As always with traveling, our day started in Istanbul at a very early 4:00am. Luckily, I had had the good sense to pack the night before, but because I am a huge procrastinator (as most of you know) that good sense didn’t kick in until about midnight. So I awoke getting a grand total of about two hours of sleep. By 4:30 I was out the door and we had called a taxi to come pick us up to the airport. We met Emily and Sonya at the Superdorm and waited 10 minutes for Sonya (who had just gotten up when we called to tell her the taxi cab was ready). The most hysterical realization (the girls thought it was more funny than I did) by everyone was that despite the fact I was traveling with three girls, I was carrying the most stuff. I argued that it was because I did not have a smaller duffle bag, but the girls just laughed about it.
After a relatively cheap taxi ride (50 TL for all of us) we made it to the airport. At 5am, its pretty incredible just how few people there are on the road. Would you believe that we made it from Hisarüstü to the airport in 20 minutes! For Istanbul, that is incredible! The airport is about twice as far as Taksim and in normal traffic it takes about 45 minutes to get to Taksim square! That is how incredible it was! After a bit of trouble with Emily and Sonya’s tickets, we were all checked in and ready to go for our 6:50am flight to Malatya.
The flight across the Marmara Sea and Central Anatolia took about 1 and a half hours. Elif was surprisingly awake (we sat near each other) and decided that 7am was a good time for a Turkish lesson. She was making me practice by only speaking in Turkish and only letting me respond in Turkish. Let me point out that at this time, my Turkish was downright awful. I could barely string two sentences together…so as you can imagine it was a slow and tedious process. It was impressive to me that Elif had the patience for it at 7AM. It was good for me to practice so I thank her for that.
As the plane descended on Malatya, we could immediately tell that we were in a different world. Kilometers of concrete in Istanbul were replaced with high fields. The mountains towards the end of our flight were all snow-covered (which as you can imagine excited me very much) and the fields were a sort of brownish color. We were descending right into the middle of the Central Anatolian plains.
Because I was the one with the biggest bag, I was also the only one of the four of us who checked their bag. The girls went to the bathroom and waited outside while I retrieved my things. As I was waiting for my bag, a Turkish man and I started conversing. His family was from Malatya (he had flown home to celebrate the holiday with them) but he worked in Istanbul. I told him that I was a student and told him about the plans for our trip. He was very enthusiastic and wanted to show us around Malatya. Unfortunately, we did not have much time in Malatya (only 1 day) and I had to respectfully decline his offer. He gave me his number anyway and told me that it would make him very happy if I called him. I never did.
We excited the airport and took the bus to the city center, not knowing exactly what we would do. We arrived at the main square and found a very large statue of Ismet Inönü, the second President of Turkey and a close friend of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Being the political science nerd that I am, I got very excited and took a picture in front of the statue. Unfortunately, an annoying kid would not stop asking for money and wouldn’t even get out of my picture, so he ended up being in it as well.
After taking the pictures, we found our way to the tourist office and were greeted by a man who looked like he had come straight out of San Francisco in the 1960’s. He had long grayish hair down to his shoulders and a mustache. He introduced himself as “Kemal from Malatya” and told us that he was the person who worked in the tourism office in Malatya. Surprisingly, he spoke decent English. He explained that it was because he had spent a number of years working with tourists in Sultanahmet. He was very friendly (maybe even a bit too friendly towards Spnya – telling her that she should live with him for a month or two for free and teach him English). We explained to him that the main reason we had come to Malatya was that we wanted to see Mt. Nemrut. He said that he would be able to help us with that and explained that because of the length of the drive and the cold weather that it would be best if we did not start our journey to Nemrut until at least 12 or 1pm. In the meantime, he suggested that we leave our luggage with him and walk around Malatya (he even suggested where we should go).
We took his suggestions and first made our way to the metal markets. Whole there was nothing too special or touristic about it, it was neat to get a small glimpse into Turkish village life. The metal making was done with traditional tools (not the use of machines) and they made everything from hot water heaters to pots to cauldrons. Anything that could be made of medal was being made by these guys. Also interesting was the fact that there were very few young people in these shops. They were mostly men of forty or older. This indicated to me that it might be a dying art here in Turkey and that it wouldn’t be around much longer. Its really a shame if that is the case because it was neat to see these guys in action. There is no way you could ever see anything like this in the United States.
After a walk around the metal market as it was called, we walked to the bazaar of Malatya. In this place they were mostly selling the commodity for which Malatya is most known. Malatya is very famous for kayısı (apricots). In the first store, the owner let us try apricot lokum (Turkish delight) and it was absolutely delicious. I enjoyed it so much that I bought some for a snack on our trip. We then walked up through the market and found a poster of Barack Obama in front of apricots. Being Americans, we were both surprised and amused! The reason for the poster was because when Obama visited Turkey, he talked about Turkey solving their debt deficit through exporting fruits such as apricots. Because Malatya is the apricot capital of Turkey, they interpreted the speech as indirectly referencing them. This of course led to the Obama poster that we all found so comical. The store owner behind the Obama poster beckoned us to come into his shop and try the many different apricot products he possessed. In this shop there was everything from apricot soap to chocolate covered apricots to different kinds of apricot candies to apricot döner. Anything you can imagine that could be made out of apricots, this guy had. The best part was that he let us try it all for free. We were so full after eating in the store that we didn’t even need lunch! It was fantastic! Of course the girls bought some apricot products for themselves.
