Lathakia

Hello friends! I apologize, again, for another lengthy post, but my weekend trip to Lathakia was a very cool experience and it requires a lot of attention.

Allow me to preface this post by saying that adjusting to life in Syria was not an easy process for me. When I first got here, I told myself that the first week would be the hardest, and that once I got set up with a room and a tutor everything would be fine. When I left for Palmyra with Bret on the 12^th, I really believed that all my misgivings would dissipate by the time I got back, so when I returned from the desert only to find all my anxieties waiting to ambush me in the hot, polluted, streets of Damascus, I felt extremely disillusioned. The few days that followed were undoubtedly the most difficult of my trip so far, and it would not be a great exaggeration to say that they were some of the most difficult days of my life.

I sought advice from some folks back home and some of my well-traveled roommates, and everyone suggested that enrolling in the university, rather than just studying with my private tutor, would give me some much-needed structure and would be a good way to meet people and get more involved in my life in Damascus. I enrolled in the university for the July semester, which starts one Sunday the 27^th. In the meantime, I took steps to stoke my interest in the Middle East; I borrowed books from my roommates on Syrian history and politics (the latter being mostly banned by the government and unavailable in libraries of bookstores), and re-doubled my efforts to explore the city. I quickly began to feel much better, and when I headed off to visit the Mediterranean on Syria’s Cote d’Azur last weekend, I was confident that I would not experience the post-travel blues that had followed my trip to Palmyra.

The plan was to take an overnight train north out of Damascus to Allepo, and then take a connecting train the following morning to Lathaki. Greg and Toni, my travel companions and friends from the hostel, had taken the overnight train before and strongly recommended it. Greg added that the posted penalty of five Iraqi Dinar for pulling the emergency break made the resulting thrill a bargain at twice the price. We shelled out an extra 100 sp each for the sleeper car, but found that the state room chandelier was too dim, and the salmon was terribly overdone. The pianist was a nice touch, though.

Once we were underway, I pulled out a bottle of whiskey and we drank while sitting three abreast on the seats that folded out from underneath my mattress. Through our dirty, west-facing window we watched the cityscape as the train rumbled out of Damascus. Slowly we rolled through the industrial district, followed by run-down suburbs, and then we watched as the last of Damascus faded into flat desert. We switched off the lights to see better and starred out in silence at the dark, expansive, desert leading up to the foot of the distant mountains that rise just before the coast.

Soon after we got in bed, heavy breathing told me that Greg and Toni were fast asleep. As they slept, I sat up with my back propped against the compartment wall that doubled as my headboard, transfixed by the dark desert. This desert was different than the one Bret and I had seen the weekend before; drainages had cut sharp lines through the earth and the sand was darker and rockier. Curious, I got out of bed and stepped into the hallway, where the eastern-facing windows can be lowered for a cool nighttime breeze. The view from these windows were even more spectacular, with desert stretching out for miles and miles, towards Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and beyond. I leaned my elbows on the sill, stuck my head into wind, and drew in deep breaths of clean desert air. It felt good to be traveling again; for me, there is an indescribable thrill that comes whenever I am moving through a new and strange place. Standing in the hallway, I wondered if my problems with adjusting to life in Damascus had been mostly the result of the abating thrill, and the realization that life in the Middle East is no more inherently exciting (or in some ways, less inherently exciting) than life in the States. My experience in Damascus is not that of a tourist in awe, but is closer to a permanent resident, who has to cope with all the tasks and frustrations of everyday life, as well the rewards.

Our train to Lathakia left just twenty minutes after we arrived in Aleppo so there was no time to look around. We boarded the sweaty passenger car and excitedly awaited what we had been told was the prettiest natural scenery in Syria.

Sure enough, the transition from the desert to the coast was remarkable. Farms that sat in valleys between the mountains reminded me of movies I have seen that take place in rural France. Some scenes seemed to be straight out of a Van Gogh, with rickety farmhouses scattered amongst patches of crops, all bordered by rushing streams. The climate changed as dramatically as the scenery and by the time we arrived in Lathakia the three of us were dripping with sweat from the humidity.

We found our hotel, threw our stuff down, asked for directions, and immediately headed for the beach. The microbus driver was going well over 100 (km/h), blasting his horn and weaving recklessly through traffic the whole way. It was like a roller coaster - half terrifying, half thrilling – and on turns the three of us gripped our seats for dear life, but when the rickety micro pulled up to the beach and I saw the light blue water covering the entire distance to the horizon, I nearly had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. We hurried across the burning black sand, stripped down to our bathing suits, and rushed for the water. I had been warned that I would be disappointed by the Mediterranean because of its warm summer temperature, but now I can say with some certainty that everyone who told me that is in desperate need of a more positive outlook, or a heavy dose of Prozac. The water I swam in that day was perfect in absolutely every imaginable way. The three of us alternated between swimming, treading water, and rolling in the waves, for almost two hours.

