Here’s to Looking at You from the Middle East
Photo: Douglas WillsRecently, I was perusing through hundreds of photos from our journey through the Middle East that took us from Egypt through Jordan to Syria and finally Turkey. I realized that we never shared how we felt during that epic journey.
I am guessing that you can see the emotions reflected in Lyra...
From day one, we were out of our element...constantly being watched.
Above, Lyra is in an restricted tomb under the Great Pyramids which is “off limits” to tourists. However, the guard took a look at us and with a little backsheesh we were in. We were definitely traveling off the beaten path.
After a bit of climbing we took a rest at the base of one of the Great Pyramids. By the way, Lyra is a great subject, but she is an even better photographer.
After the Great Pyramids, we took some time to relax at the El Fishawy Café (shisha bar) back in Cairo. In Cairo, we never got used to being on display. In Korea, we seldom felt like the outsiders that we seemed to be in Egypt, even though the roots of our own culture come from the Middle East. I thought we might feel a little more at home.
Photo: Stuart Freedman, Panos Pictures
Photo: Douglas Wills
During 2009, Cairo was a city that was on edge...Especially being baked by the mid-day sun during Ramadan...And I can not fathom being without food or water all day, covered from head to toe in a berka and baking in the desert sun.
It seemed like clock work, that squabbles broke out each day around 3:00 pm between cranky merchants and hungry housewives. I was cranky too in that heat! And I was watered and well fed.
Soon, we escaped the heat of Cairo and were on to Jordan (video). Where we found ourselves in Wadi Rum, which is simply spectacular! Wadi Rum gave rise to epic landscapes with warm blue skis that I struggle to find words to express. Maybe Lyra can...
On our way through Jordan, we also spent a night in Petra. Carved out of sandstone, the ruins of Petra are astonishingly beautiful and more ancient than I had imagined. The earliest inhabitants dating back to 7,000 BC.
After gliding through Jordan, crossing the Syrian border was a much more complicated than we expected. Even though we had all of our paper work and visas in order, it took over 4 hours of standing in line to pass the first checkpoint...and the line was short! That’s because nefarious individuals kept cutting in line and paying off the clerk to get past the check point. I started to get a little irritated since there where only a couple people front of us! We just waited and waited and waited and the line never moved, but somehow others got instant service.
Finally we got our entry stamp! Then once we got through the first check point, we had to drive to a second check point a few miles down the highway. There, we were promptly sent back to the first check point because one of our fellow travelers had gotten the wrong date stamp from the first clerk! We should have given the guy a donation like everyone else...Argh!
Eventually, we got everyone’s visas straightened out and we were on our way to Palmyra...
Palmyra is beautiful ancient Roman city trapped by the sands of time in a Syrian desert. You can almost hear the ghosts of this lost city as the desert winds whisper through the Roman arches and timeless Corinthian columns.
Even though Palmyra is deserted, thriving tourism supports a nearby community of local Syrians who sell lots of tasty dates to unsuspecting tourists who just can’t resist these brown desert delights!
Yes! Dates are definitely the happy fruit and in a land as harsh and violent as Syria, anything so sweet must be a welcomed comfort food.
After Palmyra, we were on to Damascus...quite a contrast to the ruins we had been touring along the way. Damascus is ancient, but just like most of Syria, it is very much alive!...what a delight.
Built upon layers and layers of history...Greek, Roman, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Modern, Medieval, Ancient, Etc. all sandwiched together, Damascus was a melting pot of humanity...maybe more like a boiling cauldron...depending on your perspective.
A beautifully dangerous place with a patchwork of people, culture and religion all competing for the city’s love and resources...that is Damascus.
Aleppo did not disappoint either. Like Damascus, Aleppo hides beauty behind the great walls of the old city. Something we never expected would exist while looking at the crumbling walls of Aleppo’s exterior.
BTW...The above hammer scene caused a huge traffic jam in the adjacent street as cars in all directions slammed on their brakes and men pulled out their cell phones to record the somewhat risqué, forging of Damascus steel. I should have put a stop to it, but couldn’t because I was too busy laughing at the ensuing commotion.
The people of Aleppo, just like the rest of Syria are truly an enigma of genius mixed with cunning and force that underscore the ability of humanity to thrive in the face of chaos. I wonder what would happen to Syrians if they ever got out of this environment...
hmmm...Steve Jobs’ biological father is from Homs, Syria.
As I mentioned, we were always being watched. Sometimes it was just the watchful eye of decal such as Bashar Al Assad on the back window of a pick-up truck.
If you like digging into enigmas, have a look at the Charlie Rose interview with Bashar Al Assad. You definitely have to be cunning to survive in a land like as Syria.
If the tension in Syria happens to be too much, an alternative to dates (remember, the happy fruit) would be knocking back a few shots of Arak. Then everything will be just fine...
As we said our good-byes to Syria, we left the Arab culture behind and found ourselves being watched by a different set of eyes...the Turks.
Above: Jesus looked on from a previous era as he stands in the walls of the Hagia Sophia. Originally, a cathedral, Ottoman Muslims retrofitted this magnificent church into a mosque upon their invasion in 1453. It’s now a museum...
Being at the cross roads of civilization, Istanbul was even more layered with successive civilizations than Damascus, Aleppo or other cities we journeyed through.
Above, the head of Medusa stairs coldly into the distance while holding up a marble column in the great Basilica Cistern deep below the streets of Istanbul. There are two Medusa heads in the Basilica Cistern that were once part of an ancient Roman temple...once a god to the Greeks and Romans...now a slave holding up the Islamic streets above her.
And why try untangle this mes? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Or maybe you have bad intentions and want to feed the hatred found between layers of cultures and civilizations...Well, that too will lead to darkness and while creating even more enemies.
Embrace the tangled mess of history and revel in its diversity. This will lead to even richer layers of civilization that the next generation can build on...
But I must say, the clashing of cultures makes for really great food...Just ask Anthony Bourdain!
Labels: Aleppo, Cairo, Damascus, Egypt, Istanbul, Jordan, Lyra Jakabhazy, Palmyra, Roman, Syria, Turkey, Wadi Rum
posted by Unknown at
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
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