All roads lead to Damascus

The old adage 'all roads lead to Damascus' has been haunting me for a couple of weeks now, and especially now as the lights of Damascus glow on the horizon.

I'm excited at the prospect of exploring the ancient souqs of this legendary city, nearly as old as human habitation itself. I'm imagining a mish-mash of modern and ancient, a fusion of the old and the new, and as always, people living, working and playing - exactly as they have done here for the past 10 to 12 thousand years. And although my imagination was right in one sense - the fusion of old and new coupled with people living daily life - in another sense, my imagination did not cover in necessary depth the auditory and visual overload that accompanies the first visit to this new but oh so old city...

Taxis haggle for space and customers, tooting their horns incessantly. You want taxi? they yell to everyone and no one in particular. Newspaper sellers holler their daily news, and a man demonstrates the latest in leather wallets to a crowd of interested, prospective buyers. We enter the souqs, an expansive, sprawling, high roofed market, where all manner of goods are bought and sold, the scene manic yet somehow controlled. My Arabic has improved since we entered Syria, and I can now respond to 'What's your name?' and 'Where are you from?' in native tongue - not a big step, but it certainly gets a good response. Shopkeepers and touts ask (in Arabic, of course) if we speak Arabic, and I respond by holding my thumb and index finger close together and replying 'small' in Arabic. They respond in crazed delight, laughing and shaking hands. It's fantastic!

A small, hole-in-the-wall sells falafel rolls piled high with fresh salad, hummus and lemon, and the merchant beams each time we saunter up the lane to his shop for our falafel fix. But falafel is not the only delicacy in Damascus – delicious lemon, vanilla, mango and berry ice-cream topped with crushed pistachios. I’ve found heaven on earth packed into a crisp cone –call it a fetish but I’m somewhat aroused as I write about these iced delights…Mmmm, ice cream and pistachios.

The Ummayad Mosque – the largest in Damascus, and one of the largest and oldest in the world, is a breathtaking sight. We enter, and I’m impressed by the variety of people in here: it’s packed with families, worshippers and holy men, demonstrating to me the lived-ness of Islam here in Syria. Like Muslims in Turkey, people pray here 5 times a day, and I'm touched once again by the evident devotion and commitment Syrians show to one of the world's most misunderstood religions.