When we had had our fill, we jumped the same roller coaster microbus back to town. After showering, Toni wanted a nap, so Greg and I headed to a nearby café that was playing the soccer game. Afterwards, we wondered along the port’s fence, guessing what purpose the various military boats might serve, and hoping we didn’t catch the attention of any heavily armed security guards. Eventually, we happened on a very pleasant avenue sitting adjacent to the Med; stairs offered access down to a small beach, where restaurants had set up patio tables and chairs and were serving families, couples, and groups of friends, who had come to enjoy the view and the pleasant breeze.

Lathakia has a totally different feel than Damascus; the population, especially the youth, seemed much more content to me. In Damascus, I often sense a deep frustration amongst young people that I meet. I would have to be very glib to suggest that I know what it is these young Damascenes are craving, but whether it is money, sex, or more promising careers, it is not something that is readily available in Syria. In Lathakia, though, rather than wishing they were in the west, living the lives they see in music videos, young people seem more than happy with the beautiful Mediterranean, with its small waves that lap against a shore of volcanic rock, and a culture that is significantly more relaxed than New York or Los Angeles.

For a long time, Greg and I sat by the water and discussed the various political, economic, geographic, and cultural factors that might contribute to the slow pace that the Syrian youth seem to either love or despise. I wrote several pages in my journal as we talked, and as the sun set over the water, we realized that Toni would probably be wondering where we had gone. We hopped a cab to the hotel, collected Toni, and walked to the restaurant district, where we failed in our mission to find fresh fish, and settled for Italian food in a very nicely decorated restaurant with a good view of the street. All three of us were spent from the sun, so after dinner we headed back to the hotel and promptly passed out.

The next day we got up reasonably early with the ambitious plan of a mid-day visit to Sala’adin’s castle in the mountains, and an afternoon on the beach. We negotiated with a microbus driver to take us there, wait while we looked around, and take us back. Hasim, the driver, seemed very nice, and was extremely amusing. He stopped to buy us coffee on the way, and insisted that we each share cigarettes with him on the way to the castle. Only Toni had the willpower (or as I prefer to call it, the stubbornness) to refuse.

At the castle, Hasim got us in for free and gave us a very interesting interpretation of each room, of which it was my unfortunate responsibility to translate. “Hasim says this is the nightclub…this is where they had orgies…this is where Sala’adin used to smoke hasheesh. Very interesting Hassim, thank you, how did you learn all of this?” Along the way, Hasim also insisted that we talk, and attempt to marry, every Syrian woman that we saw. Despite all the joking, though, back at the microbus station in Lathakia, things with Hasim got hairy when he demanded an extra 1,000 sp. A local man came to our aide, helping to translate and reason with our now irate driver. After there was much excitement, and a large crowd had gathered to watch and weigh in, we agreed to pay him an extra 500 sp, and informed him that we would not, thank you very much, be having dinner at his house that night, as he had suggested earlier in the day.

The local man who had come to our rescue was named Ali, and after we had sorted things out with Hassim, he invited us to take a walk and get something to eat. He was wearing a baseball training camp shirt, so he was all right by me. Ali insisted on buying us lunch at his cousin’s shwarma stand and he told us all about his childhood in Lathakia, and his travels throughout the region. After lunch, we exchanged numbers with Ali, who promised to meet us for dinner that night, and then found a cab to a nearby beach. By the water, I bought an American flag towel (the first American flag anything I had seen in Syria), and we had a great late-afternoon swim.

That night, Ali showed us Lathakia’s Roman arch and we ate fish as he told us more about the changes that Lathakia has gone through since he was young. After we parted ways, Toni turned in for the night while Greg and I, always ready to explore, searched out an ice cream parlor and then sat and watched the port, which was busy, even well past midnight. The docks looked beautiful in the soft orange light from regularly posted street lamps. The flood lights that projected white from the tops of the various ships’ control towers gave them a strong and dignified appearance, rising like faces over the deck, keeping watch of their precious cargo.

Enormous cranes stacked shipping containers ten-high on the enormous freighters and as soon as a boat would fill up, it would power out of the port without delay. Compared to the miniscule craft shops of Damascus, this large scale, non-stop, commerce was exciting to see. Eventually Greg and I headed back to hotel, where I smashed a three-inch long cockroach with my sneaker. Disabled in the hind quarters, I watched the giant roach crawl with its front legs across the floor, like Liutenant Dan after the sneak Vietnamese attack in Forrest Gump, before I finished it off. Gross.

On Sunday, we took a quick walk by the water and got on an early afternoon bus back to Damascus. I knew I would miss the swimming and mountains in Lathakia, minus the cockroach-inviting humidity, but I was excited to start classes in a week, and was more determined than ever to make peace with my new surroundings, and learn to appreciate the culture.

On an unrelated note, I have been asked by a few people (ok, just my mom), why I don’t post more often. Because I want to try to make my posts somewhat readable, and at least a little bit interested, I need time to edit and decide on what to write about. Also, because I (obviously) don’t have internet at home, I am forced to write my posts at home and then go a restaurant with wireless internet so that I can e-mail the new post to myself. Once I have done that, I have to go to a different internet café that has disabled the government blocks on certain websites, so that I can post to blogspot. Because I am trying not to spend all my time on the web, the process of posting sometimes stretches out over a few days. I will continue to do my best, though, and I am very appreciative of anyone interested enough to stick with me on these lengthy stories.

Ma’asallama!

Eric