We rented a car and drove to the Euphrates River last weekend! Went up to the North-Eastern area of Syria, through Homs to Al-Thura and Lake Assad and then Deir Ezour, about 45 minutes away from Iraq. I saw amazing, still half-buried fortresses and an entirely different Syria than I'm used to. While driving to visit all of the sites, there was such contrast between the lush Euphrates surroundings, with farms and animals and mud instead of sand, and the barren desert, so much like pictures of neighboring Iraq. The first night while driving back from the Qal'at Ja'bar fortress, we stumbled across a hostel that was really just a house full of random shabab and friends of the owner. There was no toilet or shower at all in the hostel, just a hole in the ground. We ended up chatting with the owners and their friends outside for a while with some tea and sheesha. They were very friendly and open, but the conversation took an inevitably awkward turn when they started asking why so many people in America dislike Arabs, with our also inevitably awkward apology in broken colloquial. The conversation finished with the pointed mention of how the only unmarried man in the group prefered American women, something that happens all too often. Still, nothing but good memories of the hostel.
The next day when we left, we had two po-po friends in a white car following us; this was the first time that has happened. We eventually asked them who they were (even though we knew, and the were unexpectedly honest. The two men ended up being very friendly and helpful; at a few points when we were lost, they let us follow them for a while instead. They were with us through about half of the second day, and then we accidentally left them at a falafel shop. The third day, when when we crossed the famous dam, which is also placed on the Syrian 10 cent coin, we were stopped again by guards outside of the bridge. After a while of being detained, our friendly po-po returned in their white car to follow us again. By then we were basically on a first-name basis, so we were all chill.
The fortresses at Rasafa and Qal'at Ja'bar were so un-earthed, it was an archeologist's dream. Everything we were standing on was just layered above cathedral-sized halls; an underground world buried in dirt and sand.
After Rasafa, we drove further down the Euphrates, past cows and cotton fields, to another ancient fortress. We ended up on the wrong side of the Euphrates, and not being sure if we could drive across the river, we parked in the sand next to a family's desert-patched yard. They, for good reason, just stared at us and our silver car quizzically on our way back and forth. We hiked down a grassy path made by a pipe to the river, walking along the bank before we came to a bridge. A truck saw the five of us and slowed down so that we could run half-way across the bridge and jump in. There were more guards at the end of the bridge, and of course we prompted a lot of questions: one British and four American kids, who know a decent amount of Arabic, who rented a car and were driving around the area outside of Iraq, yet instead of driving to the fortress, decided to park it in a Syrian family's yard and hitchhike. Not our brightest moment.
Again, the view of the Euphrates valleys, and the fortress itself, were breathtaking. The next day we explored an island in Lake Assad for about three hours. We were the only ones there, and after swimming, we picked up shards of pottery around another ancient, run-down look-out tower. I've seen so much beauty since I've been here... I'm so lucky.
This was the Syria that everyone I know, myself included, seems to think of automatically. The North was the stereotype that Damascus so defies, of conservative dress and intense religion, where foreigners are rare. The people live the rural life of hard work and border-line isolation from the rest of the world. It was different from any lifestyle I've ever been around.
