A week of many firsts...
Traveled over 1,000 miles since last post and now we’re in Van, a lakeside city in the southeast corner of Turkey, less than 100 miles from the border of Iran. Both Van the city and the lake rest on a plateau more than a mile above sea level (eat it Denver), making for a beautiful/alien landscape of snow-capped mountains atop smooth blue water. The lake is naturally alkaline due to the quality of the rock- that means that if you wash your clothes in the water, they come clean without soap.
We are way off the beaten trail here. English-speakers are rare, so we depend mostly on pantomime and a few key phrases from our guidebooks. Right now we are definitely the only white people in Van, and my brother and I get constant stares. A man in the market told us we are the first tourists he’s seen in 2 years. With our blond, curly hair and pale skin, people think we’re German. We let them. People are cautious of Americans here. "Aufitersen!" we shout as we walk away.
I’ve never been to Turkey before, so naturally I’m experiencing a lot of things for the first time. Some of my more notable firsts in just one week of travel…
For the first time ever, I’ve-
- been hustled by goat herders
- eaten paprika-flavored potato chips
- thrown a rock into Armenia from the ruins 1,500 year-old city
- seen so many satellite dishes fixed neatly atop the roofs of stone huts, surrounded by roosters.
- been sponge-bathed and then violently man-handled by a scar-faced man in a Hamam (Turkish bath house).
- successfully performed emergency toe surgery on an ingrown toenail on the bathroom floor of a hotel with tweezers and a sewing needle while running a flu of 100.
- celebrated Easter on the Black Sea 100 miles from the Republic of Georgia in a catholic mission, run by a Polack and a Romanian, with a congregation of 5 people.
- sat amongst a herd of grazing cows and found peace in the sound of dozens of mouths slowly chewing cud.
Needless to say, I’m having a good time.
Labels: Turkey
posted by Mark Ristaino @ 12:10 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Good stuff dogg keep writing. See you when you get back home to Germany. Probably should avoid going to bath houses.
love the photo of introspection, the kind where you see a man sitting at some high point, reading a book, capturing the moment of his own solitude, reflecting the passing of time, not knowing if the hourglass is filled with clay, sand, or water.
should do a blog of all the photos take of man and his book. with mine, i'd have a cig in my mouth.
Probably should avoid going to bath houses.
oh, but it hurts so good.
should do a blog of all the photos take of man and his book.
we could call it- "man and book in ruined city: a photo collage of introspection" and then try and sell it at Katz bagels
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