We Bought the Bus

It was one o'clock in the afternoon, and we were still at the Lattakia bus station. It happens sometimes that a morning erodes away in the rain.* We were trying to get to Qala'at Saladin, also known as the Crusader castle of Saone. The biggest obstacle in our way was the mire-like bus station ahead of us. Perhaps seventy or eighty buses were parked in the lot, but there was no information posted on how the station was organised. Well at least as far as I could tell. Ere began a wandering to find the right bus.

Qala'at Salah Ad Din

My knowledge of Arabic script is just good enough by now to identify place names. This new found knowledge came in extremely handy while trying to find the bus to the town of Al Haffeh, near the castle - and I was even able to find a bus with the letters printed on it that spelt Al Haffeh.

Qala'at Salah Ad Din at a distance

I motioned to the driver to open up his window. I said 'Al Haffeh' and he looked a bit puzzled. I repeated it a few times, and tried 'Qala'at' and got a response. He motioned for me to get in.

Inside, the driver had been having a chat with three of his buddies. The front of the bus was actually arranged so that this would be very easy. Instead of a passenger seat, there was a bench along the side of the bus (the front door was further down the side) and, with the seat behind the driver oriented as it was, it was easy for the four of them to sit around a hatch that served as a table, and chat away.

The drawbridge

Phil and I joined the group aprehensively. The bus sat some 35 people, and it looked like it would be some time before it would fill up and leave, as is the practice here.

Inside began a conversation about where we wanted to go. The fellows could not seem to understand that neither of us spoke any Arabic - well I had already learned a dozen words, but in their rapid fire dialogue, it was impossible for me to understand anything. I resorted to my little jot pad and wrote out where I wanted to go. A heavy fellow next to the driver took a look at my scribble and understood it with ease, and told everyone authoritively that I wanted to go to the Qala'at.

The driver said something to his friend and the friend wrote out 500 pounds as the price. That was $10, a hitherto unreasonable sum except for paying a few night's stay at a pension. So then wanted to know what it entailed. Suffice to say that it was very difficult to converse with these fellows. It also became clear that the driver was completely illiterate, and his friend was needed to sort everything out.

It was also clear that not only Anglophones suffer from the symptom of getting louder and faster when they are not understood. These guys became more and more emphatic and less and less comprehensible. However, after another attempt at writing out what we would get for 500, it was clear that it only gave us a ride to the castle, but it would be a direct ride, not just to Al Haffeh, and we would leave immediately.

Phil and I had a quick discussion: after all, 500 is about $10, and it was already 1.15 pm, the ride would be at least 45 minutes, and the castle would not be open all that late.

I produced the 500. As if I fired a starting pistol, the three other fellows cleared the bus, and the driver opened the table-like hatch. Revealing the engine, he plugged in what may have been the spark plugs, and started the bus. I looked around the inside. At 15 pounds a seat, we had purchased every seat on the bus! For 10 bucks. Yeah, Syria is pretty cheap.

We drove through the rain and found the castle perched on a very picturesque outcropping of rock between two ancient waterways. Above all, with my preconceptions of the Middle East, I was surprised to find the countryside so lush with folliage. The castle's surroundings are simply a dense forest. For some reason, I expected dust and sand (but that's still to come).

Over the eons, streams have bore what are essentially two converging canyons around the hill that is home to the castle. Driving down and up these slopes on a full length bus was a harrowing event. At every turn, the driver would honk to ensure no one slammed into us - all the turns were blind. A number of turns were so tight that the driver had to back up and do a 3 point turn. If he had no education, the guy had guts.

Eventually we arrived and I bid adieu to the driver. I wanted him to acknowledge my attempt at saying "good-bye" in Arabic - "Ma'Salam." He seemed to not understand. Then he began a little diatribe asking for more money. I realised his game immediately and feigned incomprehension as well. He realised that he would get no more out of me and he shooed me off of his bus with a type of "good-bye" wave. Well, at least we were there.

The castle itself is one of those ruined fairy-tale castles (a castle that may have been the setting of a fairy tale, not a castle that is the suject of a poorly told story. Well actually given that I am the narrator, maybe it is both).

Much of the castle lay in ruin, but there is still enough of it to give one a picture of what it once was, and there is a fair bit to explore as well. We started off on the East side. To separate the castle from the other body of rock between the two canyons, someone carved - and I mean carved out of solid rock - a canyon that was 156 meters long, 28 meters deep, and 18 meters wide. It in itself is an impressive feat.

Lording over that 3rd canyon was the most complete part of the fortifications: a high wall, and beind it, a stables, with its roof still complete, which may have covered the same area as a basketball court, but with pillars and cross arches every 9 meters square (cross arch: really four arches that are connected in the middle, and form a roof). There were also two towers that one could explore - the stair cases were tucked into the 4 meter walls - and a water cistern that had an eerie echo as it filled up with rain water, as it was supposed to.

After an hour and a half of exploring, Phil and I had seen all of the castle. We had been the only visitors. Knowing of the seasonal disinterest, drivers for hire were conspicuously absent. Therefore, lacking any other means of transportation, we hiked back towards Al Haffeh.

On the way, a restaurant was perched on the canyon opposite the castle. It offered a million dollar view while the sun set. We had a three course meal, for seven dollars each. Normally I refrain from such luxury, but we had forgone the usual breakfast and lunch to get to the castle as soon as possible. I had sufficed on some extremely inexpensive chocolate bars (10 cents each). Under the conditions, I felt that a little bit of splurging was not unresonable.

With a bit of luck, we managed to get the right buses back. But this time, it only cost us 15 pounds each (about 40 cents) because we didn't have to buy the entire bus. Dispite the disparity in cost the first time, I actually didn't mind. Things are so cheap here that it actually feels really good to spend money.

Even if it costs 15 times more than it would if I was patient, it feels good to be able to get what I want when I want it. Of course, that's contingent on me thinking that the total sum of money paid is relatively little. So it's decided! Either I have to spend the rest of my life in Syria, or else I have to become filthy stinking rich!