Breakfast at Hotel Le Sketch was piddling - cucumbers, boiled eggs, and bread, and none of us would touch the cucumbers or the boiled eggs, so we stocked up on provisions (read: chocolate) at this friendly neighborhood retailer before departing. This sort of corner market has been common in every town we've visited, from Istanbul to Urfa.
Piling into the bus - seriously, we looked like a clown car in reverse - we set out for Ataturk Dam. Ataturk Dam is the second-largest dam in the world, and is really, really hard to photograph. Because the whole thing is so dang big, you inevitably lose a lot of scale. Best I can do is zoom in on this electrical line - see the bottom picture. Now try to find it in the zoomed-out one. See? Big.
And here we have Blase. He wanted to stand inside the monument, but we took a peak and it was filled with cobwebs and creepy-crawlies, so that plan was nixed.
Still life with Garet and trash can:
We reverse-clown car'd our way back onto the bus, and drove until we hit (not literally) the Euphrates River. Seriously. The Eurphrates River. So of course we had to stop and mess around for a bit.
Jimena's like "EEEEEE that's cold!"
I'm like, "EEEEEEE that's cold!"
Maeghan's like, "Whatever, ya'll. In Canada, we call this bathwater."
Okay, so it really wasn't that bad once you adjusted, but those rocks were dang slippery.
Discarded sandles.
Contemplatively skipping stones. Dude! We were wading in the Euphrates! Civilization arose here because of this river (well, it and the Tigris). The existance of the river informed an enormous chunk of early history. I had to sit down. And, of course, skip stones.
I don't remember the name of this town, but we adjourned here for lunch. In search of pide, Maeghan, Juh, and I wandered into a restaurant and were quite surprised when we were waved to the second floor. About half the seats on the first floor were empty, and then we got it - there were no women on the first floor.
Sweet onion chutney, we'd wandered into a gender-segregated restaurant.
We went upstairs, which was much fuller, hotter, and with a floor that creaked unreassuringly. It was a long time before a waiter found us, although it was apparently because the manager was trying to find someone who spoke English, as we were clearly as foreign as we could possibly be. However, our Turkish was more than suitable for ordering, and I think the waiter was a little hurt. Oh, well.
We figured they didn't get a lot of foreigners in that restaurant, because everybody was staring at us. Two tables over, a girl eating a salad kept missing her mouth. She was a little distracted.
Anyway.
The pide was good, we paid for it, and got ice cream on our way back to the meet-up point. Which...had been moved, or rather delayed. Everyone was still at a restaurant across the street. Maeghan, Juh, and I met them there, and hung out stealing French fries (Tr. cips) from Garet until everyone was ready to leave. Even then, trying to get fifteen exchange students to go the same direction is like trying to get cats to walk in parade, and in all the kerfluffle, Can the Chaperon left his phone, glasses, and cigarettes at the table. Eagle-eyed Maeghan brought them back to the bus. (No, Virginia, that cigarette is not lit)
We stopped at the hotel de jour in Kahta to drop off our luggage before climbing into another bus - smaller even than the usual one - to bounce off to [somewhere]. The scenary was very scenic.
Maeghan, characteristically exhuberant.
Me, less so.
One gets the feeling that someone really doesn't want people driving on this bridge. Which is justifiable. It dates from Roman times.
Because everything about it is immense, it's hard to get a sense of scale. It looks innocuous enough in this picture, yes?
But you put someone - say, Maeghan - in the picture, and holy guacamole, that sucker is big.
The river gorge.
Jimena and Can the Chaperon frollicking on the riverbank below.
Maeghan, Blase, and the resident pooch.
I monitored these kids with a camera for a good ten minutes trying to get a good one with shadows. Does it count as stalking if it's for artistic purposes?
Locals having a swim and a barbecue...
...quite a long ways away.
And having explored the bridge, it was back on the bus and off to Arsameia, a stack of ruins from the Commagene empire dating to the first century B.C.
Cave!
The trek to...another cave!
Fernanda, all blue and cute.
Blase...equally blue and slightly less cute.
THE WRITING ON THE WALL.
Juliana comes over the mountain.
This is, according to signage, King Antiochus I shaking hands with Herakles (Hercules).
Maeghan has a sock on her head. It's a long story.
And then onto the bus again and off to Mt. Nemrut, which I previously alluded to here. There really isn't a fast way get there; every possibly route is the scenic route. With accompanying livestock.
I'm going to assume that this is a Canadian thing, but apparently on road trips in Canada, when the car passes a field of cows, it is customary to open a window and shout, "HEY, COW!" and then count the number of cows that look up at the interruption.
Well, we passed cows, or rather the cows passed us, as I believe they were moving somewhat faster than we were - it wasn't so much a road as a gully - and naturally Maeghan felt it necessary to flag down the animals. Even if it meant throwing herself across the the seats in order to get to a window.
Maeghan:
Cows:
It was a long trip - made longer by the fact that certain persons among our number were still feeling the goat from the night before. Namely, Jimmer. I'm not going to go into details, but it was very wise of the driver to keep bags in the bus.
And so it went.
Can the Chaperon described this as Turkey's answer to NASA.
That nearest hill is in fact a mountain - Mt. Nemrut. The lack of trees in the vicinity makes guestimating the size somewhat tricky, but kindly take my word for it when I say that it's really big.
Garet, Maeghan, and some of the more congenial security guys got in a snowball fight with some of the never-melts snow.
Hiking up. I can almost hear the theme music.
I leave you to draw your own conclusions:
Maeghan, Garet, Juh, and Blase. The woman facing away is the long-suffering guide.
Garet's Nike commercial.
It was a long hike! And there was altitude! Lots of altitude! Piles of altitude!
Garet needed to lie down for a bit.
Maeghan crests the summit! (Or rather, as near to the summit as you're allowed to go!) I like to imagine music from The Lord of the Rings with this picture.
And lo! There were wacky statues!
Blase and friends.
Some background! Mt. Nemrut is believed to be the burial place of King Antiochus I of the Commagene empire. Antiochus was descended of both Persian and Hellenistic blood, and this is supposed to be evident in his iconography, presumably to people better trained than I. He dictated that his tomb should be on top of the mountain, so that he would be as close as possible to the gods.
And then, for some unknown reason, it was surrounded with garden gnomes.
Blase, playing with shadows:
Juliana needs her own band.
All the exchange students crowded up on a rock. (Valerio, Tinkerbell, Jimena, Valeria, Blase, Can the Chaperon, Fernanda, Maeghan, moi, Juliana, Danza, Derick, Garet, and Mota!)
Which was actually this rock, but the man who'd kindly offered to take our picture zoomed in, so it's not really visible.
Sunset:
Blase, having a...moment:
Remember Aslan's How from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? I always imagined it like this.
To get to Nemrut's other monument, we had to cross one of those permanent snow fields. Which was kind of like trying to walk through a slushie. I almost made it, but fell at the end and got snow down my pants. Brrr..
It's...kind of eerie, actually.
There was a terrace, so naturally, we needed to pose, etc.
Valeria, Tinkerbell, Jimena, Blase, and a faraway plane.
Garet, in faux-meditation.
And me.
Emo pic!
I wasn't kidding when I said that Juh needed a band.
Silhouettes at twilight:
And the hike back down the mountain into night.
Final shot of sunset.
And a fifteen-second exposure of the bus, Kahta, and Valerio flitting through.
