Day 13 - After a great breakfast, Ridvan, our guide, collected us and we headed off. He was a good talker but informative and told us a lot about Kurdish history and the life of the Kurds. The Kurds are the largest ethic group of people in the world without their own homeland. We drove through a town called Siverek where people were herding their goats and sheep in the streets. It was a pretty poor looking place and I was very glad I did not live there. After a few miles the scenery just got better and better.
We eventually got to the ferry which took us across the lake which had been created by the Ataturk Dam.
On the other side we continued to climb and go through stunning scenery only held up at one point by a very large digger that was laying pipes. After much good natured tooing and froing we managed to get past. We stopped at the Karadut Pansion where we met two Australian teachers from Brisbane and had coffee before we continued on. Ridvan stopped to pick up an old man who was wearing the baggy trousers that they wear out here and who sat as far away in the back of the car as he could from me. I thought it was because I was 'indecently' dressed but after we had dropped him off at the mosque, Ridvan said it was because if he had touched me he would have had to go through all the ritual washing that is necessary before prayers. Our first glimpse of Mt. Nemrut with its conical mound of small stones at the top was exciting after all the excitement of thinking about this place for so long.


The walk up was fine and the view from the top was magnificent with 360 degrees of beautiful scenery which no photo could do justice to but the stars of the show were of course the heads themselves. Antiochus ordered the building of the temples and his funeral mound on the top of Mt. Nemrut in about 34 B.C. He obviously had ideas of grandeur! The mound was considerably higher but during an earthquake it was reduced and some of heads were toppled from their bodies. We were lucky to be up there by ourselves. There was a small party of Turkish men when we arrived but they went round to the other side of the mountain leaving us alone which was just wonderful as we were able to spend time in peace looking around. I was amazed that Ridvan who must have been up there many times seemed as entranced by the place as we were and took many photos.





He did his best to fill us with the history and to answer our questions. We then went round to the West Terrace where the statues were better preserved. After many more photos and oohs and aahs we gradually made our way down to be met by some panting Germans on their way followed by a young lad on a donkey calling out 'taxi'. I think some of them should have taken advantage of the offer! We went back to the Karadut Pension and had a very good lunch of beans, pilaf, eggs cooked with spicy tomatos and salad and a well deserved Efes Beer. As we came down we met many tour buses coming up for the sunset and we very happy that we were able to see the place without the tourists.
Back at the hotel Ridvan asked me what my goals in life were - at that point in the evening my only goal was a hot shower and a good night's sleep!