Aleppo, Syria: It may just be me, but when the bus pulls in at ten in the evening, I would swear that this is one of the dirtiest, ugliest, coldest towns in the world! I find a cheap hotel. My room has two beds and the manager says I should expect a roommate sometime later in the evening—but since it is already midnight, I think I may spend the night alone! Then I remember Ishmael and Quequeg in Moby Dick, and turn in with some misgivings. Later when the roommate does appear, he proves to be no harpooner but only a frail, elderly gentleman wearing a black camelhair robe. I can sense that he is not exactly delighted to share his room with an infidel either, but I have learned all the polite expressions in Arabic so he is comforted
Morning: I wake up feeling great! It’s time to blaze along. Aleppo is just as ugly by daylight but I find a taxi going to the border of Turkey and climb in with a collection of seedy traveling salesmen. Soon, in a desolation of barren hills, the Turkish border.
A bunch of old wool coats, robes and rags with people inhabiting them, huddled at the border would make an extraordinary photograph, but I have learned that if I show my camera, things immediately change and never for the better, so I keep my camera in my bag and the image in my head.
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