At the last minute we decided to visit Syria. We didn’t know that much about it, except that it’s part of the junior varsity axis of evil, and Damascus is the oldest city on earth. Every travel blog and forum we read told us to ignore whatever preconceptions we had and go because the people are extremely friendly and there is lots of cool stuff to see. The only hurdle was that we didn’t have a visa. We also read that this wouldn’t be a problem if we were willing to wait 5 or 6 hours for them to fax a visa request to Damascus. In fact, it would be only $16 for the visa at the border, as opposed to if we had planned in advance and got one in the US for $100. Yeah procrastination!
The border guard was very friendly and told us he didn’t know how long it would take, but we could hang out in the coffee shop. We debated about whether to wait things out there, or get a room at the conveniently located hotel right at the border and retrieve our passports in the morning. The decision was made for us abruptly as we got a taste of Bedouin revenge. It hit me first and I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. Christine got it the next morning, and both of us were in pretty bad shape the rest of the day. I don’t think there’s a need to go on here, but feel free to email for more details if you are interested.