Palmyra – Queen of the Desert August 12, 2002 This is being written as we pass Karaburun, the most southwesterly cape of Turkey, only 12 miles north of Rhodes (Nisos Rhodos in Greece),and 5 miles east of Nisos Simi, also a Greek island. Nisos Simi by all geograqphic logic should be a Turkish island as it is within the arms of the cape of Karaburun and the Datca Peninsula tipped by ancient Knidos, both areas part of mainland Turkey. But the island in the middle between these two Turkish capes is Greek. Most unfortunate for Turkey! Oh well, into my log about our trip in Syria to Palmyra, the Queen of the Desert. We left our hotel in Damascus at 0830, only a half hour behind schedule. One of the frustrating aspects about bus tours is that, as happened frequently on this rally, people would be late or there would be last minute hitches causing everyone to wait on the bus for a half hour or more. Another frustration is the inefficiency at lunches when we would like to get back on the road to spend more time touring and less time waiting for waiters to bring the bills for the drinks consumed with lunch. As we wended our way through Damascus, we noticed the large billboards and frequent portraits on the sides of buildings of the President and Prime Minister of Syria. Their fatherly faces looked down on the streets as if to reassure the people that they were in charge. The traffic was not too bad at that time of the morning and we were soon in the outskirts heading out of town. We were off into the desert. The hills and vegetation around Damascus soon gave way to the flat dull light brown of the desert, mile after mile of it. Occasionally we would see a military tank compound a few hundred metres off the highway. The few railroad crossings we saw were lonely tracks fading off into the flat sandy distance. On the horizon we could see for a while a line of desert hills, sand dunes that piled up into a range of barren brown foothills. Mid morning we stopped at the Baghdad Café, a small restaurant and gift shop in the middle of nowhere. The family who ran it lived in a couple of neat white washed beehive shaped houses beside the rambling spread. Behind were some old shacks, with rusting machinery, goats, chickens, plastic water lines, oil drums, littering the area. No other civilization was in sight, just the two lane black top highway stretching from horizon to horizon. The restaurant and gift shop were fine, with some interesting souvenirs, and some homemade wind decorations, made of pop cans with many slits from top to bottom, squeezed and suspended by a string, whirling madly in the stiff breeze. Incidentally, this highway going from Damascus to Palmyra continues on to Baghdad, and thus the name of the café. The sand of this desert area is coarse, not flour-fine as was the sand we saw and felt in the Sahara Desert last year. A constant wind blew but not into any type of sandstorm. Back in the air-conditioned bus we continued across this barren terrain until coming to what appeared to be a military check point at a T-junction just outside of Palmyra. We weren’t stopped, just directed towards Palmyra, ensuring the bus did not stray into the military zone on the other side of the junction. Below is the Compton’s Encyclopedia description of this oasis in the middle of the desert on an ancient trading route used after the demise of Petra in Jordan. PALMYRA, Syria. About 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Damascus lies Palmyra, a small town with an airfield and a pipeline pumping station. Nearby are ruins that testify to the glory of ancient Palmyra. A quadruple colonnade flanks the main street for nearly 1 mile (1.6 kilometers). At the end are a triumphal arch and a temple. Other ruins include a theater, aqueduct, senate house, villas, and tombs. After World War I the French used the site for a military outpost. Today Arabs live among the ruins. In ancient times, the population was estimated to have been about 150,000. Ancient Palmyra is the Tadmor of the Bible. It stood on the camel route between the East and the Mediterranean nations. It was given the name Palmyra after Alexander the Great conquered the region. The Romans took the city in AD 130. They made it an outpost against the revival of a Persian empire. The Romans retained the native rulers as governors. In 262 Odaenathus, prince of Palmyra, drove the Persians from the region. Under the rule of Odaenathus Palmyra became virtually independent from Rome. Odaenathus was assassinated in about 268. His widow, Zenobia, extended her domain from Egypt to Mesopotamia. She defied Rome, and Emperor Aurelian conquered Palmyra, probably in 272. Population (1985 estimate), 20,627. We only went into the town to get tickets to the ruins, and back out to first visit the Valley of the Tombs, I think it was called. Here there were ancient tall sandstone structures built as crypts for the wealthy. These date back 2500 years or more, and were used for many generations to the extent that one set of bones would be removed after the family died out, and the same crypts used for other generations centuries later. I have pictures of the crypts showing the coffin slabs stacked up to six high in narrow niches, and some crypts having more than 50 such niches (That’s right, over 300 bodies could be interred in one of these tall tomb structures). Some had works of art, and subterranean crypts as well, while others towered over 100 feet high. There were dozens of these structures in varying states of ruin outside the city. We were deluged by hawkers displaying their beads, bracelets, rings, carvings, scarves, blankets, and carpets at each tower; then they hopped onto motorized tricycles or old cars to drive off to the next tourist spot ahead of our buses to swarm us again. On we went to the classical ruins of Palmyra, Corinthian colonnaded streets with triumphal arches. The area occupied by these columnar relics is impressive. The long street with the remains of buildings, intersecting avenues, ghostly columns testifying to bygone opulence, and the triumphal arches at the end, reminded me of the poem Ozymandias. