Heading out of Damascus and back up into the hills, the heat lessened and we got our lovely afternoon breeze back. The Hauran is a really strange area – pockets of really fertile soil are interspersed with expanses of barren volcanic rock, with a few goats picking their way between boulders and rocks. 
The area was one of the breadbaskets of the Roman Empire, its rich volcanic soil and plentiful spring rains producing big harvests. Stumbling into one of the fertile areas having just crossed a baking hot ancient lava field, we were welcomed by a farmer who led us into the shade of a tree and shared a delicious, cold and incredibly refreshing water melon with us.
The route James had planned went down what looked like a nice quiet side road away from the main road to Jordan. Had he looked a little closer at the map, he might have noticed that it was also the nearest North-South road to the Golan Heights. We hadn’t got very far when we ran into a military checkpoint manned not by the usual scruffy, bored-looking youths, but by one bored looking youth and a rather more serious looking NCO. After looking at our passports and going through the usual motions of pretending to do their job, they waved us on our way. Or so we thought. We managed to get a whole 100 metres further along before the scruffy youth ran after us and demanded we come back to the checkpoint. We were marched from there off to the main barracks where we had coffee with the big boss and a conscript who spoke English was dug out from somewhere. Apparently, we had blundered into a military zone and the road for the next 5 miles was shut to foreigners. After asking us a few questions and looking at our strange get up (sticks, hats, big smelly rucksacks), they clearly decided we didn’t represent a clear and present danger (except to their nostrils) and waved us on our way.
Several miles further on, attempting a clever cross country route, we blundered into another military camp. We tried to march straight on through, but were warned by the guys we met on the gate that we were liable to be shot if we strayed over the boundary fence. They very kindly showed us back to the road and left us alone. At this point, we decided that possibly our road wasn’t the most sensible – to blunder into one military zone might be considered a mistake, to blunder into two begins to look a little suspicious, to blunder into three… we didn't really want to contemplate. Perhaps watching Syriana before we left wasn’t the best idea.
Besides the massive military presence alongside the Golan, there were other reminders of the continued friction in the region – we bumped into an old man, Abu Qasim, who had lived in the Golan, but had been forced to flee when the Israelis captured it during the 1967 war. Further along, we came to a village occupied by Palestinian refugees. Various UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency – the body which deals with relief for the Palestinians) buildings – a clinic, a school, offices – were spread through the village.
More incredible hospitality along the way. In the village of As Sanamayn, we were given tea by a group of old men. They then launched into a heated diatribe against George Bush and Tony Blair accompanied with lots of actions – one old man took off his shoe and started to beat imaginary Blairs and Bushes about the head. We could only agree with their critique of Western policy in the Arab world (at least the very little we understood – “Why Iraq? Why Iraq?”), but possibly not with the more extreme punishments they wanted subjected the President and Prime Minister to. Whilst our old man was still in full flow, we were invited to the house of the local shopkeeper for breakfast and were treated to a delicious spread of olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, humus etc. and met his father and grandson, both called Reda. Reda younger was about to go off to medical school in Damascus and was hoping to come to England as part of his studies.
About 20km North of the border, in the small village of Ibta (not even marked on our -admittedly limited- map), we were taken in by Ibrahim and Helen Hariri (the sister of one of James’ school friends, Tom Flynn) and their extended family. Ibrahim and his brothers live in houses dotted around a compound centred on his father’s house and share with each other child care, meals etc. Tom had promised us “Homeric hospitality, but without the tripods”, but even fore-warned we were not quite prepared for the incredibly warm reception that we got. First we were treated to a huge meal of delicious fresh bread with thyme (zatar), tomatoes, eggs, olives, cucumber, cheese and lots of other delicious things. We ate until we couldn’t eat any more, assuming that this was the main meal of the day, then collapsed onto huge piles of cushions for a restorative nap, only to be woken some hours later for an even bigger feast – kofte, lamb, chicken, humus, aubergine dip, bread, salad, olives and mounds of delicious fragrant rice. Sat and chatted with 
Helen, Ibrahim and his brothers, played with the kids (some of the 14 in the extended family living in the compound) and were generally made to feel at the same time part of the family and honoured guests. We took our leave sadly and staggered off down the road towards the border, feeling several pounds heavier.
