The sun is shining!

Had some problems with the internet-connections in the beginning of my time in Syria, but there seems to be no problems over here in Tartus. After two great days in Aleppo I moved on to Lattakia for a night. I joined two new friends from England and Scotland (Jennie and Fred) on the train, and also the day after (yesterday).

Outisde of Lattakia there's a couple of cool tourist sights and we did spend the day together exploring some of them. We started with the old "Saladins castle" half an hour away from the town. The castle it self is mostly ruins nowadays, but the location and the view of the surroundings where amazing! Also quite funny to just climb around in old ruins when the sun is shining.

After the climbing excercises we really felt it was about time to head back towards the sea, and so we did. Minibus for another 20 minutes in the other direction from the town took us to a beach, a beach with almost black sand! Jennie, Fred (and all the locals) thought it was a bit to windy for a swim, but that couldn't stop me. It wasn't very hot, but compared to the lakes in Sweden it was acceptable and I really enjoyed it. Life is good to me!

After a break at a restaurant in Lattakia (where we were invited to the kitchen to choose between the different fishes they had caught today) I took the bus down to Tartus and they moved on towards Hama. But we were about to meat again.

Tartus isn't a very big town and when it comes to hotels aren't the selection very big, especially not for budget hotels. The result of this was that I ended up in some kind of luxury hotel for one night. Not really what I was looking for, but sometimes it's really nice to just relax in a big, soft bed and enjoy a large breakfast.

After thtat breakfast I caught another minibus and went to the cool (and well restored) "Crac des Chevalliers", probably one of the best playgrounds in the world. Huge walls, towers and a big castle, everything very well restored, it was truly an exciting day-trip. And I got to see Jennie and Fred again, as a bonus.

Hitchhiked back to Tartus and now I'm about to move on to the next country, Lebanon. I'm not done with Syria yet, but I'll go south along the coast down to Beirut and then turn east again back to Syria and Damascus. I'm looking forward to arrive in Tripoli tonight and hopefully I'll find a way to get to Cedars tomorrow or on monday. Take a swim in the sea in the morning and then do some skiing in the afternoon, that would be great.

I'm still surprised by the friendlyness in this country, it's really great. You really should go to Syria, all of you!

Keep up!