We hit the road opening perfectly and sped past the trucks lining up to make their way out of town. The drive turned remarkably scenic as we headed towards Kars. There was nothing in any guidebook and it was one of the most scenic drives we’d ever seen.
From Savsat to Ardhahan, it was beautiful alpine meadows in bloom with wildflowers. From Ardahan to Kars it was green carpeted hills.
Kars itself was another story. It was literally an Easter egg hunt to try to get the ticket for Ani. Our first stop was the tourist office (moved since the LP guide), so we had a kind policeman show us the way to the new location. The unmarked tourist office had one man, complete with TV and newspaper, who filled out a remarkably long form (name, address, occupation, etc). Then it was off to try to find the tourist police to get their approval of the form. Finally, the last stop was at the museum to buy the ticket so you can drive the 45-km to the site. A few military checkpoints on the way where they check your form and passport and we finally made it to Ani.
The road to Ani:
Ani:
The city has walls of over 1 km in length and it’s got the feeling of a medieval ghost town. It was originally the site of the Urartian capital in 961 and subsequently was taken over by the Byzantines, Seljuks, Kurdish, and the Mongols. The site sits on the gorge overlooking the Arpacay River, which forms the border between Turkey and Armenia. Photos are fairly restricted since you can’t point your camera towards the Armenian border. What’s left of the Armenian churches are spectacular.
We had the site to ourselves and it was eerie to see what was once a city of over 100,000, now in ruins. As we headed out, one of the soldiers on guard started talking to us in a distinctly American accent. It turns out he was the son of a Turkish couple living in the States and was putting in his time in the Turkish military and planned to live in Turkey for a few years.
On the way to Dogubeyezit:
Off again for another exciting car ride to Dogubeyezit (called “dog biscuit” by the tourists). The town is a dusty frontier town, 35 km from the Iranian border. The streets are unpaved and filled with men walking down the middle of the streets, horse carts. We realized that we had hit our first Kurdish town. After a quick hotel search, we found a great hotel with a view of Mount Ararat (where Noah’s ark supposedly landed after the flood. They still have groups coming to search for remains of the ark). We had dinner at “Tad’s Lokantasi…with all the men in town. We were quite a sight. Fortunately, they actually had something besides kebaps…so we had soup and their version of spaghetti. The thunder god put on a tremendous show at night- lightning, thunder and a huge downpour.
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