In Deraa, we met up again with Trin and Emma who had been enjoying the sights and sounds of Damascus
. Deraa was once an important post on the Hejaz railway and the remains of it still straggle through the town, kept more or less alive by the one train a week heading down to Amman from Damascus. We had an unexpected day off when James caught food poisoning from an ill-advised street kebab. Finding himself at 6am slumped on the floor of our hotel bathroom, sprawled over the hole in the ground toilet, feverish, sweating and periodically heaving his guts into the hole in the ground, surrounded by the vile smell and aching in every limb is possibly the lowest point reached in the entire 9 months of pilgrimage. He had an inkling of how Lawrence of Arabia must have felt when he was imprisoned, beaten and allegedly sodomised in Deraa by a Turkish officer during the Arab revolt.
Luckily it was a short lived bout and James was more or less recovered a day later. We did get to sample the local fancy hotel’s cuisine which promised “a symphony of tastes to multiply the palates”. The sorry collection of limp lettuce, tinned olives and Russian salad that had developed a crust it had been sitting around so long that made up their salad bar didn’t do much to multiply anyone’s palate and there wasn’t much symphonic about the main courses either.
Not sorry to turn our backs on Deraa and head into Jordan. We tried to walk across the border, breezing past several soldiers/secret police etc., but were eventually pulled up short at the final barrier by a man carrying an AK-47. We still had an argument about it, but he told us we’d be shot if we tried to walk. We weren’t sure if he would be doing the shooting or someone else, but we decided not to argue the point any more. Instead, we were motioned into the back of some monster American car, left over from the oil boom of the 70’s, and roared out of Syria and into Jordan. Stopping at the first inspection post, a Jordanian border guard came over to inspect our passports and make sure everything was in order. Looking into the back of the car, he saw Emma and exclaimed “Look at those beautiful blue eyes!”, calling over to all his colleagues to come and have a look. Still, it seemed to speed our way through the border formalities quite nicely (as much as one can speed in Jordan – given we had to wait for the man running the exchange facility – late for work – and the man selling visas – asleep in the back office – “Just bang loudly” was the advice we got from the border guards) and we were soon on the road to Irbid.
Perhaps we shouldn’t have chosen the cheapest hotel in Irbid to stay in. A moment’s reflection might have given us second thoughts. Still, at £3/night, we didn’t think we could afford to be fussy. How wrong we were. In the girls’ room, a full ashtray sat on the floor and two unfinished cups of tea. The bedclothes didn’t look like they’d been changed in a while. Upstairs, the boys’ room was a darker, dingier replica of the girls’ with similar over-flowing ashtray and unchanged sheets. And then we saw the bathroom… An evil smell hit us full on as the door swung open, revealing a black hole in the ground (no cistern) and a cold water pipe projecting from the roof for a shower. We practically bumped into the girls as we all headed for the door in a mad rush to get out as quickly as possible. Luckily, the hotel across the street (at a whole £4/night) was clean and bright, with fresh linen and a hot shower.
Next day whilst trying in vain to get a cold fizzy drink, we were taken up by Yousef, an English teacher in Irbid who had lived in the San Francisco in the US (working as a wine salesman – rather ironic, as he pointed out, as he is Muslim). He guided us up to his house where he took us on a tour of his garden and gave us a lesson in bee-keeping. It’s his hobby and he produces delicious honey (certified 100% pure by the Technical University of Amman apparently). He even exports to customers in Kuwait and the gulf. We got to sample it as he fed us a delicious breakfast, complete with oozing, sticky lumps of honeycomb from his hives. He reminisced fondly about his time in California – about how free the US was (“There was a guy across the street – he had a huge poster of the president and it said f**k Bush! You could never do that here!”), how welcoming the San Franciscans had been and how much fun he had had. Still, he had chosen to leave (even before September 11th) because of the way he was treated by other Americans (not people from San Francisco he hastened to add) who were rude and threatening towards him. While we were chatting, his 2 year old daughter sitting on his knee 
started to scream and howl. He was baffled until she pointed to the boiled eggs sitting in the middle of our breakfast tray. “Ah, it’s the eggs! She loves them!” and he got her an egg and peeled it for her. She disappeared with it, only to return seconds later with boiled eggy bits all over her face and hands and a huge satisfied smile. Yousef was less impressed – “This is why I hate giving her eggs. She gets it everywhere! All over the house, the walls, the furniture…” Ten minutes later, she had another one, leaving her trail of eggy mess all over the house. Strongly suspect that Emma gave it to her. Feeling guilty, we left Yousef dealing with the mess, promising to return if and when we returned to Jordan
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