Day 22 - Aleppo

We were planning to meet with Leila today, but as luck would have it she had some food poisoning so we were without our fun guide for a couple of days. Nonetheless she dragged herself to our hotel and aimed us at the Christian district to explore, and then went home herself for rest.

Leah and I wandered around old churches and through markets but this only takes a couple of hours, and without a guidebook we don't know what we're missing down the narrow streets. We walked to a huge park and relaxed on a bench, but somehow as we left the park an 8 year-old boy started to follow us from here. Everytime we turned a corner he was right there, 3 meters behind us. When we would stop suddenly he would either stop right beside us, or continue for about 3m past us and pretend to look into a shop window. Eventually we get back to the Christian district and we bought some ice-cream for ourselves. The kid sat at a bench about 10m from us, but before long he has moved to a bench right beside us.

To me, this means this is no longer some secret agent game - he is angling for some kind of attention from us. Instead of giving in I decide to outsmart him and we lose our shadow in a crowd of tourists. A few tiny alleys later and we've lost him - I win the game!

Lots more aimless wandering around Aleppo and that is our day. But all the time we keep looking back, thinking that we heard the shuffling feel of that kid.