Urfa, Adiyaman, Nemrut and Eastern Anatolia

« Return to Turkey

By 9am, we are filming a timelapse as the sun hits the statues on the western terrace, a duplicate of those on the east terrace. Here, the gods will watch the sun set beneath their feet. I scramble up some rocks, take in the view around me. This is Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers, the mighty Euphrates and the Tigris. Geographically, it is an area that constitutes modern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, a salt-shake of Syria, and a splash of Iran too. This is the cradle of civilization, where Biblical empires rose and modern humanity evolved. A spark of faith catches fire here, and burns into the religions that shape much of our lives - Judaism, Islam, Christianity. Ancient ruins, caves, aqueducts, walls and bridges abound everywhere. No wonder Turkish tourists are down the mountain shortly after sunrise. Seeing 2000 year old statues is not all that new. Considering the epic history here that gave rise to religion and modern civilization, stretching all the way back to 6000 BC, I expect the region to be lush and fertile, not dry and parched, baking in temperatures that crack 50C in the summer. The air feels like its blowing out of a hair dryer. Not for the first time, I wonder how people coped in the old days without air conditioning.

By 10am, we’re finish up and head back to the van, the cool mountain breeze at 2200m dissapating as we descend lower along the path. I’ve been up for 10 hours already, and my attempts at sleep are futile on the drive back to Adiyaman. With the completion of the Ataturk Hydrolectric Dam, a vast project collectively known as the Southeastern Anatolia Project, the geography of the region has changed. Powered by the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, cheap electricity and water for irrigation have been made widely available, and the heat notwithstanding, the region is on fire. Five years ago, Adiyaman was a city of 80,000. Today is closing on 200,000. Julia’s Lonely Planet, although not the most recent version, does not even feature the city in the region. We pick her up, head over to a restaurant where we feast on an 8-course meal that easily ranks amongst the most damn delicious I’ve ever had. Grilled chicken and lamb skewers, kofta, roasted eggplant, various traditional casseroles, fresh pita out the oven, various dips and sauces, salads that taste like salads nowhere else. Turkish food, when done right, is in a class all its own. I gorge in an attempt to induce a food coma, for we’ve got a 3 hour drive ahead of us before we reach Diyarbakir Even with the air-conditioning cranked, and the back row to myself, I sweat, scrunch up , and suffer no sleep. Finally we arrive in Turkey’s hottest city, a city that has been conquered by the Hittites, Assyrians, the Meds, Persians, Macedonians, Seleukos, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Ilkhanide, the Akkoyunlu Seljuks, and the Ottomans. It has a 12m high city wall built by the Romans stretching 5.5km. I have been awake for 20 hours, crusted in sweat, my eyes like drops of blood in the snow. I don’t want to know about walls, or dinner for that matter, I just want to know about bed. By 10:30pm, I am asleep. We have an early 8am departure to check out the ancient black basalt walls, and head onto the next stop of Mardin.

By now you’re getting the picture. This isn’t a holiday, although we do get some time off. This isn’t a sightseeing trip, although we do see a lot of sites. This isn’t work, because I do play a lot, and this isn’t play, because I work pretty hard too. In the end, all I can say is: This is television.

A sand storm blows in from Syria when we pull into Sanilurfa. This is the final leg of our road trip, a town that oozes history. We head straight to the Citadel, a complex of history where, from the roof a restaurant balcony, we can see a 13 century mosque, a 6th century church, a 2nd century ruin, a 1st century castle wall, and the cave where Abraham, founder of all three monotheistic religions was born. So much history, crammed into a natural amphitheatre. People in the street stop and ask: “hello, where are you from?” - a typically Turkish greeting. Unlike touts in the west, they are not looking to lure me into a carpet shop. They just want to know where I am from. Sometimes I say “Canada” and they always respond with a “Ooooh, Canyada!”. Sometimes I say “South Africa”, which gets a puzzled, impressed response. Crowds circle around us when the camera gets a shot, and I’m not sure where they came from exactly, but suddenly we are escorted by three plainclothes policemen. They wave off abused street kids, who can be quite adamant in their curiosity, and help keep the bogeys (the word we use for people who wander into the shot) clear. Sherif and our ever-helpful driver Orhan get into the swing of things too, two more vital members to the team.

Two days in one place is a luxury that allows me explode my bag across the hotel floor (with Paul doing the same, it’s one serious explosion). Punctured by breaks for outstanding meals, we visit the sites - the Pool of Sacred Fish, the cave where Abraham was born, the beehive houses in the Biblical town of Harran, located 40km away. The heat, dust and sweat cake everything, my sandals turning sepia, much like the dusty photos of Harran. A group of Israeli tourists arrive in Harran, and it seems like the serendipity I found in Sri Lanka continues to follow me. They form a great closing hook for my article, allowing my to bring all three major religions together, born out of the vision of the same prophet, born out of the same, damp cave.

We bid our farewells to Sherif and Orhan, kiss them on the cheeks, and catch the flight back to Istanbul. The sandstorm shut down the airport the day before, but cleared up for us to take off. Back in Istanbul, the differences are immediately clear between the Turkey of the West and the Turkey of the East. The influence of Europe is everywhere, in the clothes, in the people, in the atmosphere. After a final night of feasting, we leave the gateway to the past, and step brightly into the future.

Start: Mardin, Turkey
Finish: Ljubljana, Slovenia

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