Driving in the desert is difficult, as scenery remains unchanged for miles and roads are often covered with sand that is moved by strong winds. Cars also suffer in the desert, due to running in high temperatures. This is why travellers feel relieved when they encounter a sign of human existence in the vast, burning horizon unfolding in front of them.

An artist of the desert

On the road leading from Damascus to Baghdad, in the middle of the Syrian Desert, there is a coffee house called Baghdad Café. From the first moment the travellers stop there, they feel like they are standing in an outdoor art gallery, where painted stones, carved rocks, graven iron sheets and other beautiful objects made of common materials are being exhibited.

The owner, a young Syrian living all alone in a dome-shaped house, offers passers-by exceptionally flavoured tea and small desert stones painted by him. These, he says, are his business cards and he gives them to passers-by so that they remember him.

This desert artist, who decided to live far away from civilization, confesses that he misses the female presence, but he understands that it’s hard for a woman to join him, with no luxury at all, in almost complete solitude.

Total silence

Wars raging in the Middle East increase the Baghdad Café's owners’ solitude, since no one travels to Bagdad through Syria anymore. The sound of the few cars driving by, breaking the monotony of his silent life, is being heard less and less.
TEXT-PHOTOS: GEORGE ZAFEIROPOULOS
SOURCE: www.greecewithin.com

(This article was written before the Syrian civil war. Nobody knows what happened to the artist of the desert) 

MORE PHOTOS

The dome-shaped house is the best shelter in the desert's horrible heat

A desert stone, painted by the coffee house artist.

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