Wet and Windy – Into the Desert…

Leaving the Palace...

I managed to get out of Aleppo before the traffic became too murderous…!!

One of the “yellow peril” taxis did however manage to cause some consternation, when he narrowly missed clipping my right pannier as I was exiting the final traffic circle that led onto the highway…!!

Barely a few kilometres south of the city, it began to drizzle…!!

I figured that this being the desert and all, it would only last a few minutes, but my faith in the weather was once again found wanting…!!

There had been a lot of cloud about while I was getting my kit tied down on the bike, but none of the crowd of people that surrounded us thought that it might actually rain… They were all dead wrong…!!

The heavens opened, and it began to rain in earnest, forcing me to stop and don my rain jacket…

The road surface became as slick as anything I had ever ridden on, and every so often, my rear tyre would lose traction, and cause the bike to veer around like a drunken skater…

I slowed down and tried to steer for the rougher patches of asphalt that at least gave the Big Fella some grip…

Within a few kilometres, the rain came down, forcing me to stop and get the rain gear out before my jacket could get soaked... It was too late for my pants though, as they were already sopping wet...!!

"Whoa GB...!! You never said anything about going to Iraq...!! I'm calling the A.A. ...!!" On the southern edge of Homs, we turned onto the desert road that led east towards Iraq...

These were the first rains that had been experienced here for many months, and the water had lifted all the oil and diesel out of the various cracks and onto the road surface…

This, together with the poor visibility, made for some very interesting moments, all the way through Hamah and down to Homs, the third largest city in Syria, after Damascus and Aleppo…

Rather than ride through the centre of the city, and have to deal with the traffic as well as the weather, I chose to skirt Homs by riding around its western edge…

This meant that once on the southern edge of the city, I had to double back, riding north, until I found the turnoff that would take us out into the desert…

I had been looking forward to this moment, as for the last two hours, my sensibilities had once more been affected by the vast amounts of litter that lined the highway down from Aleppo…!! I figured that once we were out into the desert, there would be a lot less of this, and I was right…!!

About 50 kms east of Homs, the rain stopped, and although the sky was still covered in cloud, the sun was making a brave attempt to come out and welcome me into the Cham Desert…

I was running dangerously low on fuel, and with only two litres as spare in my one fuel bottle, I became rather concerned that this time I was in for a bit of bother…!!

I knew that I could get another 40 kms out of my spare fuel, but after that, would still be at least 60 kms short of Palmyra, the oasis I was heading for…

I passed a large military outpost, with mobile radar trucks perched on the hills around it… Soldiers were stationed at almost every dirt road that crossed the main road… I stopped to ask one of them where the next benzene was, and received the joyous news that there was a fuel station about 5kms further down the road…!!

When I pulled into this station, my heart sank again…!! It seemed deserted… It was only partially built, and not a single soul seemed to be about…

It was still very cold, and the heated grips were making very little difference through my wet gloves… I rode under the roof of the service station and stopped to look around… Just as I was un-strapping my fuel bottle, having decided that I might as well get it into the tank while I was under shelter, a door in one of the outbuildings opened, and a young guy came out swinging a bunch of keys…

Refueling at a servcie station in the middle of nowhere... It had been another close call...!!

“Benzine…??” he asked…

“You bet your sweet life I need benzene…!!” I replied, shaking his hand and greeting him in Arabic…

Finally we get some relief from the high fuel prices in Turkey... R6.60 per litre was a third of the price of fuel in Syria's northern neighbour...!!

He spoke no English at all, and as soon as I had refueled and paid, he went back inside and never came out again…!! I could hardly blame him, as the wind that was blowing over the wet countryside, was as cold as that which I had experienced in the mountains of Turkey…

Special moment for us...!! A rainbow in the Syrian Desert...

Then we were out into the desert proper… It was flat and featureless, except for the thin ribbon of tar that stretched out in front of us… The wind picked up speed and made it a tad difficult to hold a straight line, but with hardly any traffic about, I was able to ride down the centre of the road, all the way to the turnoff to Palmyra…

The rain finally behind us, and only the open desert for company, we approach the turnoff to Palmyra...

Desert fuel station... I would never had made it to this one, had I not been lucky enough to find fuel along the way...!!

I think the term "City" Centre, is stretching things a bit...!! Palmyra is little more than a village...!!

A range of low hills on the horizon, and a quick mental calculation of the distance I had traveled since Homs, told me that I was nearly there… The Oasis of Palmyra – a place that many had told me would be the highlight of my visit to Syria…

High up on a hill above me, loomed the Citadel, guarding the western entrance to the town… I looked forward to visiting the site, but first, I needed to find a place to stay, and to figure out how much there was to see, and how long it would take me…

Turns out there was a heck of a lot to do and see here, and after settling into the Citadel Hotel, located right next to the Museum, I stood staring out of my window on the top floor, looking directly onto the ruins of the ancient city, and the citadel perched high above them…

I had a good feeling about this place, and decided that I would wait for tomorrow before beginning to explore the area…

As I sit here typing this, four days after having arrived here, you will know that the folk who labeled this place as “one that was not to be missed”, were right…!!

The face of President Bashar-al-Asad is superimposed on this massive billboard on the entry into Palmyra.

Before I parked the bike for the day, I rode out to the ruins which are only a few hundred metres away from the hotel...!!

Then the rain came down again, having found me hiding out in Palmyra... It sent me scuttling for the cover of my room, where I took this photo from... The Citadel up on the mountain looks down onto the site of this ancient town...

©GBWT 2010