Watched by 25 pairs of eyes we resume our trip towards Auj. Alongside a small side road we find a spot for the tent. Only when the night has fallen the beauty of the spot reveals itself. All around us in the mountains we see hundreds of light of the villages in the vicinity. Above us we see even more lights: thousands of stars light our tent, we can't get enough of it.

In the dead quiet of the rough Syrian hills we sleep the stars out of the sky. It's a good thing we don't know what's going to happen next…