Traveling Adventures Hi! Welcome to my travel journal. I created this so friends and family can keep track of me on my adventures. I'll update this when I can.

on the afternoon of the 12th we left damascus for palmyra by public bus.  we caused a bit of consternation and uproar on the bus because we just piled on, not paying attention to the fact that we had assigned bus seats.  there was a lot of milling about, staring, and worried faces.  the syrian men (all men, no women but those on our tour) were looking increasingly discontent with the fact they may have to sit near women, until the bus driver made us all move to the front, with a buffer zone of the guys from our tour between us ladies and the syrian men.  this seemed to calm everyone down.  we were also entertained by none other than rambo 3 on the tiny tv at the front of the bus.  we're not sure if it was coincidence, but the "good guys" were the most honorable mujahedeen forces of afghanistan, with whom rambo fought sans shirt of course.  once we traveled out of damascus' suburbs there was absolutely nothing around.  just sand, some sad looking trees and rocky hills.  we did pass a "baghdad caffe" with a caved-in roof, mounted rifles and a camel munching what was left of the lawn out front.  funny scene.  we also passed several signs to iraq, the closest being "Iraq 130km".  that was pretty crazy to see.  once we arrived in palmyra, we were transferred to a mini-bus with what we believe was a tank engine.  it rumbled along the streets amid more stares to our hotel in the center of new town.  we ate dinner at the restaurant across the street from our hotel and sat outside to watch the traffic pass by.  palmyra is really in the middle of no where and is very economically depressed so we mostly saw 30s mafia-style cars, motorbikes (usually held together with duct tape) with whole families onboard.  the neighborhood cats also joined us for dinner, batting at our legs for food and even nursing on the mom cat at my feet while i ate.  we also got to see a guy high on hashish dance and sing and yell down the street past us much to the delight of the restaurant owners who encouraged him.  the next morning we met our professor-type tour guide to see the ruins of ancient palmyra.  the city was built in the 1-2 centuries AD and was very wealthy and militarily successful for a time.  the king and his son died amid mysterious circumstances and the queen, zenobia, a decendent of cleopatra, took over as monarch and declared rome an enemy, leading to the city's downfall.  the ruins were spectacular.  huge temples and columnaded streets, a water system, and arches all set in the desert below a huge crusader castle built in the 12th century.  we looked unsuccessfully for scorpions for a bit after the tour, but then headed back to the hotel to catch a bus to Homs and then Krak des Chevaliers.  on our way back to the hotel, we got to see some guys harvesting dates from the palms that still grow in the oasis in the city that dried up in the 90s.  they grow on bright yellow braches right below the palm fronds.  apparently there are 11 different kinds and they are delicious!  we see date palms all over the desert areas.  we caught our mini-bus to homs and then krak in the afternoon.  about 30 mins out of the city, we came upon a compound ofhuge radar dishes and military vehicles with several very heavily armed guards.  our trip leader commented, "well that wasnt here three weeks ago."  oops.  continuing into homs, there was a massive thunderstorm and a really heavy rainstorm.  this continued all the way into krak and it was really cool  crawling up this windy steep hill in the mini-bus amid a few villages on a narrow street with the thunderstorm and glimpses of the castle every now and again.  mon and i were woken up by some thunder right above our hotel.  it was cool.  in the morning we woke up to a perfect view of the castle framed right in our window.  we toured the castle with a guide in the morning.  this castle is a crusader castle occupied by various french and italian crusaders along with richard the lionhearted of england.  it was never breached.  learning about the defences was really fun.  all kinds of holes everywhere to pour boiling oil on your enemies as they trudge up the hill and angled gates that discourage battering rams, and of course lots and lots of arrow slits.  mon, shannon, marshall, and i couldnt help but fire imaginary arrows down on the tourists and village people every once and awhile.  ruins are great in the middle east because they let you go wherever you want.  nothing is off-access.  we wandered around in some underground passages, but then saw the huge spiders living on the walls and evacuated.  we also ran around on the ramparts firing arrows at the cars on the road.  it was really fun and we acted like 12 year olds, entertaining the syrian tourists from damascus.  the countryside around the castle really reminded me of wales and scotland.  green hills with lots of sheep and windy little roads and old stone walls haphazardly arranging pastures.  it was so nice to see green after all the desert.  in the afternoon we caught a bus back to homs and then on to aleppo.