Friday 25th December - Lake al'Assad to Dayr as Zawr

Whilst it was nice to have a guard dog, she took her responsibly too seriously and woke us up a few times in the night as she chased off other dogs and cats that dared to come near our vehicle.  We'd almost become used to dogs barking at all hours when camping in Turkey, but you soon forget how annoying it is.

It was very misty by the lake this morning and we couldn't make out the citadel until we were almost upon it.  All very atmospheric, but unfortunately the citadelís main draw are its views across the lake and, with visibility down to less than 50 metres, we had to make do with wandering along the walls (seems like the Health and Safety Executive have yet to reach Syria, with unfenced 30 metre drops). SPOT

As we left our camping spot by the lake the sun was staring to burn through the mist and after a couple of kilometres we had clears skies; much more like the weather we expected in Syria.  Driving back to the main road I noticed a white Peugeot 504 estate behind, thinking it a little odd that it hadn't shot past as we tend to go a lot slower than your usual Syrian driver.  We were waved to a stop by the guard at the checkpoint on the citadel side of the dam, but before he could ask us anything he was called over by the passenger in the Peugeot 504, who had pulled up in front of us.  The man in the Peugeot was dressed in a brown leather jacket, wore shaded glasses and was carrying a walkie talkie, whilst his driver was dressed in black.  He approached the Land Rover and I got out to greet him with 'Marhaba' and, obviously impressed at my grasp of the language, he asked if I spoke Arabic.  Confessing that my knowledge currently extended to 'Hello' and 'Thank you', he asked in English where we were going.  I got out the map and showed him our destination for the night, Dayr as Zawr, to which he asked why weren't we going to the ruined city at Rustafa?  I said that we were, then onto Dayr as Zawr.  He gave us directions, then after a 'Welcome to Syria' he said goodbye.

This wasn't the last we saw of our friend in the Peugeot, as he followed a hundred yards or so behind until the turning to rejoin the main road, at which point he overtook and turned our way, only to let us re-pass half a mile later.  The manoeuvre was repeated 20km later for the turn down to Rustafa, then again after another 25km at the site to the ancient walled city, where he pulled into the small cafe by the entrance.  We like to think that he was bored and just wanted to make sure we found our way safely.

Rustafa's walls rising out of the desert are really quite evocative, being almost complete, and once inside the immensity of the place strikes you.  The remains of three churches still stand, the largest being the Byzantine Basilica of St Sergius, and you can also see several huge underground water cisterns, but the rest of the city is still to be excavated.  Anne was a little disappointed that there were four other tourists looking around the site; don't they have somewhere else to be on Christmas Day? SPOT

As we excited the walled city the Peugeot man came over to say how 'beautiful' our car was, and 'Land Rover, very good' before again giving us directions to our next destination.  We finally 'lost' our escort when we stopped to quickly look at the Arab chieftain's hall just to the north of the main Rustafa site; he and his driver carried on past, but I suspect he might have called ahead as we were waved on first by a customs check point, then an army checkpoint and finally a police checkpoint before we finally reached Dayr as Zawr (or maybe I'm just paranoid).  We're not sure exactly what his position was, but he got respect from everybody; I think he was secret police...

Entering Dayr as Zawr we saw our first sign for Iraq, which is only about 70 miles further down the road.  We'll be heading that way on Saturday (although we'll stop before we get to the border!). Almost forgot; en-route we saw our first camper van in Syria, French registered and heading in the other direction.  Damn tourists.

We had dinner in a former Art Deco theatre, in which women diners' outnumbered men for the first time in Syria which made a nice change.  The place was very relaxed, with many water pipes being enjoyed and Christmas dinner for us consisted of kibbeh and mixed salad starter, then chicken shwarma and 'sliced meat in earthenware' (which turned out to be a bit like a casserole, but with chips in and cheese on top; sounds weird but tasted lovely) with plenty of flat bread.