Hama

We arrived in Hama in the evening and did a little bit of exploring and had dinner. There isn’t much to do in Hama but it is claimed to be one of Syria’s most attractive towns, is known for its ancient wooden water wheels and it is a good base for the day trips we are taking to surrounding sites. We were surprised to learn how much less expensive Syria is than Lebanon - two chicken shwarmas and two sodas = $2. Our hotel is nice and clean with great people working here for ½ the price of our dumpy room in Beirut. After getting settled in our room I started feeling worse and TJ was getting sick too.
Even though I was feeling a little under the weather I didn’t want to miss anything. So, on our first full day in Hama we set off with our driver, Abdul, a dapper little man who was neatly dressed in a cute little Keebler-elf looking suit, to Qala’at al-Hosn, a Crusader castle. The castle was impressive as it has been remarkably well preserved and seems to not have deteriorated much since it was constructed 800 years ago. It looked like it was straight out of a fairy tale. It was exciting to walk through the interior wondering what used to transpire between those walls.
By the time we returned to Hama I felt miserable and TJ was feeling crappy too. We had some similar symptoms and some different. I had a sore throat, cold sweats, hot sweats, body ache, stuffy nose and was exhausted. TJ also had a sore throat and stuffy nose but also a head ache so bad he felt like he was going to throw up. We spent the majority of the following day and a half in bed trying to recover. Unfortunately, wretchedly painful stomach convulsions interfered with my ability to rest. It was similar to when you wake up in the night with a really bad calf cramp and you are in intense pain for 30 seconds or a minute, except my pain didn’t go away in a timely fashion. It was awful.
The first night we weren’t feeling well we set out to buy water, Kleenex, throat lozenges and some food. We found everything except food! To clarify, we didn’t find anything we thought we could stomach or that wouldn’t make us more ill. We’d overdosed on shwarmas and the thought of another one made our stomachs churn so we decided bananas were dinner for the night.
24 hours later our stomachs craved more than a banana so we set off again. After a lot of wandering around we discovered that the shops that we thought were only selling fresh fruit had juicers! Yum! Smoothies! We also found a bakery selling normal bread (separate story required) and we even found a shop with packets of chicken noodle soup! What a relief. There is very little familiar food (other than fruits) to us in Syria as there are trade restrictions with the US. As a result, the country has not had the Western exposure that the majority of rest of the world has.
Hama is more conservative than the larger cities. All of the women here have their heads covered with scarves, if they are not wearing a full burqa. I didn’t know women wore burqas without eyeholes until I saw them in Hama. We have seen a couple of other tourists at our hotel, but for the most part I think the local people have seen very few Westerners. Men and women stare at us, me especially. I think it is a combination of being white and not having my head covered that attracts the attention.