Turkey: Van
66F and a splendidly cloudless sky. Sitting on the terrace of an nice hotel here looking at sunset...
We arrived in Kars, went to the very interesting castle which overlooks this town of Orhan Pamuk, to the stern looking 9th C. Armenian Church, which an atomic blast could not touch. The hotel is boutique and inviting and rather luxe.
Early yesterday morning, we left through high Montana-looking plains on to the Armenian border. Almost flush on it is Ani, one of the great ghost cities - like Pagan, Angkor, Ephesus or Karnak - with bronze age roots and great enrichment during the Urartian times (that being essentially Armenian). The place is on a long moor almost surrounded by a gorge, with buildings and ruins from almost all periods: from an Armenian cathedral of great unfriendliness to a minaret which rather beguiles. The place is alive with birds including storks in migration. Hardly a soul there, which added enormously to its' ghostliness.
It is a site I will never forgest as I listened to the spirits... One could see Armenian troops on the hillside beyond - all terribly fearful of the Turks (who want Armenia about as much as we want Haiti).
What a staggeringly fine last couple of days. After leaving Ani the landscape changes once again into very volcanic, vast green fields filled with billions of black rocks. And suddenly, what is that whipped cream ball in the sky? Of course, it is Ararat 100km to go and it's presence dominates the horizon. We could ask the keenest traveler where they were and Turkey might be the 50th on the list. Little dwarf chalets in teased wood abound, smoke coming out of them and perfuming the air.
Armenia is just next door and just over the river. Suddenly the border is Persia - heavily fortified as though the Turks expected something untowards. Fields are cultivated in quite impossible places. We climb higher and the slopes of Ararat are visible. We see scores of nomads with their tents. The Basques of Nevada and highland Montana come to mind. Huge flocks of sheep worked by huge, fluffy, mean looking Turkish highland sheep dogs.
Ararat is closer and odder and from each angle we watch it it changes shape and mood. The north side is proasaic. The east side is rapturously eerie. The west merely volcanic and snowy.
We overnight in an awful, spartan hotel in the town of Doğubayazit - a hotel with of all things pink TVs and plaster of paris kittens in each room. It is gagaland.
We go this morning to the supposed site of the Ark... all statistics... some fanatic from Nashville having found the probably spurious calcified coral. I thought all coral was calcified. And petrified wood. Today to the odd and beautiful shores of Lake Van, which is the size of Connecticut. All is well in this country of Kurds with Iraq just over the mountains.
We arrived in Kars, went to the very interesting castle which overlooks this town of Orhan Pamuk, to the stern looking 9th C. Armenian Church, which an atomic blast could not touch. The hotel is boutique and inviting and rather luxe.
Early yesterday morning, we left through high Montana-looking plains on to the Armenian border. Almost flush on it is Ani, one of the great ghost cities - like Pagan, Angkor, Ephesus or Karnak - with bronze age roots and great enrichment during the Urartian times (that being essentially Armenian). The place is on a long moor almost surrounded by a gorge, with buildings and ruins from almost all periods: from an Armenian cathedral of great unfriendliness to a minaret which rather beguiles. The place is alive with birds including storks in migration. Hardly a soul there, which added enormously to its' ghostliness.
It is a site I will never forgest as I listened to the spirits... One could see Armenian troops on the hillside beyond - all terribly fearful of the Turks (who want Armenia about as much as we want Haiti).
What a staggeringly fine last couple of days. After leaving Ani the landscape changes once again into very volcanic, vast green fields filled with billions of black rocks. And suddenly, what is that whipped cream ball in the sky? Of course, it is Ararat 100km to go and it's presence dominates the horizon. We could ask the keenest traveler where they were and Turkey might be the 50th on the list. Little dwarf chalets in teased wood abound, smoke coming out of them and perfuming the air.
Armenia is just next door and just over the river. Suddenly the border is Persia - heavily fortified as though the Turks expected something untowards. Fields are cultivated in quite impossible places. We climb higher and the slopes of Ararat are visible. We see scores of nomads with their tents. The Basques of Nevada and highland Montana come to mind. Huge flocks of sheep worked by huge, fluffy, mean looking Turkish highland sheep dogs.
Ararat is closer and odder and from each angle we watch it it changes shape and mood. The north side is proasaic. The east side is rapturously eerie. The west merely volcanic and snowy.
We overnight in an awful, spartan hotel in the town of Doğubayazit - a hotel with of all things pink TVs and plaster of paris kittens in each room. It is gagaland.
We go this morning to the supposed site of the Ark... all statistics... some fanatic from Nashville having found the probably spurious calcified coral. I thought all coral was calcified. And petrified wood. Today to the odd and beautiful shores of Lake Van, which is the size of Connecticut. All is well in this country of Kurds with Iraq just over the mountains.
posted by ultimatetraveler at 11:00 AM
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