Springtime for Damascus — The Sleepy Cheese

Let’s agree that visiting a country in the midst of a civil war is an objectively Bad Idea, for many, many reasons. Like licking the floor of a gas station bathroom kind of bad. And I’m not talking about traveling as an aid worker or medical volunteer, that would be honorable and decent, and understandable. I’m talking purely, the site seeing, ‘what’s the local dish we have to try’ kind of tourism.

But, hear me out…

What about visiting a few weeks just after a civil war ends? Probably still a Bad Idea, but there’s some nuance there. There’s often a time period of relative peace observed from the various combatants just after a conflict ends - either out of a desire for peace or sheer paralyzing exhaustion - and whatever the next phase is (reconstruction, reconciliation, or resumption of hostilities). It’s during this time that a visit may become, not a Bad Idea, but, just a bad idea. It’s also during this time I can expect a call from my good friend Mike, who seems to have a google alert set for “dictator+flees+rebels+take+control,” asking, “when are we going to buy plane tickets.” The thing is, though - we don’t actually want to be in danger. That would be stupid. Our risk tolerances are a little higher than some people, for sure, but still… neither of us wants to actually risk ending up as a cautionary tale on CNN, or worse, Fox News. So, while things are relatively calm, let’s see what we can see!

Saying the political situation in Syria is complex is like saying a fiery dumpster filled with chainsaw-wielding raccoons is a little odd. While true, it dramatically understates the situation. This isn’t a political blog and I’m not in any way qualified to dissect the intricacies of the situation. However, here is the quick recap:

Bashar al-Assad, a tyrannical dictator, ruled Syria from 2000 to 2024, having taken over following his father’s death in 2000. His father ruled from 1971-2000 and started many of the repressive policies that Bashar would intensify over his reign.
The Syrian civil war, sparked by the Arab Spring, began in 2011 and lasted until December of 2024, with periods of ceasefires, intensifications, stalemates, and various international interventions.
The rebels made sudden, lightning advances in December, ousting Bashar and sending him fleeing to Russia.
The current rebel leader turned transitional president is Ahmed al-Sharaa.

This article here has a more thorough overview and is very much worth reading: Syria’s War and Descent into Horror.

Who are the parties involved? Oh, just the usual suspects: Iran, Israel, Russia, Isis, Lebanon, Turkey. The Sunni and Shia and Alawites and Christians. Don’t forget Hezbollah. Oh, and the Druze. And we can’t forget the U.S of course, which always has a dirty finger in the Middle East. I’m sure I’m forgetting others but those are the main ones. The end result of these competing geopolitical interests was a nation-sized meat grinder that had churned and ground hundreds of thousands into pink mist, and displaced millions more, with ramifications effecting global politics and the diaspora spread across Europe and the Middle East.

For now, though, (during what hopefully will be the beginning of a lasting peace), let’s talk logistics. At the time of our booking, international flights to Damascus were paused, so our only way in was going to be a land border crossing. It may have been possible to arrange this on our own, but it’s also possible to make your own sushi at home and we know how that always turns out. It takes too long, you spend way more money than if you had just ordered it, and then end result is inevitably “let’s never do that again”. So professional tour company was a no-brainer and to reinforce this, let’s talk about the Swiss fellow we bumped into while touring some Roman ruins in Bosra, Lebanon. This gent had tried to cross into Syria at the Turkish border all by himself. On a bicycle. With skies strapped to the bike. Turkey refused to let him through, though why exactly is still a mystery. I’m guessing because he looked like he took a wrong turn at the Tour de France, and they said, “hell no.” His plan, which was admittedly successful up until then, was to bike/ski his way from Switzerland all the way into Syria. Why? Because he’s Swiss, I guess. He didn’t get in, and I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have either that way.

Here’s his bike:

I don’t see any special adaptations on the bike to accommodate his what must be giant balls, but I’m sure it’s there.

