Taxi to border (stop at taxi headquarters, stop at random cafe’ for a coffee and hand our passports over to the guy serving coffee, apparently some type of translation is necessary although this doesn’t feel like an official translation service. Back in the car and drive to the border, speak to the border guards and passports checked, drive 500m back into Jordan, get out of our taxi and into another taxi to drive 500m back to the border?????, passports checked by 4 different people and entrance visa fee charged (even though we’re leaving) and back into the original taxi to drive 500m to the Syrian side of the border, get out and join queue to speak to immigration officials, sent to another queue to pay for visa, back to original queue, back out to parking lot to find license plate of car (car missing but eventually driver and car found stocking up on duty free), back to first queue passports stamped, drive 200m and have passports checked, drive 300m and have car and passports checked and ..... we’re in Syria. Then we drive for 30 minutes and the car pulls over and a guy on a moped (apparently the driver’s brother) gets in and our driver gets out and takes off on the moped. We arrive in Damascus 45 minutes later we’re we get transferred to another, decidedly more “local” taxi for the trip to our hotel! We spend the rest of the day wandering through the alley ways and markets of old Damascus city and come across a beautifully ornate mosque. We sit and watch in the corner as people pass by during their prayer time. An eventful day is capped off by a wonderful four course meal at an authentic Syrian restaurant.
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