In the evening from Olympos, I took a bus to the top of the valley, another bus for two hours to Antalya, and another bus for fifteen (!!!) hours to Antakya, near Syria. I was sore, I hurt all over, and although I had my neck pillow this time, I could not sleep much because I was too uncomfortable. Before I even got my bag from under the bus, I had a guy telling me that if I wanted to go to Syria I had to hurry to catch the next bus. I had just finished 3 bus trips and wanted to rest. I let him lead me to a food stall/money changer because I was completely out of Turkish money to pay for the bus. The transaction happened very fast with my hundred dollar bill turning into a fifty, ten Turkish lira, and some Syrian money of which I had no idea what the value was. (I checked later and wasn’t cheated). Then he showed me the bus and disappeared with my passport and the Turkish lira. I sat on the bus for 15 minutes and when the bus was about to leave, I started to get worried about my passport. He came back at the last moment. Whew! We drove about an hour to the Turkish border, which was backed up about a mile with trucks. We all got off and walked for about half a mile to the border while the bus tried to make it through. 
My problem was that I had no visa. In Istanbul the Syrian embassy said, “It is impossible for you to get a visa at the border.” I had read that you could pay extra (wink wink) and get a visa. When I got to the border and they saw that I had no visa, I was taken into a supervisor’s office on the side and questioned in terrible English. There were too many people around to consider offering a bribe in any way. He told me they would fax Damascus and I had to wait. I got there at noon. At two, they asked me more questions and faxed again. At four-ish, they asked the same questions and I talked to the commanding officer and they faxed again. In the mean time, I met a Jordanian guy that had been there for a few days waiting because he forgot to say on his first visa that he was going back through Syria again after going to Turkey. I hung out with him at the outdoor café, drank tea, ate a kebab, and watched a Turkish soap opera with a bunch of grizzled Turkish truck drivers. At six, a taxi driver offered to drive me into Aleppo (my bus abandoned me of course). He woke me up at 11:30, sleeping on a bench in the lobby, and told me my visa was ready. Then he helped me find the guy in the vestibule in the back of the building that sold me some postage stamps to put inside my passport. The taxi driver even used some of his own change when I was short. Back at the visa window, I waited for the slowest man ever to process my visa. Finally, after waiting for me for 6 hours of my 12 hours there, the taxi driver drove me across the border at midnight to Aleppo, 38 miles away (60km) away. I knew $20 USD was too much, but I didn’t care. He still had to drive further than that home.
