Facing My World – Travel Blog - My thoughts, reflections and experiences of my life around the world.

Coming from Turkey to Syria we quickly realized that everything turned from water to wine. Or more realistically, wine to water. The western life in Turkey was left behind and we finally arrived in the Middle East. Which is a good thing. After a relatively easy, but funny,  process at the Syrian border we arrived in Aleppo, the second biggest city in Syria only behind Damascus, the capital.

We were warned about the Syrian hospitality but it’s much more than we were expecting. While we were waiting for our Couch Surf host in downtown people came from everywhere  greeting us. Kids, young and old people, no exceptions. For some minutes we became the city touristic point. People saying “hallo”, “where are you from?” and even offering some candies and chairs to accommodate us. The first impression about the Syrians was incredibly good.

When our host arrived there, nothing changed, actually the hospitality just got better. Before we headed to his apartment  he invited us to drink his favorite smoothie in one of the many juice vendors around the city. This smoothie later started to be called “Jamal’s drink”, his name. It became famous with other travelers as well. Some minutes later we dropped our backpacks off at this place and he kindly suggest us to visit the Citadel. One of the best I’ve seen during this trip.

The Citadel in Aleppo is beautiful, massive and in a good  state of preservation. Here’s one tip: if you have an International Student Card, don’t forget to use it. The normal price for foreigners is S£150, but if you have the Student Card you only pay S£10. An incredible discount of 93%. From the top of the Citadel you can see the entire city and for some minute or hours, forget about the craziness out there.

Done with the Citadel, we went back to our host’s place to meet some of his friends and other Couch Surfers. By the way, hosting foreigners in Syria is illegal so let’s keep quite about that. It was an amazing evening. We hung out with many other travelers, locals and listened to different stories, experiences… I already knew at that moment that this would be our highlight in Syria: people.

New day is rising up in the sky. It’s time to go to the old souq (market) and get lost again, the same way we did in Turkey. These arabic markets are interesting because 1) you’ll always have the sellers trying hard to convince you to have a “tea” inside of their stores (then you’ll eventually buy something), 2) you’ll need to negotiate as hard as them and 3) they all sell almost the same products. So after a while waking trough the small corridors you can just go to another place before you get tired. Again, this is what we did.

Much to my delight, I saw some guys playing football in the street and one of them was wearing a Brazil jersey. I decided to go there to talk to him and when he figured out I was Brazilian he invited me to play. That was the idea. Mission accomplished. I love to play football and it wasn’t different that day playing with these unknown guys. We played 2 against 2 and one goalkeeper. Fortunately we scored 3 times and we won the game but it wasn’t enough for them and they “forced” me to keep playing. Is it necessary to say that I loved it?

After a long day, our friends invited us for a kanun concert, a traditional Arabic music instrument. I have to admit it was an unusual concert. Instead of a venue, crowd and tickets we went to the house of one of the best kanun player in the world. Yes, he played for 2 hours at his house, in his family room. This is one of the reasons why I love traveling. It’s highly unlikely to see so close to you a professional playing an instrument with so much confidence, attentiveness and inspiration. Another remarkable night in Aleppo.

Few thoughts about Aleppo

I didn’t really know what to expect from Aleppo but it was surprisingly excellent our time there. The city is chaotic, hot, noisy, smoky (I think 99,9% of the men in Syria smoke), some times dirty, but at the same time the city is beautiful, cheap, kind, with lovely people and delicious food (I had the best falafel of my life there). Also the city is safe. I remember walking in the streets at night in downtown and feeling completely safe and I knew nothing would happen. Unfortunately, most of  the time the media says the opposite. Nothing like looking at it with your own eyes.

After 4 days in Aleppo our next stop is Hama. See you there.