When yer on a tour group, sometimes you simply don't get enough time to spend in some places - Damascus is one of them....a day and a 1/2 just doesn't cut it for a city so full of places to see and things to do.
It's basically divided into two areas - the Old Damascus, (the really interesting and therefore touristy bit) which is encompassed by the old city walls, and is made up of the souq-market areas, the Christian Quarter and the Jewish Quarter - and New Damascus, which is the modern city which has expanded on all four sides of the old city and up into the hills (most of which is slums holding the bulk of the population of Palestinian refugees and illegal immigrants).
Damascus claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, and evidence shows some kind of urban metropolis on the site from 5000BC. Therefore it is historically and archaeologically incredibly rich, and it's another important stop on the caravan trail from East to West and is chock full of history, having been ruled by a number of different empires, including the Romans, before falling under Islamic rule around 700AD.
The start of our short stay began with something that most tourists don't get to do, and that is visit the countries main Islam Foundation Centre - a mosque, school and international education centre. Here we were taken to a windowed rooom above the main prayer hall, and listened to a translated sermon (for want of a better word) and watched the congregation go thru the ritual of prayer to Allah. Afterwards, we met the imam (main guy) of Damascus' largest mosque, along with a dozen Afro-American' guys who were on an exchange programme studying Islam and Arabic, and had a sort of question and answer discussion about Islam. Issues of sexual equality and terrorism among other topics brought about some rather animated repartee, but all in all it was a good learning and info session for me in particular, not knowing much about the concepts and ideas of the religion.
A visit to Damascus is not complete without a wander thru the souqs and Amuyyud mosque (not the largest but the most important and beautifully decorated), dating from around the 7th Century.
The souqs never cease to amaze me - the sheer manic-ness, and hustle and bustle, the colour and the noise, the exoticness of the wares on sale, and the 3 hours i wandered around trying free samples of various food products and snapping photos barely saw me thru a 1/4 of the market.
At the mosque (one of the few that your allowed inside to photograph and wander thru as a non-Muslim), noticed a largish group of people closely huddled together wandering around, and curious, slowly approached. There was a lot of photographers and guys with notebooks out as well, and then I noticed John Kerry - the guy who lost to George Dubya in the US election, being escorted around. I had to get a piece of this action! And I did! Mingling with the journo crew i got into a position to snap a piccie of him pretty close up. Score! Happy with that i moved off, kind of hovering around the edges trying to catch conversation just to find out what he was doing there. I couldn't.
Nevermind. Shortly afterwards i bumped into another guy from my tour group and told him who i saw, and showed him my piccie. He knew about it already, and had gone one better - a photo of the two of them together! Not more than 30minutes later, as i continued on my touristy way checking out one of the small palaces by the souqs, i ran into the John Kerry expedition again. This time, emboldened by my mates efforts, i approached him as he was leaving a souvenir shop and doing the politician-kisses-baby photo ops, and asked for a photograph to which he obliged! (how could he say no, with all those journo's around - he'd look like a pompous ass if he did!).
Anyway, that'll do for now.
cheers, Tonypeace love and happy faces
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