Anyway, so we used a tour company (to stick with the bad idea instead of Bad Idea): we used a company called Nawafir Tours. Mike found this company, based in Syria, which has offices in Lebanon, and they tour to various countries in the Middle East. We booked our own flights to Beirut and met an agent from the company in order to make the drive from Lebanon to Damascus. The drive normally takes about two and a half hours, but there were a couple of hiccups. The first being, we landed in the middle of a Hezbollah funeral for Hassan Nasrallah, the man who had been their secretary-general for thirty years. The Beirut-Rafic International airport is an area historically dense with Hezbollah and its supporters, but riding along essentially in a giant nighttime funeral parade wasn’t the greeting we wanted. Here’s the view from the car as we moved along out of the airport:

We swapped cars with a new driver at some point, then left most of the crowds behind as we headed for the main highway that winds its way through the mountains and connects Beirut and Damascus. This is where we hit the second hiccups: snow and icy rain had caused the road to close to all traffic. Our driver was determined to get us across though, and we dodged traffic jams and dead ends, stopping occasionally to ask for directions from passing cars or people warming themselves at roadside fires. We drove for a few hours like this only to be stopped at a police checkpoint high in the mountains, sitting in the car for over an hour as we we waited for the road to be cleared, or for the police to get annoyed enough at all the frustrated drivers that they let us through anyways. Not sure which it was, but I will say the roads were not exactly cleared when we were finally allowed to continue on.

It’s ok, it’s not like we could see the road anyways.

Please forgive the vertical video but you get the vibe right?

Our hired car had 4-wheel drive, and we made it through to the Syrian border, passing all sorts of disabled cars, trucks, minibuses, tractors clearing the roads, people walking in the storm carrying Hezbollah flags, and even two lunatics on a moped that I actually saw fall over (they seemed fine, probably). Pulling up to the checkpoint, our driver sprinted out of the car and into the office, yelling at us in Arabic the whole way. We later learned the hurrying was because the border closed at midnight and we got there at 11:55. I don’t know what we would have done if we missed it, but it wouldn’t have been fun. The border agents grilled us on why we were crossing into Syria, and we had our tour documents to show, but they also wanted to know what we did for work. They asked us via one of the official’s phone using google translate. Mike tried to mime “anesthesia” (our day job) by covering his mouth with his hand like a mask, but that ... didn’t get the message across, and looked more like he was into huffing paint. After a little back and forth on the translation app, we convinced them that we were not journalists, and we finally got our passports stamped and were on our way. The driver whooped and shouted with delight when we got back in the car. There was supposed to be an entry fee of several hundred dollars but for whatever reason we weren’t charged. After one more car transfer in the suburbs of Damascus, we then finally arrived at out hotel for the next few days.

I think Mike and I were both unsure of what state the city would be in considering over a decade of civil war, and while the city certainly wasn’t unscathed, it wasn’t a pile of rubble either. The transitional government seems to be making an effort to keep the peace - no easy ordeal in a country that seems to specialize in sectarian violence. But there’s power and an effort to keep the streets clean, which is a testament to the sheer durability of the Syrian people. People are showing up to work and school, so - for the moment- life keeps rolling along. Our guide, Hussein, a local Syrian who’s been a tour guide for decades, took us walking through the city. We saw the National Museum, various mosques, the Soul al-Hamidyeh, and churches like the Chapel of St. Ananias. I’m pretty sure everyone we passed on the street thought we were journalists since western tourists were few and far between. We had cardamom infused espresso (side note, do you like cardamom? I hope so, because all the coffee in the country is brewed with it. It’s good, but as Mike found out, it can be surprising when you slurp up a shot first thing after rolling out of bed) and meandered around the city, seeing a town that had once been a popular stop on the tourism circuit. Syria is a country that has been at the heart of civilization since antiquity, from biblical times to the days of the Silk Road. The war ripped the country apart, and I don’t think you’ll find anyone expected things to get better overnight (or at all, for some), but our guide said that for the first time in many years, people were hopeful, and that in and of itself was something to celebrate.

With our first couple days of exploring and sightseeing behind us, we got ready to pack up and head to Aleppo several hours north and closer to the Turkish border. Hussein would still be our guide and would join us for the drive, and he would be the one who would have to tell people everywhere we went that no, we were not journalists, just a couple of actual tourists. After Aleppo, we headed back down to Damascus for a few more days, and we were hoping to be granted access to the infamous Saydnaya prison along with visiting some Roman ruins that weren’t destroyed by artifact adverse Isis. Closing out the evening with a glass of hot tea, Hussein quipped, “I see you two are not exactly early risers, so how about we leave at ten a.m. tomorrow?” We were jetlagged and like to sleep in, Hussein, read the room!

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