April 23, 2008: Krak des Chevaliers, Syria

We continued to cram some culture into our trip as we drove north toward Turkey and stopped to see a castle that had been inhabited for more than a thousand years. I don't consider myself much of a castle person, but Krak (or Krac or Crak or Crac -- there appears to be no standardization) des Chevaliers is rather fantastic.

Although it does not look that impressive from the outside, Krak des Chevaliers is quite big inside the walls, as well as gloriously dank and damp and full of hidden rooms and passageways and stairways.
It is, quite possibly, the best place ever to play Hide-and-Seek. I spent nearly four hours in the castle exploring, wishing I had brought my headlamp in with me, trying to sneak up on Hot Rockers attempting to scare other Hot Rockers, and, of course, a little bouldering.

Diana swings by:
It was a total blast and I felt like I was six years old again.

Thankfully, I was not six years old when it came time for cook duty that night because my six-year old self would have cowered under one of the seats on BiRT, refusing to emerge. Our bushcamp that evening was decidedly more urban than anything before on the trip and consisted of parking along a crumbling road adjacent to a small town beneath Krak des Chevaliers. It was, shall we say, rather public, and the entire town passed by at some point to see what was going on. While some Hot Rockers desperately tried to entertain the hordes of children in an effort to keep them away from the fire, Diana and I set about cooking dinner in front of an ever-expanding group of adults. It was like being a celebrity chef. Everybody had questions about what we were cooking and how we were preparing it, and would then proceed to take the lids off the pots and peer in while clucking in approval or shake their heads in disapproval. Talk about too many cooks in the kitchen. Then there was the matter of me cooking. Men are just not involved in the cooking process, and I was a source of ridicule among the men and endless amusement among the women. I imagined all the women using me as an example in an effort to get their husbands to help out in the kitchen, unintentionally creating an entire generation of 5-star Syrian male chefs. Anything to make me feel better about myself.

If the dinner was not enough of an event, evening turned out to be the absolute worst night of sleep on this trip. Braying donkeys, braying dogs, Danny getting sick and retching his innards out (I have never heard anyone so violently ill before), a seemingly all night motorcycle rally, mysterious coughing men pacing along the road, and, of course, the ubiquitous mosque with an especially egregious sound system. I don't think anyone slept more than an hour that night. I couldn't, however, help but laugh at what has to be one of the most bizarre nights I've ever experienced.

The morning after. My tent on the crumbling road. Probably not the safest tent site ever:

Ah, look, it's the town. And that spire is the mosque. Trust me, I thought that mosque was right inside my tent when early morning call started: