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Follow the Women Bicycle Ride April 2007 |
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April 6. Participants are arriving in Aleppo, Syria. It is sunny and green there.
Today is a day for being tourists in Aleppo as others arrive.
Laurie and I arrived in the morning. Our sponsor in Syria Areeba
met us and made sure we all were comfortable. There are 432,048 Palestinian Refugees in camps in Syria and 700,000 Iraq refugees since US invasion. Friday night we went to the Christian section of Aleppo. On Good Friday people go to seven different churches in a procession. My sandwich and drink for supper cost 1 US dollar. A few years ago it was illegal to use dollars in Syria. April 7. Marci, a member of the American team was a day late because her luggage was lost in Amman Jordan Today we cycled 40 Km through the countryside and had lunch at St.Simions another Christian site. It rained on our way home. Tonight we are going to the souk |
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| April 8. Today we took the train to the Syrian coast on the Mediterranean. It was a lovely ride through fields of olive trees, sheep with lambs and artichokes. There we bicycled for 40 km. Part way into the ride I realized the woman bicycling beside me was Mrs. Assad. She rode the full ride which included two difficult hills. I talked with her about her husband's appearance on Good Morning America. Tonight we are in a hotel overlooking the sea. I rode half the ride with an Iranian girl who was a novice biker. Our days are intense starting around 7am and ending with dinner and dancing around 10:30pm. We have not had time for sightseeing but we are all learning about each other as we ride. |
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| April 9 We had a
lovely night in Latakia, Syria. Leaving early to make the
Syrian/Lebanese border. There all our plans for the day collapsed.
There were concerns about the Palestinians. Five hours
sitting in a bus in the sun before they let us through. We experienced a tiny
bit of the hardships the Palestinians encounter almost everywhere.
We had a great supper overlooking the Mediterranean in Beirut.
Everybody danced our frustrations away. 404,170 Palestinian refugees in camps in Lebanon. |
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| April 10 We cycled 50 km from Sidon through Beirut. Sidon is
a lovely town that in the past was a Phoenician settlement, then a
trading village. We were welcomed with juice and butter cookies.
It was a lovely ride with the sea on the left and and fields on the
right. One child gave me a necklace made of orange blossoms. It
smelled good the whole way.
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| April 11 We split up. Marci going to Tripoli and Laurie going to an ancient city, while Mary and I went to Bekka Valley. We had an excellent ride past grape vines and vineyards. We had a lunch by a lake. |
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| April 12 We
toured the ruins at Baalbek, converted into a fortress during the
Byzantine era, the former temple changed hands several times
during the Arab invasions in the 7th and 8th
centuries. We spent the night in a hotel outside Damascus, Syria April 13 Crossing by bus into Jordan, we stayed at a youth hostel outside Amman. The conference planned was shortened to one evening due to time constraints. 1,827,877 Palestinian refugees in Jordan. |
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| April 14 Today we cycled up Mount Nebo, a long and hilly ride. Mount Nebo is one of the most revered holy sites of Jordan, located 10 km west of the Roman Byzantine town of Madaba, for this is where Moses was buried. |
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| April 15
The 110 of us who were not Arab or Persian passed
through Israeli checkpoint at the Allenby Bridge and after a bus
ride and another checkpoint rode bikes to Jericho. It took the
group 5 hours to get through the border checkpoint. The ride
into Jericho is always amazing. We were greeted with home cooked
food and friendship. We are sleeping at a Hotel in Jericho tonight.
699,817 Palestinian refugees in camps in the West bank. 986,034 Palestinian refugees in Gaza. |
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| April 16
Today we rode into Bethlehem and along the wall. It snakes around
through neighborhoods separating neighbors. We stopped at a university
and painted our own graffiti on the wall. We are staying in a Greek
Church Guest House in Beit Sahour.
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| April 17 After going through another checkpoint we rode into Jerusalem! Oh the hills! Oh the traffic! We toured the city. It was amazing. We had lunch at a school that was originally an orphanage for Palestinian children. It is not that there are any fewer orphans than before, but they are not allowed into Jerusalem. |
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| The pictures on the right are a destroyed Olive Grove,
one of the main income sources for Palestinians and a sports area that
was saved from demolition by peaceful protest and legal challenges.
April 18 After many hugs we left our Palestinian members and rode back to Jordan where we split up. |
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| After the Ride April 19 Today Laurie, my family and I toured Giza, Egypt. April 20 We walked to the Egyption Museum. An amazing collection of stuff. Every building has soldiers in front and metal detectors.. April 21 Today we walked around Cairo. Tonight we are taking a sleeper train to Aswan. April 22 arrived early in Aswan. The train ride was good. It is VERY hot here. There is a distinct Nubian culture in this area with domed homes. We toured the Aswan dam and one of the temples moved out of the rising water. April 23 Today we toured Abu Simbel. A temple about 3 hours trip by car. April 24 We joined a caravan lead by police and rode in a van to Luxor. Everyone drove very fast and did not brake for donkeys. April 25 We are staying at a nice resort by the Nile with its own crocodile. We sailed in a falukkah (Egyption sailboat) up and down the Nile. April 26 We walked to Karnak temple. Tomorrow we fly to Cairo and home.
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There are 240,000 Palestinian
refugees in Saudi Arabia and 70,245 in Egypt. There are 4.9 million
registered with the UN. Except for Jordan these human beings live
in camps with little representation and few rights. They
are a combination of Sunni Muslim and Christian.
There are 500,00 to 750,00 Iraqi refugees in Iran. Over 4 million worldwide. http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2007/05/13/iraqi_refugees_in_iran/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58648-2005Feb2.htm Other websites: http://ifamericaknew.com/ look up Brian Avery and Rachel Corrie http://justice4lebanon.wordpress.com/tag/commentators/uni-avery/ Beirut by Bike, the organization that rented us bicycles and transported the for most of the trip donated bicycles to the Palestinians. |
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