THE WATERFALLS

THE WATERFALLS

Another trip southwards. This time we took the old Jordan road  towards Dera’a rather than the new highway which we took to go to Bosra.  Dera’a is a fairly large market town  but we did not go in, branching off westwards in search of the waterfalls at Shallalat. The idea of waterfalls in such a flat landscape seemed rather unlikely but suddenly a deep canyon came into view and the idea became quite plausible. We took a dirt track off the main road and there, at the edge of a bluff, the small stream fell over into the ravine. At the foot of the falls three small lakes formed.  It was too difficult to get down into the ravine so we had to be content with looking.  The interesting thing about the ravine is that it marks the boundary between Syria and Jordan, so the buildings visible on the other side are in Jordanian territory.

Then we continued along the road in search of the Zeizoun falls which turned out to be right on the edge of the road, surrounded by houses.  The land around is swampy.  Women were washing the wool from their mattresses on the stones in the river before the waters fell into the abyss.  A rock sticking out of the hillside had been hewn by the water into a sculpture of a lion’s head in profile.  

Apparently there is another waterfall somewhere else in the district but that one is known only to the people at the French Embassy.  The British Embassy only knows the whereabouts of two so, as we were following the instructions given by the British Embassy, we could only visit two.

Next stop on the itinerary was the Mzerieb Lake.  To get there we had to double back  part of the way to a place called Al-Yeddudeh and then take another road which leads to the lake.  We had been looking forward to visiting the lake because we thought it would be a good place for a walk.  However, although the lakeside is surrounded by restaurants and children’s playgrounds, it proved not to be conducive to walking because each restaurant is situated right on the shore and fences off its territory making it impossible to walk around the lake.  Then, as with all natural beauty spots in Syria, the amount of rubbish lying about everywhere has to be seen to be believed and turns even the most spectacular setting into a dump.  However, nobody seems to see the rubbish at all.  The final deterrent to walking were the little boys who followed us about trying to hit the dog even as we walked.  In the end I gave this lot a mouthful and we opted to end our trip and go home.

May 16 1998