Days 50 & 51: Şanlıurfa & Nemrut Dag

Here’s where I learned to listen to other people. Three locals told me to go back to Batman and catch a bus to Urfa from there. “But look at the map,” I said, “it’s clearly easier to go to Midyat, Mardin and then Urfa.” Well. The map is full of it. The roads were horrible the entire way, and it took me something like 9 hours when it should have only been five (mostly because the bus broke down for 3 or 4 hours). Batman-Diyarbakır-Urfa might have been longer but I’m absolutely positive it would have been faster.

Because it’s Ramadan, people are a little cranky. It’s anywhere between 100-115 degrees outside and people can’t eat/drink, so it’s understandable. On the way to Urfa, I saw an old man slap our bus driver because they wouldn’t accept him and all his cargo. It was quite the spectacle. Hydrated and well-fed, I seemed to be the only one that found it funny, though. The old guy stomped around his cargo in a circle, throwing his hands up in the air and yelling in Turkish. Finally the bus driver told him no very firmly so the old man reached back and just pimp slapped him. It was a full on pimp slap to the face. I erupted in laughter because you don’t expect old Turkish men to be pimp-slapping people.

Despite the horrors of getting to Urfa, the city itself is a paradise. The streets are beautiful and clean. They’re lined with well-kept parks, fountains and trees. The shops are smart and modern, and the municipal government obviously puts a lot of pride into maintaining its city well. I had selected my accommodations ahead of time based on recent reviews by other travelers and I was not disappointed…once I arrived.

The bus company I was on was filled with angry men. The steward came and yanked me out of my seat when we pulled off on the side of the highway somewhere in Urfa. I could tell by the look in his eye that he didn’t care for me very much. He kept trying to talk to me in Turkish and I kept shrugging at him. I don’t know why his stupid ass thought that the more he repeated the same thing the more I would understand. So I hastily grabbed my things and shuffled to the door. There I asked, “Otogar?” thinking it must be somewhere off the road but he said, “Yok (No)” and gave me a little shove so that I stumbled out of the bus. I turned around to tell him what he could go do with himself but he’d already shut the door and the bus was speeding off.

So there I was in the middle of a city without a clue where I was, without a map and armed with the Turkish vocabulary of a 3-year-old. Enter the beautiful citizens of Urfa! Three men led me to the taksi stand, and I produced the piece of paper with my hotel and address on it. I negotiated a rate and off we went.

The hotel is a 300-year-old restored Armenian house nestled in one of the older districts of Urfa. I was so tired and dirty and exhausted that I negotiated a good rate for the hotel’s suite and went to enjoy the air conditioning and a shower…but not before the hotel manager tried to put me on a tour of nearby Nemrut Dagi. I really wasn’t interested so maybe it was my complete lack of interest that made him reduce the price. Honestly I wanted to go quite badly but I had already made up my mind that there was no time to spend in Urfa because of being bedridden in Diyarbakır. When he cut the price in half, though, I decided I could probably swing it and I’m so glad that I did!

The tour started at 6:00 AM, which was ridiculously early for me but I managed to roll out of bed and be downstairs at 5:50. The tour was composed of me, a Polish sculptor living in Amsterdam and a Czech couple from Prague who were a developmental biologist and architect-in-training. We made quite the odd motley crew but we managed just fine and had some great conversations to boot. We talked about traveling and its importance, I shared with them a little bit about the Bahá'í Faith and my experiences in Africa and the Polish guy told me a little bit about what to expect in Georgia.

The highlight of the trip is the summit of Nemrut Dagi, a tomb site of King Antiochus, who ruled the Commagene Kingdom in the 1^st-century BC. The Commagene was a small kingdom that seems to have never merited a mention in my history books, but they began in 80 BC and reached their height in 64-38 BC during the reign of Antiochus. He claimed Persian ancestry on his father’s side and Greek ancestry on his mother’s side, so you see both Greek and Persian influences in the ruins on top of the mountain.

Antiochus, great as he might have been, was crazy. For some reason he thought Nemrut Dagi should be taller so he made his followers flatten the top of the mountain and then pile up fist-sized limestone rocks on top until the mountain was 50m higher. Archaeologists assume that Antiochus’ tomb is under that pile of rocks but I guess funding is not forthcoming to find out for sure. Apparently there used to be more stuff around the top of the mountain but the Romans carted a bunch of it off when they invaded. They were like the ancient version of the British – invade, cart off antiquities and then slowly let the Empire decay.

One of the first archaeologists to work on the site was Karl Humann, a German guy who stole relics from Pergamon and probably also from Nemrut Dagi. What a guy. UNESCO has also stuck its nose in things by commandeering a lot of the relics and putting them in a big storage facility so that they aren’t destroyed in the next earthquake.

So this guy Antiochus was big on himself. He wanted a higher mountain but he also thought he was equal to the Gods, so he made his followers build giant 10m statues on the eastern and western sides of the mountain. The statues depict him with a bunch of different Greek and Persian deities, including Apollo, Zeus and Ahura Mazda. Making his statue the same size as the Gods and standing next to them apparently meant that he considered himself their equal. I guess either his followers did shoddy neck work or the Queen of Hearts rolled into town because earthquakes have caused all the heads to fall off.

