palmyra and back to amman and being sick

Hey hey hey

I’ve arrived safely back in Amman but I’m crook as anything...again! Two days ago Rian came down with a pretty nasty stomach thing...and we all just thought it was food poisoning, and then Iain cam down with it too...and then Elle started chucking her guts up, and then Molly was throwing up all night in Palmyra, and then Kristy stated feeling sick...and then in the Damascus bus station and the WHOLE taxi ride home I managed t0 empty my stomach, and kept throwing up, and kept throwing up...I’ve never been so sick in my life! It was awful! But I’m feeling a little better this morning. Managed to keep down some toast and vegemite this morning, so thats a good sign. And then poor Hakeem got sick too! So obviously it was some kind of virus, but everyone seems to have gotten over it within 24 hours. I think the first time I was sick was food poisoning because it was nothing like the second time.

So after we left Aleppo, we caught a bus back to Homs, and from there we caught a servees to the Crac des Chevaliers. By this stage the weather was cold and wet and misty and with a top of around 0 degrees celsius. Ok maybe it reached 1 degree...but no more than that. The Crac was pretty cool... Although we have started to see a lot of old ruins now, and because I’m no archeologist, it may or may not be starting to get a little repetitive, but we’ve still had fun taking photos and climbing things. I’m so much fitter than I have ever been! The amount of walking we do! Plus my biceps have doubled in size, which may or may not have something to do with all the presents I bought in Syria! I had to buy another bag...so Mum and Dad expect a box in the post soon. Hakeem said it’s much cheaper to send stuff home and the more you have, the cheaper it gets. And it’s a lot cheaper than paying for extra luggage.

After the Crac we all piled into a servees again back to Homs and then missed the last bus to Palmyra. Well the last good bus to Palmyra. We ended up on some private bus, that must have had holes in the roof because all the seats were wet, and it had no heating and it looked as if it was built in the 1920’s and it was soooooo cold. Poor Rian was chucking her guts up the whole way, which had to have something to do with the lack of suspension. Or no suspension. Elle and I survived by getting out my laptop and watching the pirated copy we scored of Twilight. It distracted us from the cold and awfulness for 2 hours, no matter how lame and pathetic we might have seem to our classmates. :)

When we got to Palmyra we found a really nice, hot hotel! For only 600 syrian pounds, which is around $AU18. And it had hot water...and it was clean! The place in Aleppo was clean, but it was freezing, so this place was the best by far. That night we were all so stuffed, but the hotel owner said that we HAD to go to this Bedouin dinner. So we did. Well a few of us did. There was bedouin dancing and music and it was great! I’m so glad I went. Except that some Lebanese showgirl who was performing for the next night showed up in the corset with half her boobs hanging out and really tight jeans, and so all the performers were swarmed around her the whole time and then they got her to dance and it was so awful! She was like something off of Hindley Street! And there were all us westerners dressed appropriately! It was so disgusting. Elle hid under her headscarf so she didn’t have to watch. We just couldn’t believe it because Syria is way more conservative than Jordan, and if she wore that out on the street she would get shot.

So that night was the night that Rian, Molly, Elle, Kristy and Iain were all sick. The nest morning only Hakeem, Elle, Jo, Nick and me made it to the ruins. But it was so wet and cold and we didn’t get to see much at all. So that was a bit disappointing, but we couldn’t do much about it. So because of that we managed to catch an early bus back to Damascus, and that’s when I started being sick. We caught service taxi’s back to amman, which cost around $AU20, but we made it there in 3 hours instead of five. My poor taxi driver, he had to put up with me vomiting in the front seat the whole way there...

And then when I got home and out of the taxi... I realised I’ve lost my phone. The last place I had it was in the taxi, so I have a strong feeling that that taxi driver has just acquired a new fone... With my travel sim card... Which is a real pain in the butt. Thankfully I still have my Jordanian sim card.