Falafel with the Rebellion — The Sleepy Cheese

After two nights at our old city Damascus hotel, wrapped in cozy bedding and heated marble floors, we packed up and headed towards Aleppo. Most of the day would be spent on the road, stopping at the cites of Homes and Hama along the way. All three cities have appeared in the news over the years, particularly Aleppo, being hotbeds of rebellion against the dictatorship of Assad family. Leaving Damascus though, we passed what had been outer suburbs and neighborhoods that were now reduced to rubble, flattened in a way that it was impossible to determine what had once stood there. Schools? Houses? Clinics? All that remained of entire city blocks were small rolling piles of debris, like choppy waves of building detritus.

We chatted along the way, driving along the well made highways, passing fields filled with migrant Bedouin sheep herders tending to their flock, some of which nibbled grass dangerously in the highway median, flirting with becoming lamb chops. . Our driver told us about the time he was kidnapped a few years ago. He had just bought a new van and was contracted to drive for a few local tourism companies. On the way home in the evening after a day of driving, two state vehicles pulled him over and pulled him out of the van, claiming a secret police officer wanted to speak with him. As soon as he was out of the car, they grabbed his keys and sped off with his van. He was taken at gun point in one of the other cars to a lone stretch of road and dumped out, shaken, but alive, hours away from his home, and caught between the Syrian army and revolutionary forces. He started walking towards home and made it to a remote police station, and after some time spent banging and shouting through the door, he convinced the skeptical officer inside that he wasn’t part of the rebel forces and was allowed to make an official statement. He still carries with him a copy of the report, and the spare key to the van, just in case he ever comes across it again. We told him we would keep our eyes peeled as well.

We stopped first in Homs after leaving Damascus at a cafe and had tea, sitting across from a table of Bedouin doing houkha. I remembered reading just a few weeks that the rebels had reached the outskirts of Homes, and that it was expected to be fierce fighting with the city so close to Damascus. Instead, the Syrian forces had essentially folded, allowing the HST army to blitz towards the capital. Like Damascus, and I’m sure the entire country, there were obvious signs of the war with artillery damaged buildings lining the roads, and black pot marks from small arms fire everywhere, like the city had been dusted from above by a giant ballistic pepper shaker. We finished our tea, grabs some pastries at a busy bakery nearby and hit the road.

Our next stop was Hama, a city historically famous for its giant water wheels called Norias, which collected water for irrigation and farming. For five hundred years they were the largest water wheels in the world, and make a screeched sound as the wooden structure turned and collected water in attached buckets. They sit silent now, with several under repair following the end of the civil war.

Across from the Norias was a small dessert shop where we stopped in to try some Halawey el-jeben. It’s a chilled, cheesy dessert, topped with pistachio and rose jam. I generally think cheese is best on pizza and bad jokes, not dessert, but these were pretty tasty. It helps that I love rose flavoring , especially as I’ve gotten older. My appreciation for floral flavors and scents now rivals my love for the smell of coffee in the morning, or honey suckle vining on a fence in the summertime. I might be turning into a Golden Girl, and I don’t hate it.

The arrival into Aleppo was a little surprising. I had honestly expected pot marked and rubble strewn roads and flattened buildings. Instead we were greeted with apartment buildings covered in solar panels and well paved thoroughfares. Later we would certainly see plenty of destruction but overall it seemed to be in better shape than other areas hit just as hard by the war. While in Aleppo, we drove to Idlib, the town that was the center of the rebellion that had been out of assads control for several years. It felt both surreal and incredible normal strolling through the city streets. Hussain led us toward a popular falafel shop that he had visited once on a previous trip, and we bumped into some of the intermit government soldiers also looking for a bite to eat. Soldiers who were super stoked to take some photos with us and we all munched on piping hot donut shaped falafel. The owner invited all of us inside led us to an upstairs table where they brought us even more falafel and tea and coffee. The scruffy, rag-tag looking soldiers told us a little bit about themselves. None were professional soldiers before the war; they were mostly students and farmers. All seemed eager for the war to be over and thrilled - though cautious- about the fall of Assad. We had no idea who any of them were, and hopefully we don’t see them on the news accused of any war crimes. It would hard to explain a falafel photoshoot in Syria with someone wanted by The Hague, but I’ll be damned if that wasn’t the best lunch I’ve ever shared with a rebel militia.

Lunch time with the new interim government soldiers

We toured the derelict Baron Hotel, the once luxurious but now dilapidated hotel where mystery novelist Agatha Christie once stayed. Her room overlooked a train station and was rumored to be the source of inspiration for the novel Murder on the Orient Express. The building had been filled with original furnishings until the civil war began, when they were put into storage. Now all that remains are old liquor bottles and peeling paint, which is a shame because the hotel had been gorgeous and bragged a long list of other famous residents over the years.

We spent a few hours walking through the notorious heart of the revolution, Idleb.

Speaking of hotels, on many of these out of the way trips with Mike, I somehow, through a twist of cosmic fate, end up getting the room or experience filled with ‘quirks’. In Mogadishu, Mike got a delightful shower at the hotel, but when it was my turn, there was hardly a trickle to start and then it just quit running completely. The sweat from a cold coke can on a hot day would have provided more water to bath with than this shower did. There was also the cold tent shower I took in Kenya, but when Mike went in after me for his turn, steam billowed out around the canvas flaps as he luxuriated in the heat whilst I lay in bed held tight by my now sour mood. And now, our hotel in Aleppo came with a couple of fun quirks. The first was the room heater, a plug-in module installed just above the tv that gave the room distinct handyman-special vibes. It cycled on and off with a maddeningly loud ticking sound every few minutes, and while it prevented the room from freezing, it also prevented REM sleep. Another surprise - the tv came on spontaneously in the middle of the night -twice- blaring an Arabic tv show, taking an estimated three years off my life. I told Mike about both of these happenings in the morning expecting something similar from him, but nope, he just had a great night’s sleep, a five star stay. At least I could warm up my shoes by setting then on the tv like a plate of fries under a heat lamp.

Lovely hotel room heater and improvised boot warmer.

We wrapped up a couple days on the road with more falafel and then headed back to Damascus. The next day would be a tour of the Roman amphitheater south of the city, and a possible tour of the infamous Sednayah Prison on the way back.

Where We Stayed: Aleppo Palace Hotel - Perfectly fine hotel on the main square of the city. Get a high room, as high as possible, low orbit ideally, to avoid street noise and get some sleep.

How We Got There: Van

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