Don't Dam It!

The sun setting over the Tigris River, if you remember from high school, as 'the cradle of civilization'
Our first two weeks in Turkey was spent in the Eastern Anatolia region, far from the tourist trail with westerner sightings being limited to about 2 persons. The highlight for me was the small town of Hasankeyf located near the foot of the Tigris River. We did a day hike through beautiful canyons and up striated cliffs.
our lunchtime spot and view
Looking the other way, perched up on a hilltop are incredible ruins incorporated with hillside cave dwellings, dating back to the 16th century.
lunch view looking west
We decided to climb down from our lunch spot, to try to figure a way to climb up to the top of the ruins. We ended up hiking around the hilltop and up the backside, and unknowingly (well, no not really), we snuck into the park climbing up the backside and avoided paying admission fee.
the Ristaino's on the trail, ruins straight ahead
These are the views we were greeted with upon 'accidentally' entering the ruins:
not another tourist in site



view looking down into the town of Hasankeyf, with the ruins of a bridge dating back to the year 640. No, not the modern arched one, the ruined pillars in the Tigris in front of it.
Doesn't this hillside profile look like Richard Nixon?
Unfortunately, there are plans to dam the Tigris River, flooding the valley from Batman (not as exciting of a town as it sounds) all the way to Midyat (Ilsu Dam Project). Meaning these incredible ruins would all be under water.
600 feet up, would now be 600 feet under
Even worse, it would displace approximately 37 villages, including Hasankeyf, home to these young Kurdish girls.

Not exactly sure what we can do to stop this from happening, but it be a shame to lose these fragments of history......
But now we're back on the tourist trail in the dramatic Cappadocia hillside, in the town of Goreme. In the first 2 minutes of arriving here, we've seen more western tourists than in our previous 2 weeks in Anatolia. It's an incredible natural landscape to explore and get lost in, and we've been taken around by our guidedog Spotty from the Kose Pension.
Spotty the wonder dog just loves vistas....seriously. He stops at every viewpoint to show us.
Spotty's incredibly sweet and incredibly intelligent. He even had the wherewithal to ask us, Dónde está Ché Pelotas?