Hello, crew. Today is the first day of fasting for Ramazan. For the experience, I’ve decided to (try and) fast today. I drank my last glass of water at 3:21 this morning (it’s now 10:24am). Only ten ours to go! I’m parched. I’m a wimp. This day may not go so well. Also, today the internet is being shut off in preparation for the final move out, so my updating and whatnot will come to an end for a while. Sad face.
—
To resume my story…following the mountain spring stop, our bus drove and then drove some more over high mountains covered in grass and lingering patches of snow. If you ever have a chance to go to the eastern part of Turkey, by all means go. It’s truly beautiful (and full of yurts, if that’s your thing).
I hadn’t mentioned before, but our bus was not actually going to Kars, where we needed to end up. As a result, in a small city called Ardahan (where all the men have great mustaches and wear them with pride) we were unceremoniously dumped from the bus and entrusted to the care of a mini-bus driver (I’ve got to say, though our big bus from Georgia was dirty and slow and they tried to rip us off at first, the bus attendant was really kind and took care of us in the end. Thank you, random bus attendant).
So, we and a bunch of other people piled in and bumbled about an our south east to Kars. Now, Kars. Let’s talk about it for a minute. Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize winning Turkish author who many Turks of my acquaintance love to hate, made Kars kind of famous by writing a book named Kars. True confessions time: I never finished the book. Didn’t really get past 20 or so pages. I did BS about it a lot on my Fulbright application, though…
Anyway, ever since pretending to read that entire book a year and a half ago, I’ve really wondered about Kars and felt a great sense of fulfillment in finally making it all the way out there (Kars is East. It’s real East).
Once in Kars we found a hotel that was recommended as cheap and clean in some guidebook somewhere and went with it. We checked in at the front desk with a charming old man whose eyes twinkled and was just grandfatherly and delightful…at first. Turns out the man was a huge pervert who over the next few days made endless inappropriate comments, gave some extremely lustful looks, and rounded at the entire experience suggesting that my co-brighter travel friend would have a good chance of taking advantage of me on our train while I was sleeping. He then made a joke about how I should eat plenty of eggs and cheese so as to have some strength to fight off my friend/would-be-rapist *wink wink*. Not. Even. Kidding.
So, the hotel was lacking, but Kars and its surrounding areas were not. On our only full day we got up and made the 45 minute trip to Ani, the ancient Armenian capital which sits smack dab on Turkey’s border with Armenian. You can see guard posts from the sight. It’s intense. The picture below is of the inside view of the (famous?) Lion’s Gate.
Unfortunately I can no longer remember all the facts about Ani, but just know that it’s super old, was the Armenian Capital and a big ol’ important stop for trading, and that a bunch of people once lived there. Oh, and it sucks for the Armenians that it’s within sight of their border but on Turkish land. Burn.
Time for more pictures!
This is a really old church that, or at least the remains of it, that was affected by some natural disaster. I can’t remember if it was an earthquake or lightning. My bad.
And here’s an old bridge…
In the end, I was really really happy that we made it to Ani. About a year ago I met a lawyer while waiting to get on a plane. We were talking and when he heard I was coming to Turkey he got really excited and said that the one place I HAD to go was Ani. Despite all the hype, I was definitely not disappointed, although it wasn’t exactly what I’d expected either. And, we went at exactly the right time because literally 10 minutes after leaving the site it started pouring rain.
I wonder how waterproof the average yurt is?
A Wealth of Words 