Other than the apricot and metal bazaars there really isn’t all that much to do in Malatya so we headed back to the tourist office and met Kemal. He had a driver waiting to take us to Mt. Nemrut for 50 TL per person (which is actually fairly cheap to rent your own driver for the kind of trip we were doing). So we get into the car and we are off on our way to Nemrut Dağı. The three girls sat in the back together and I sat up front. In Turkey, especially if you don’t know the driver, it is always customary for the man to sit in the front because it is possible to get a man who will harass a lady in the front seat by grabbing her leg or something. I have never seen it happen, but I would rather follow the norm just in case. It was also cool for me because I got a bird’s eye view of our surroundings and our ride through the countryside.
The road began in the relatively flat high plains. We soon made our way into the tall mountains south of Malatya. When we were planning our trip to the East, we had briefly flirted with the idea of renting a car to see more places and drive to places like Nemrut for much cheaper. As soon as we began our ascent to Nemrut, which totaled about 3 hours one way, it became clear that renting a car would have been a very bad idea. The road to Nemrut was quite confusing and not very well marked. There were several points where we made turns that only someone who had travelled this route many times would have known to make. Even with a map it would have been difficult. Secondly, the road conditions were very poor. Many times we were driving around very steep cliffs on dirt roads. It was definitely not a road for the novice driver.
We stopped in a small place about an hour into the drive to have some lunch. It was a bit expensive, but it was delicious. I guess the expense is the premium we pay for the convenience of a good meal in the middle of nowhere. The scenery was also really neat including small waterfall close by and mountains all around. Elif sent me to our drive to ask in Turkish if he would like to join us. He respectfully declined, but it made him smile. We continued and stopped at a small convenience store for a bathroom break. The bathrooms were Eastern style toilets (my first of many experiences with them) and it was not very clean.
The driver was very interesting as well. Living in Istanbul I was of course mildly aware of the Kurdish issue in Turkey. However, I had never seen a Kurd before. Our driver was Kurdish and I had many questions. Unfortunately, he spoke very little English. Elif had a lengthy conversation with him. I am not sure about the contents of it. She said she learned some really interesting stuff and would tell us later. Unfortunately, she forgot a lot of what he said (which is totally understandable in a conversation over the course of three hours).
As we approached the summit of Mt. Nemrut, we began to see snow. At first it was in small patches, but as we got closer, it was very high around us. The road contained many sharp turns as we progressed up the last bit of road before the end. Finally our three hour journey came to an end at the Güneş Hotel. At the hotel, cars cannot go any further. From this point we had to walk 3km to the stop with the last little bit in deep snow (the first two-thirds had been bulldozed).
Finally, after what seemed like a full day of travelling we reached the summit of Nemrut. I was very glad we made this trip. For those of you who don’t know about it, Nemrut is like the Turkish version of our Mt. Rushmore. Large stone heads were carved out of rock. Due to earthquakes they had fallen and are dismembered from their heads. King Antiochus, a megalomaniac of an independent kingdom that signed a non-aggression pact with Rome had these statues built. He was the king of an independent kingdom. He believed himself immortal and god-like and therefore built his own statue with those of the Gods. Also on the top of Nemrut Dağı is a large burial mound that is believed to be the final resting place of King Antiochus. The entire area was really neat and definitely worth the three hour trip. The heads and bodies looked like they were carved out of pure stone. The way in which the stones were assembled was pretty fascinating to me. I was definitely happy we made the trip to the mountain.
Because it was mid spring, the mountain summit was still very cold. It was much colder than I had anticipated. We were lucky even to get to go to Nemrut because some years during the time we went the mountain is still closed due to winter weather.
Since we had made the trek all the way up to the top, I really wanted to stay for sunset. However, the weather got very cold very fast. I was freezing in my jeans and long-sleeved shirt. I had not brought a jacket, thinking it wouldn’t be that cold. Elif and Em decided they had had enough of the cold after exploring the summit and began their decent. I told them I wanted to watch the sunset but because it was so cold, they told me that they would wait at the car for me. Sonya decided to stay with me.
A tour group came and ruined the peaceful scenery with loud talking. It was so cold that we saw one man wearing what seemed to be a makeshift pink headscarf! It was very funny! I can’t make fun of him too much though because they spoke to us and did offer us a glass of wine while we were waiting for the sun to set. We also met a group of students from Ankara, but because we didn’t write down each other’s names, we never heard from them again.
The sunset was a bit disappointing because it was cloudy. I was stubborn and wanted to see it any way. On a clear day I think it would have been REALLY awesome. Oh well.
Sonya and I hiked down to the car and we began our journey back to Malatya. We were all exhausted after waking up so early in the morning to fly to Malatya. The road leading down was dark and dangerous. Apparently, our driver told Elif that he was driving slow because if he drives too fast, it makes him more tired. As a result, Elif tried to keep conversation up and ask questions for 3 hours while everyone else slept. It sucked for her because I know she was really tired too. She did not get to sleep in the car like everyone else.
Three hours late, we arrived at our hotel (recommended and set up for us by Kemal while we were on our day trip, which was really nice of him. We ended up with a 4 bed room and a not so nice bathroom. Kemal was there waiting for us to make arrangements. He really seemed to like us and as Turkish culture dictates, h e wanted to have a çay with us (it is a Turkish tradition to have çay with guests and its rude for a guest to refuse). However, when he saw how exhausted we were, he decided not to push it. We went upstairs and I fell asleep almost immediately. A great start to a great trip.
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