Ave

The Romans sacked it! Those damn Italians... All that is left of the pearl of the desert are Ruins. Very impressive ones, however! Impressive enough for us three to get up at 4:30 (read: Four Thirty) in the morning to visit them at sunrise. The first picture is taken from the Arabic Citatel and on the top you see the oasis from where the third picture is taken (on which you can in turn see the citadel ;-)). On the second there are the actual ruins of this once magnificent city. So from the arabic citadel we walked through the ruins to the Oasis and there really is water! A steady stream flows through the Oasis and we immediatly started to search the lake where the water would be coming from. The 'lake' (a diesel powered water pump) turned out to be less impressive than expected but the Oasis was incredibly beautiful. Keep in mind that more than 150 kilometres in every direction there is only desert and you are in a paradise of olive bushes, fig trees and pomegranade growth. After watering our horses we continued our crusade to Damascus. There we just visited the bus station to get ripped off a bit before we continued to Mar Musa.