Syria 2003

Inline skating in Palmyra, Tartus and Damascus, Januari 2003

The desert road going from Damascus to Palmyra (continuing to Baghdad).

Watch this! The distance from Damascus to Palmyra is ca 250 km. Parts of the desert road has good asphalt and in January it is not to hot to skate.

It was not much traffic but if you want to skate here you must have a follow car driving behind you to avoid that the large trucks heading for Baghdad run over you.

Unfortunately I could not try to skate - I was the only driver.

Palmyra. It was a great feeling to skate sourounded by roman ruins and colonnades. People were very friendly; cheering, applausing and racing against me with mopeds, tractors and a "tuc tuc".

Inline skating in Palmyra, Syria
Palmyra. In case of loss I brought my oldest inlines on this trip.

Inline skating in Palmyra, Syria
Palmyra. I skated this road forth and back many many times. Later I saw that the route could have been extended with the road going to the Palmyra race course (outside the photo to the right).

(Photo: M. al Roumi.)

Inline skating in Palmyra, Syria
After skate in Palmyra. When it got to dark to skate I was invited for a cup of tea.

(Photo taken with selftimer.)

Tartus at the Mediterranean sea. We arrived at Tartus late in the evening. When I woke up next morning and I looked out from the hotel window this is what I saw... ==>

...but it was impossible to skate. (Photo: M. Anell)

Skating in Damascus. Don't even try it. (Photo: M. Anell)


Damascus. Nowhere to skate...


Luckily I found Dr Lolei's clinic.

As a substitute to skating in Damascus I spent some evenings here on the stepmachine.

(Published by courtesy of J.Ask.)

Vikingarännet January 2003.
36 hours after having returned from the vaccation in Syria I participated in the ice skating race Vikingarännet (80 km on ice, ca 3650 skaters). I (left) ended up as nr 15 and was happy with that while Daniel Edman (right) seems dissapointed with beeing nr 14.

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