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair” echoed the hollow remnants of the sand swept statue of this once mighty king. The Roman theatre was classical, with the fractured remains of the impressive façade behind the stage, and the semicircular tiered stone seats ready, for over 2000 years, for the next performance, only to be clogged by sunburned tourists gawking at the bygone splendor. This was a remarkable city of the caravan trade from the Gulf to the Mediterranean. At one time it was the economic hub of the Mid East with over 150,000 inhabitants. The remains are impressive in their forlorn glory of white columns reaching to the sky from the desert floor. For lunch we went to a Bedouin tent restaurant, beckoned in by some “musicians” playing a screeching stringed instrument, a tinny sounding horn, and a goatskin drum, dressed in long grey robes crisscrossed with “Sam Brown” holsters and ammunition pouches, and sporting “Yasser Arafat” two day growths of beard. Three young women in black robes, with multicoloured scarves, dancing in time to the cadence led us into the restaurant grounds. It was a lovely Mid Eastern buffet served from a separate tent. We then sat in cushioned comfort at low tables to enjoy the food and more syncopated screechy music and dancing up and down the carpeted center between the tables. The meal was good, but I didn’t care for the strong coffee laced with cardamom. Then onto the buses for the long trip back to Latakia. Back at the boats, we were hosted with take out fried chicken provided by the Syrian Yacht Club. It was a good get together on the dock that last evening in Syria, thanks to the Syrian Yacht Club. Next day we found a bread wagon on the dock giving out free fresh bread, courtesy of the yacht club. Most boats got under way by noon for the 105 mile passage to Jounieh in Lebanon, to arrive there before noon the next day. However, Judy was extremely sick to the extent she couldn’t get out of bed. She didn’t feel capable of a passage, and after consulting with Daniel, a French doctor on Bleo Gwenn to confirm it wasn’t something more serious like appendicitis, she accepted some medication from him and we decided to postpone our sailing until next day. Hasan and Umut were quite helpful and asked if we would need an extra crew for the passage next day. We declined the offer, as we thought it would be one of those 24 hour upsets, possibly caused by the take out chicken the previous night. Several others were also ill that day, but not as bad as Judy. On a trip such as this there are bound to be situations where the food or water, or whatever disagrees with some people’s systems, and it is a minor hazard that has to be expected. This was not the first time someone had an upset stomach, nor was it the last. As we had already claimed our passports back in anticipation of leaving, we had to surrender them again until we left next day. So I had a quiet time the rest of the afternoon and evening, Veleda being the only boat on the entire dock, except for two local yachts. The people a the Syrian Yacht club were most helpful and indicated that if Judy was not up to a passage, one of them would be happy to accompany us to Jounieh, then catch a bus back to Latakia. Fortunately this wasn’t necessary and we had a quiet isolated sail next day, May 31. It seemed unusual to be sailing by ourselves again, as when we sail with the rally, there are always a half dozen boats in sight at all times. When we made the decision to delay our passage, I asked Wolfgang on Utholm, as they had not left yet, to serve as group leader for the trip. I understand he, or at least his son Olmer, did a good job in taking position reports for Group 1 with Teutonic efficiency. Thanks Utholm! The passage had a couple of hitches that we had to deal with. When motor sailing, the engine died, starved for fuel. The tank was low and we thought some air got in, and so altered course to a smoother heading and filled the tank from our jerry cans. After bleeding the fuel line we started up and all was OK. Then in the evening we had a fairly heavy force 6 wind, when I noticed Sprite was dangling off our dinghy tow at an awkward angle. (I think I have described in earlier logs how we tow Sprite stern first suspended on two rigid arms hooked onto brackets on Sprite’s transom. We are still quite happy with this system as only the bow is in the water creating minimal drag. The system allows us a rigid towing attachment whereby we leave the 10 horsepower outboard on, and the gas tank, life jackets, bailer, extra line and anchor secured inside, ready to go as soon as we anchor. It saves having to haul the outboard on and off each time we anchor, and thus we can have a bigger engine to propel Sprite. We have had it on 12 months a year for over four years now. The only time we had it off was when we crossed the Atlantic.) What had happened was that the clamp holding the port block broke, and Sprite was supported on only one arm, thus dangling at an awkward angle. I was able to retrieve the block and line, and lashed the block to the stern rail. We haven’t replaced the attachment yet, as the lashing does a good job. Maybe when we get back to Canada, we’ll call the Dinghy Tow people for a replacement. As we approached shortly after sunrise, we were not able to raise Jouneih on channel 16 or channel 11, but were advised by another boat to just go to the fuel dock for clearance and berthing instructions. We were alongside the fuel dock by 0725, anxious to clear in and get to our assigned mooring as we wanted to catch the tour at 0900 to the Jeita Grotto and Byblos. We missed the tour of Beruit the day before, and wanted to make sure we got on this one.
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