Two sleeps in Lattakia, and in the morning went in search of a bus to Crac des Chevaliers with the two Lithuanian brothers(both named Alex) and the German girl, Sabine.
I tend to travel alone for a wide variety of reasons, mostly because I like to make up my schedule as I go, I don't like having a set plan because you never know what could come up. I can take a detour whenever I want, I can spend more time in a place if I like it, or less time if I don't. I am able to make my journey truly my journey.
However it does come with a few drawbacks, primarily it means I miss out on some opportunities. I took a lot of goodwill from a lot of people in the middle east, but at the same time I turned down lots of rides, offers and more because I really didn't want to be completely at the mercy of a stranger in a strange land that although very safe does have a few trouble spots where the price of making a mistake is very high. When you have a traveling companion the risks associated with getting in a friendly locals car diminish greatly. You also get to share your experience with other people which is nice, rather than just having stories to tell, you have someone to tell them with.
Up to this point I had traveled by myself, but now I was going places with three other people, two of which were rather strange, and one who spoke the local language, but many male members of society would not talk directly to. It was strange.
The Alex's had a tendency to take things too far. Especially when it came to bartering. Well it was mostly just one of them, he would haggle beyond reason, not negotiating, but rather setting a price he deemed to be "cheap" and wouldn't waver. Often times this "cheap" price was far below what was reasonable. The purpose of bartering isn't to destroy the sellers profit margins, but rather make a deal rather than just a sale. It seemed that he saw it only as a way to take as much as he could get from the locals without giving anything back. It extended with the way he talked with the locals. Incredibly demeaning and thoroughly disrespectful of almost every local I saw him interact with(except the Falafel guy in Lattakia who made wicked falafel and watched "Just For Laugh Gags", it was interesting watching him explain the gags as he was making your sandwich).
What got me the most was his willingness to ignore deals that I had made with locals regarding transport, frustrating to the 'enth degree.
Together the Alex's were loud, obnoxious, disrespectful, and on and on. Imagine your stereotypical American travelling, it was them.
Sabine on the other had spoke the local language quite well, and was thoroughly interesting. She had many interesting stories about interactions with locals and men who would refuse to address her in cars and in shops despite being the only person able to bridge the language divide.
Either way we made it to Crac des Chevaliers with about an hour before close, which seemed to be long enough to see most of the cool stuff.
To imagine a Medieval Castle is to imagine Crac. Smooth white stones towers. moats, a keep, chaples, you name it they had it.
Crac was a key point in Crusader defences and was build so strategically well and in such a good spot that it was never taken by force. It was attacked more than once by the Muslims, even Saladin was unable to defeat it.
In the end it succumbed to the harsh reality that Islam was going to win in the region, 200 Knights were holed up in the Castle, provisions for something like 3+ years, but knew that the tens of thousands of Muslims laying seige would eventually win, so they cut a deal, they got a free escape to the coast if they gave up the Castle.
It was amazing, until it rained, which wasn't fun, and made exploring some parts of the castle treacherous.
But alas the sun went down and the castle closed down and the 4 of us started the long walk back to the bottom of the valley and the highway to catch a ride to Homs.
Again the Alex's found a way to kill a good negotiation with a passing car by setting an initial price far too low that would never get us a ride.
In spite of this we did get a minibus all the way to Homs for about a couple dollars. not worth makeing a scene over 25 cents in my mind, the Alex's were a different story.
Now that I've gotten the Alex's out of my system.
Homs turned out to be a rather short stop, to the bus station to catch a bus to Palmyra and it's Roman ruins of high regard. 8 hours on the road that day led to a tired traveler by the end of the day, but arrival in Palmyra didn't go quite as smoothly as I had hoped, and will be the subject of my next post.
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