Our guide, who took to calling us his nephews and niece, was the lookout while we climbed behind the chain to get a better look at the heads. Security has to know that people do that so I don’t know why they even bother with a chain. As long as you aren’t climbing up on the heads and stuff then I don’t see what the big deal is. On the back of many of the statues there are carvings in Greek that detail something about Antiochus’ birthday. Here’s a rough translation I made:

“The cake should be red velvet but not that cheap Kroger-brand red velvet cake mix. Like real red velvet from the bakery. And go easy on the icing, you know he’s not big on the sweets. Presents should be brought throughout the day but don’t use so much tape that he can’t open it easily. You know he likes to unwrap them carefully and save the paper for when he gives things to the grandkids. There should be no kazoos. Party hats are required.”

It was an amazing view from 2,000+ meters but I’m not gonna lie: I was cursing like a sailor whenever I saw that the bus wasn’t going to take us all the way up to the summit. We had to walk up for about 20 minutes, which was 19 minutes up a mountain too long. I was lagging behind those damned Europeans but they were gracious about it. If anyone made a “fat American” joke it was me…after I caught my breath.

After hoofing it down the mountain we headed to Arsameia, a hillside fortress built by the Hittites in the 9^th-century BC (finally, a civilization I’ve heard of). It was also used by good ol’ Antiochus, who promptly put up a statue of himself shaking hands with Apollo. He also dug a tunnel that goes nowhere and put up another statue of himself shaking hands with a naked Hercules. Before we reached the Hercules statue, our guide was blabbering something in horrible English about Hercules having no shame. Right before I get to the statue I hear him shout, “Paynis!” from behind me, which was confusing until I saw the statue and realized he meant to say penis.

On the way to another ancient site, we stopped at the Şeytan Köprüsü (Satan’s Bridge) over the Kahta River and swam in the river with some local guys who thought it was about the most amusing thing in the world to see this group of Westerners strip down and jump in with them. The water was cold but it was the most wonderful thing in the world after hoofing it around Arsameia and gazing upon the paynis of Hercules. There was another fortress high up on the clifftop from the river but it was closed to tourists recently because “some guys got killed by a rock,” explained our “uncle” tour guide.

He made us get out of the water, dry off and then head to the Cendere Bridge, which was built by the Romans around 200 AD. It’s pretty massive! It was dedicated to Emperor Septimus Severus and there used to be four columns representing himself, his wife, and his sons Caracalla and Geta. Whenever Caracalla ascended the throne he killed Geta (what a Roman) and supposedly had the fourth column removed as a final slap in the face.

The next to last stop was the Karakuş (“blackbird”) Tumlus, a tomb site dating back to the 1^st-century BC which a number of impressive columns. But it was at this point that the Czech girl and I were shutting down. Her boyfriend and the Polish guy had a little more energy but I was so over everything it wasn’t even funny. We piled out of the car, took a photo of the nearest column and then stumbled into the shade of the little café. I spent a good deal of time trying to explain to this guy in broken Turkish that I attended the oil-wrestling festival in Edirne; yes, I am big but no I did not participate in the festival; yes, my arms are hairy but that doesn’t mean I should also have a mustache; and finally I know what pestil and kome are but I’d rather not talk about the finer points of how they’re a natural Viagra.

It was during this stop that our tour guide thought he’d start doing something “funny.” I guess it was funny to him. If he hadn’t been a 62 year old man suffering from what I hoped was Ramadan-induced delusion, I’d have pushed his sorry ass off that mountain. People here will pour water on themselves to cool off. So as we’re getting ready to go, he picks up this hose and turns on the water. He motions me over and says it will cool me off. I didn’t want to cool off but he insisted, so I leaned over and held the camera as far away as possible.

It turns out his stupid old ass didn’t run the water long enough, so I received a shower from water that had been sitting out in the sun in 115 degree heat. And he had latched on to my neck so all I could do was flail around until finally I screamed and shoved him and got away. The water had burned my head and my back and in the ensuing struggle he’d managed to spray water on my $800 camera. After he and the other Turks gathering around checked the water and quickly jerked their hands back from the burn of it they all fixed me with this dumbfounded look.

For the rest of the tour, he thought it was funny to try to pour water on us. When we stopped at a gas station for drinks, he snuck up behind me and the Czech girl and poured freezing cold water down the back of our shirts. And then when we were leaving the station, he jumped into the bus with a wet towel and wrung it out down the front of her shirt. Perverted old jerk. He repeated the process at least once more but stopped afterward, probably sensing that if he did it one more time one of us was going to kill him and dump his body in the Euphrates.

The last stop was Atatürk Dam, which took 9 years to build. It blocks the Euphrates River for the purpose of hydroelectric power generation, irrigation and national pride. Before visiting the actual dam, we stopped by the banks of the Euphrates to take a second swim. But hell no, I was not getting in that water. I knew it would be cold but it was FREEZING. The water was coming from the bottom of the lake created by Atatürk Dam, which is who knows how deep. Our guide braved the water, and there was also a Turkish family having a picnic there. One of their sons kept spraying me with his water gun, which was cute for the first 10 times but eventually started to piss me off. Turkish children are incredibly ill-behaved.

Back at the hotel, I discovered that I had a horrible sunburn (I remembered my water and hat but I forgot the sunblock). Both the Polish guy and the hotel manager suggested that I put Ayran on it (Ayran is a salty yogurt drink) but I was more interested in eating dinner since was 9:00 PM and we’d skipped lunch. The Polish guy offered to take me to a nearby kebap restaurant, and we had a great conversation, a wonderful meal and the best Ayran I’ve ever had! We exchanged contact information, and he offered to play host in Amsterdam or plug me into his network of friends and family in Poland (“so you don’t have to pay for a thing!”).

After my wonderful holiday in the southeastern part of Turkey, I got booked on another circuitous route toward Trabzon…this time 20 hours long. Woo.