The day of the Eclipse

Not willing to give up on the car, we finally tracked one down through “ChamCars” (“Sham” cars) at $75/day and headed into what was one of the most incredible sights -the entire country of Syria shut down. The government did an massive campaign to keep all of the people in their houses from 11:00-5:00...

By 10:30 in the morning, the streets of Damascus were empty, except for the police on every corner. Everywhere you looked, businesses were closed, drapes were pulled on every window and there wasn't a car on the road or pedestrian on the streets. People truly believed that they would go blind if they went outside during that time. We had people chasing us down the streets, knocking on our car windows and pointing up at the sun warning us to go inside. It was a great time to drive- national highways and through major cities with no cars. It was a bit like a day in the "twilight zone".

We drove through the town of Hama with no one on the streets and got to see the ancient Norias (water wheels still working today)

We drove to Musyef Castle then wandered our way to Apamea. We got on the wrong road and ended up crossing a dam construction site, asking directions of the local Bedouin sheepherders (who obviously hadn’t gotten the word about being struck blind by the eclipse) and finally found the site.

Apamea was a Roman city of amazing scale and what’s left is a colonnaded street of over 2 kilometers. Once again, we had the ruins to ourselves (except for a few sheep from the Bedouins herd – they had set up their tent in the ruins.).

With darkness approaching, we headed for Aleppo, found the “Touristic Hotel” and headed to “Wanes” for dinner. When we got back to the hotel, we found a ticket on our car. We had a major event with all the locals trying to help us with the ticket- and finally got the hotel receptionist to intervene with the local cop. For a $4 fine in his pocket, we paid the ticket on the spot.