sunrise in hatay

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(Update: oh I am here, I am here!  It took almost 8 hours–to travel approximately 90 kilometers–but I am here, and as head-over-heels fallen for this place as I ever was, as I ever have been since the first time across that border eight years ago.)

Having been refused a visa at the Syrian consulate in İstanbul (which totally was not enforcing that regulation on American passport-holders fıve years ago, when I walked out with a multiple entry visa the same day), the sane thing to do would probably be to sigh, enjoy the manifold pleasures of Turkey, and save a return to Syria for another summer.  Only a crazy person would, say, jump on the 16 hour overnight bus to Antakya and then head to the border sans visa, having heard that some travelers have been getting them at the crossing–albeit with a 5-7 hour wait, for Americans, whose papers must be faxed to Damascus and back.

But I am exactly that kind of crazy person, and here I sit at dawn in the Antakya otogar–which is sadly now on the outskirts of town, depriving me of the chance to eat künefe for breakfast, but also has got internet!–waiting for the Has bus to take me to the border.  Inşallah I will lay my head down tonight in Aleppo, and tomorrow morning, head onwards to Damascus to meet R., who will be there this week.  If I don’t get the visa, well, the food in Antakya is a pretty good consolation prize, and it will be good to spend some time here–since last leaving, I wrote a masters’ thesis and a bunch of conference papers about this place, all that time never coming back myself.  We have a lot to catch up on, Hatay and I.  I’m just going to try to stop by and say hello to some other beloved cities (waterwheels,  souqs, tamarind juice, the storyteller in the cafe behind the Ummayyad mosque, Bab Touma) first.  Fingers crossed.

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