eastern anatolia, turkey:

As I mentioned earlier, we are no longer travelling to Syria as it is too unstable at this point in time. To make up for this we decided to spend more time in Turkey and the other Middle Eastern countries we will be visiting.

After spending some time in Cappadocia we headed east as we wanted to visit the famous Mt. Nemrut and then head down to the towns of Urfa and Harran. It was a lengthy but gorgeous drive through the Taurus Mountains, full of Cedar trees, fields of spring flowers and what is also known as Mesopotamia.  This area is also majority Kurdish in population. We made a few stops and had the opportunity to try goat’s milk ice cream, which was delicious plus honey straight from the wax comb.  We stayed the night in a town called Kahta before getting up early (3am!) to climb Mt. Nemrut and see the famous fallen statues built by King Antiochus as the sun rose. These statues were erected around two thousand years ago as a tomb and are featured on both the east and west sides of Mt. Nemrut. It is believed they have fallen down due to earthquakes over the years. They are quite a sight and worth the walk and early wake up!

the view from Mt. Nemrut before sunrise