September 8, 1996

Kahta was another town where we were instant curiosities. Little hands saluted us, waving as we passed. Faces bloomed into enormous smiles when we called hello and waved back. We won't soon forget those looks; in less than an hour we passed three times. The first time was when we pulled down the center of town toward what we thought was Mt. Nemrut. The only face that wasn't smiling at us was a dolmus (mini-bus) driver, but that's because he was whistling instead. He jumped in his bus and literally chased us to the end of town. When he caught us he looked at our vans and shook his head. "These won't make it up the mountain," he said.. If we stayed at his campground back at the other end of town, he'd take us to the peak in the morning for $12 each. "In that," he said pointing to his dolmus. We looked at his bus, we looked at each other's vans. "No thank-you," we all said. If his old dolmus could make it, our vans surely could as well. "No, no," he continued to insist. "The road is very bad." Convincing him that we would go it alone took a bit of effort. Eventually he backed down, got into his bus and drove away. We in turn, in total ignorance of the road ahead, drove forward. Ten kilometers later the road petered out into dirt and led right into a lake.

"You know what this means don't you?" Craig said. "We have to pass by that guy again." Apparently we'd missed the intersection somewhere in town. There had been no roads branching from the one we were on - the dolmus driver knew that. So back we went: round two.

We received smiles and waves and salutes again, just as bubbly, just as vigorous - the fact that we'd just driven through didn't seem to matter. And sure enough we were accosted again by the dolmus driver. "You stay at my campground," he insisted. "and in the morning it will only be $9 each to go the top." We assured him once again, that we would rather drive up ourselves. After two more feeble attempts, he left us and off we went. Eight kilometers up the road we passed a military checkpoint. People were being pulled out of a dolmus on the opposite side and the men patted down. We were simply waved on. Another eight kilometers and we pulled the vans over.

"We're not going to make it before dark," John said. That was important. Hana and Craig's van have no headlights. "This place is wide open. We'd be easy targets parking up here." No one asked him what he meant. We'd all been listening to the BBC reports about Iraq and troubles in the hills of Kurdistan, each of us was conjuring up the worst. The only logical course of action was to return to Khata and look for a campground: round three.

The campground that we'd been prodded into trying (we couldn't escape the third bombardment of broken-English) was less than adequate. The one across the road was much nicer. We did our laundry. made dinner, then Hana and Craig took a walk into town to get bread. They came back empty-handed; they did, however, have an interesting report. And that was the beginning of a restless night.

The shops were all closing not long after they got there. They heard the thunder of metal grates pulled to the ground. Nowhere else in Turkey had we seen shops with such tight security systems. Then there were the announcements echoed on loud speakers through the streets. The streets were being cleared. With all the military we'd seen earlier in the day, they didn't question it; they just left. We wondered later if perhaps there was a curfew in effect. Then came the gun fire. Our eight ears popped from the vans and listened. It sounded close. We did know that during Turkish weddings, guns are fired into the air. That had to be what it was - didn't it? Had that been all we might not have worried as we did. But ten minutes later the town went completely black - a total power outage. Instantly John shut our light off. We stood out like a beacon. We made a few weak jokes, chuckled nervously a bit and waited. The gunfire had ceased. Then five minutes later the lights flicked on and the shooting resumed.

Never has we been so eager to see morning appear. The sun shown through the curtains; we threw them back and all seemed right again. We got an early start up the hill to Nemrut Dagh. The dolmus driver was nowhere in sight, but the children were; as soon as we saw them waving and smiling we felt better. They were there all the way to the top: some riding burrows, racing down hills to meet us on the road, standing about wagging their hands as fast as they could.

It was a good thing that we didn't attempt the top the night before. We ended up going 30 kilometers off-course even in daylight. Without the help of some local Kurds in the hills, we might never have discovered the small road through town that took us to the base of the mountain. A good map might have come in handy. But we did find the mountain and when we reached the summit, our efforts were rewarded.

The postcard hadn't done this place justice. It showed only a portion of the many gigantic heads resting there; only a few of the stone carvings. It certainly hadn't shown the 12 kilometers of cobbled road leading to Mt. Nemrut, so steep we thought we might roll backwards a meter for every two forward. It hadn't shown the stunning views all along the winding road, or captured at all the feeling of being up so high. We parked the vans at the top (put stones behind their wheels to keep them there) and hiked the last kilometer to the temple terraces. After shooting a whole roll of film, we were invited into a small hut to share tea with a Kurdish man. Tea at the top of a monument watched over by the Gods - no postcard could ever capture that.