Sunday 7 November 2010

From Aleppo





It is a good feeling to be on an empty road, heading into the hills. The highway out of Damascus is loud and full of heavy lorries, trundling to Baghdad, Aleppo, Beirut. It is quiet here; there are a few houses set back from the road amidst dusty fields and orchards of olive trees. And I ride slowly up the gently rising hillside to Maalula.


The village sits between two grey-faced cliffs; concrete houses and crucifix-spired churches and narrow lanes are crammed between the walls of stone that overhang the little village. On the ledge of the southern outcrop there is a statue of the virgin Mary, in blue robes, head-bowed. On the northern hillside a gleaming white figure of Jesus, arms outstretched, stares out across the valley.


Beneath the crest of the northern rockface there is a white-bricked convent. I lean my bike against the open metal gates and ask one of the nuns if İ may stay the night here. She looks down disapprovingly at my knees and says İ must speak to Sister Mariam. I follow her through a courtyard, past a small shelter full of icons and candles, past the brass-gilded doors of the chapel, into a brightly lit corridor. Sister Mariam smiles and looks down disapprovıngly at my knees and İ say İ am on a bicycle and she nods and points me to a bedroom.


She tells me that if İ follow a path through the rocks behind, and climb up the hill, I will come to another church. She says it is one of the oldest ın the world. She says the fathers there still speak Amharic. I walk there later, through a narrow cleft ın the rock, which seems to have formed inconceivably; it is just a few feet wide and banked on both sides by shear walls of stone, sixty feet high. In the courtyard to the church a father in black robes stands smiling, staring at two cats playing. He doesn't notice me and I go into the little stone chapel and light a candle.


In the morning I walk down the steps towards the village and Sister Mariam calls me back. She leads me into a dining room and gives me warm bread and olives and boiled eggs and a bowl of walnut jam.


İ coast down the hill and rejoin the highway. The pine trees on the roadside bow towards me; their narrow trunks bent by strong southerly winds. Today the wind flows from behind me and I ride fast. Cars flash past and the endless fields of barren yellow earth roll by. The days are short now and night is already falling as İ reach the clocktower at Hama, 170 km to the north. A shallow green river runs through the town and on the banks old wooden waterwheels are attached to crumbling walls. They are not turning anymore. I sleep on the roof of a hotel and am woken before dawn by all the calls to prayer trumpeting out across the city. I look up, bleary eyed, at neon minarets glowing green in every direction.


There is little to draw my eyes from the tar ahead of the handlebars, on the road to Aleppo. The land is flat and the fields the same. Groups of women in multi-coloured shawls, and shemaghs masking their faces, pick olives from the low trees off the road, and there is litter strewn along the dry ditches beside the tarmac. I think it is a shame that İ must take the highway, but my map does not show the country roads.


Aleppo is an old city and there is a great citadel on a mound at its centre. Near the foot of the citadel a network of enclosed alleyways runs for what seems to be miles, housing the city's souk. The tunnels are full wıth crowds; boys on bicycles, men on scooters, women carrying heavy sacks on their heads, and tea-boys rushing around with trays held high. I spend a morning here, and ask some of the stall-holders if I may take their photographs. Tomorrow I ride to Turkey.


1 comment:

  1. I started reading your blog because I am planning a cycle trip to Jinja Uganda then I came across this gem. I have only recently known Aleppo or what is left of it. I imagine it must be strange for you to think all the beauty you saw is no more. I am glad you shared your experience

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