Day Seventy-six, we walked through the town (Baalbek) to try and find the minibuses to the border and from there to Syria, having decided that they were much too expensive we decided to try our luck hitching. We got a lift with a couple of old boys and a woman, we squeezed in the back of their car and were driven to the junction of a busy road, in between we were invited to the driver's house for something to eat or drink. We waited at the junction for ten or so minutes turning down taxis and minibuses, our patience was rewarded by a young Lebanese salesman who took us all the way to border which was several kilometres further on from where he was going. We went through the convoluted process of leaving one country and entering another with a bloody long distance between the two – we ended up stopping a minibus and getting it to the Syrian border where we got another bus to Homs – the nearest and biggest city from the border.
From Homs we got another bus to Crac des Chevaliers an old and well maintained Crusader castle. It was interesting to explore but I wasn't feeling so great and so we didn't stay as long as we would have had I been feeling better. At that point it felt like Djalma and I would be forever be taking turns to be ill, we decided to leave at head for Tartus, a 'relaxed' town. The minibus driver was a greedy pig and wanted far more than the usual fair seeing as it was all tourists wanting to go down. It was getting late in the day and there weren't likely to be any other buses around until the next day but we decided to walk down the hill the castle was on and try our luck hitching instead. It took a while so we stopped off for some nuts and water to keep us going – not the best move with dodgy bowel movements – but we eventually got a lift in the back of a small pick-up truck, possibly the most fun ever! We sped down round the hill and I let out my hair – a big mistake when it came to combing out the knots and washing it but the wind in my hair felt so good I didn't regret it at all.
They dropped us off near the main road running along the coast where we picked another lift within minutes. The man who stopped to pick us up was not like many of the people who usually stop to pick up hitch-hikers, we sat in the back with a woman who was well presented but didn't say a word or smile, and he drove like he was possessed. He had an expensive car so it didn't feel like we were going as fast as we were but he swerved around other vehicles without any attempt at being smooth – I remember pushing toy cars round obstacles in the same way he was driving – and it made me wonder whether I would throw up or crap my pants in his car, I was back to not feeling so great, rubbish. We arrived in Tartus, what was once a sleepy port town had now expanded and was rather big and unfortunately quite uninteresting. We walked round until we found a hotel we could afford that let enough air in to be comfortable and lay down glad to be out of his car and off our feet. We talked and the subject came round to food and I got it into my head that nothing but spaghetti bolognese would do, that was enough to send my wonderful husband out into the night to search for my stomach's desire. He came back well over an hour later with enough food to feed at least four people and we tucked into garlic bread and spag bol, leaving more than half for breakfast the next morning. We stayed in that hotel for three nights giving me enough time to steady my bowels and feel confident enough to leave the safety zone of a nearby toilet for more than five minutes. On the last day we walked round parts of the old town but there really wasn't much to look at and hardly anything was open, we said goodbye to Tartus and headed to a castle on hills by sea that I can't remember the name of now.
We managed to get a lift from a really friendly guy with a young son who was too shy to do much but look at us and then hide when we caught his eye. He spoke great English and insisted on giving us the rest of his bread – it was sweet and made only during Ramadan and was particular to his village. He took us all the way up to another castle, this one was near the sea and was supposed to have beautiful views. The castle was shut, as we expected, but the views weren't as good as we had hoped – the rolling hills were covered in half pipe tubes covering, as we found out later, tomatoes. Djalma was feeling loose in the stools, poor baby and he divided his time between sitting outside the front of the castle and going to the toilet which was, thankfully, still open. We started walking down as there wasn't much happening at all to give us much hope of a lift, and minibus stopped to pick us up. The driver was young and drove a wee bit too quickly with some gangster beats blaring out while we raced downhill, however come prayer time he turned the tunes off and we drove in silence missing the sound of Fergie and Will.i.am singing about how they had a feeling (which I am now listening to as I write this).
This time we stopped a lorry – the second of our trip. We both were looking forward to it the moment he started slowing down, screeching to a halt on the side of the road and we weren't disappointed. Mohammad was so friendly and within minutes of us getting in to the front with him he was on the phone to his wife and checking that some visitors wouldn't be a problem. He smoked a lot 'to stay strong' and drank some water – okay for lorry drivers during Ramadan apparently and chatted to us, mainly to Djalma the whole way back to his house.
We pitched up at his house, his wife, Mona and his four kids waiting to greet us. Despite assurances to the contrary only one of his kids spoke really good English, Layla, I think the rest understood but weren't as articulate as her. They were a lovely bunch and made us feel very welcome, I sat and watched TV that I didn't understand while Mohammad, Hassan and Djalma went for a swim in the sea, when they came back Mona put out a spread, some meatballs in tomato sauce (sounds like stuff my brother lives on but in a completely different league to Sainbury's passata sauce and nasty pork balls), fresh flat bread and yoghurt drink that she had made. It was gorgeous, one thing I can't understand is why plain old tomato sauce tastes so good in the Middle East, the tomatoes are really good but even so it is still a mystery, and Djalma and I tucked in like we hadn't eaten all day. I sat and spoke to Layla who was such a lovely girl and, through her, the rest of the family it was so lovely to be included in a family again. After a time Mona brought out a sheesha and we all sat and passed it round, all of us except the children and before long Djalma and I were yawning and went to bed. The family stayed up, Ramadan is much like the Summer holidays and they stayed up most of the night talking, eating and watching T.V. We slept in Amelle's bed, all the girls (although most of the girls were too old to be counted as children) slept in the same bedroom but during summer when it's too hot the family sleeps in the living room, so we had the warm room to ourselves, squeezed on the same bed we sweated while we slept but we slept quite well. In the morning Mona put out breakfast for us, we had fresh bread, home-made jam, butter, salty cheese and coffee which was so strong it had me zinging. Mohammad took us in his lorry to Lattakia where he was picking up a load of clothes to head somewhere else, we said our goodbyes and headed into town.
