Adventure into Kurd Land: An Account in Photos

I had one of the most amazing weekends of my life. 

Yes, ladies and gents. I ventured into what I will call "Kurd land" --South East Anatolia. Yes, this is the same ethnic group in Northern Iraq that is fighting (sometimes very violently) for autonomy. I took my trusted co-worker Edgar, and two yalie friends, Lynda and Pawel on this journey. 

My itinerary is as follows: 

Friday: Fly to Urfa. Spend time there. Midnight drive North to Nemrut Dagi for Sunrise. 

Saturday: Nemrut at Sunrise, travel south to Urfa. Travel to Mardin via Diyarbakir (known as the "capital" of the Kurds) 

Sunday: Mardin then Hasankeyf. Spend the night with "Doga" or "Nature" NGO

Monday: Hasankeyf, Batman, and Diyarbakir before flying back to Istanbul 

Because the experience is more personal and definitely in my journal, I will show some select pictures to you to explain some salient points. 

URFA: Pictured above you see part of Urfa, one of the most religious cities in Turkey. My friends, I spent most of my day veiled. The call to prayer here is mystifying and powerful, as it should be for the birthplace of the prophet Abraham. Pictured here is the cave where he was born. Urfa had a unique effect on me: It was a farmer's town but also a salvage town of flea markets. Everyone had a moustache. It smelled like my bubby's house. In some odd way, I felt like I was revisiting my childhood and reinvestigating where I came from, on so many levels. 

NEMRUT DAGI: Built in 62 BC, these statues of Greek, Persian, and Armenian Gods watch the sunrise everyday. I wanted to as well. So after calling up a travel company, we soon found ourselves driving through Kurdish countryside for 5 hours on back roads at midnight. Our driver, Yousef, was just about the craziest and most popular guy in the industry (which is tiny...not many international tourists come here). He had limericks and rhymes and nicknames for each of us. I was "Princess Diana Danielle Topatin." Apparently we were going to Mexico with him... Anyways. Nemrut Dagi to me was the most... well. I am lost for words. There are somethings that cannot and should not be described. I refused to take pictures of the sunrise itself (a sort of primordial soup that looked like the earth and sky were one, with a scar of red bleeding through the center), but found more interest in the awe of man. What is truly amazing is our reverence for nature. The fact that I climbed a mountain at 3 AM in FREEZING cold weather to see this is one thing. The sunrise itself is inexplicable. However, the fact that someone wanted to build a tomb or a monument up there in respect for nature--now that is inspiring. 

Yousef also took us on more excursions to see Greek, Roman, Persian, Seljuk, and Ottoman ruins. Here I'm just climbing on a rock. Yes, that is a steep drop..... The little bugger, for 60+ years old was spry. Being that we were in bible land, he also took us to swim in the Euphrates. I discovered a love for apricots with him. 

We got to Mardin, eventually (the bussing there... checkpoints because of Kurd/Turkish tension, kinda scary). It is a beautiful city on a hill. Perfect defense strategy because you could see so far into the distance, it looked like the earth and the sky were one. However, I can't say the same about the place we stayed. the walls were falling into the mountain side and the shower did not work. That said, I had a goodnight sleep there. We had an excellent dinner at a restaurant actually owned by a woman--the first I have seen outside of Istanbul. Normally men do the cooking. These pictures don't do the city justice. Look it up online. It is such an amazing city....

Next to Hasankeyf. My friends at TOG hooked me up with an NGO there called "Doga" or "Nature." They are trying to save Hasankeyf from the flooding the dam building will cause. Luckily, it stopped this past Wednesday! Hasankeyf it basically a city of caves along water. One of the most beautiful and untouched sites I have ever seen. The city only has one motel, but we stayed in the "Nature house" instead. Hence the inflatable couch you see--where I slept instead of the bed: I like couches more. It was a concrete building with plastic table clothes on the roof, but it was so quaint. Hasankeyf is only like 2,000 people and many have parents who used to live in the cave. The city dates back before Christ and has an amazing castle on a cliff--where I am standing, overlooking an old bridge. The river is the Tigris. So YES, I swam in BOTH the Tigris and Euphrates river. We joked that if we were carried away by the current, call Baghdad and warn them we will be there soon... Hasankeyf taught me about temperance, about living a life of happiness, simplicity, good fruit, and doing things when they need to be done. Live a good healthy life for your body--and don't be afraid to have a cigarette at 2 AM to get the mosquitos away..... 

The next day we had breakfast in a cave and set out for Batman to go to Diyarbakir. We eventually get to Diyarbakir and tour the old Ulu Camii in the 43 degree celsius heat, or 109 degrees F. IT WAS HOT. We are eventually won over by an English/Spanish/turkish/Kurdish speaker outside of the mosque. I knew he was selling carpets. He took us in for chai a street over. Soon I was haggling for carpets. The one guy, Hasan, pictured above worked for ABC and NBC as a Kurdish translator. He showed me business cards of the men he worked with and how he does an international rug trade. Kurdish rugs are quite a different game. Apparently business has soured with recent conflict, but he loves the adventure it provides. We became great friends and I basically stole the rug I liked from him: a medium size on for my dorm room, half carpet, half kilim, made by nomad around 50 years ago. This place had OLD rugs... Not a SINGLE tourist in site. Who goes to the capital of the Kurds for vacation? Not even the Turks....  We also went to an Assyrian Church (not Orthodox under Batholomew) of like 30 people. The church was built in the 1100s and the people still worship there speak Aramaic... AMAZING. 

So all in all this was an adventure. THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO TELL YOU I HAVE ONLY SCRATCHED THE 1%. I will stop though and you just have to ask me questions..... So many coincidences, so many experiences. So many thoughts. I loved this area. I feel in culture shock now.

BTW: MY RASH IS FROM MY DETERGENT! Yay for figuring that one out....