Full photo sets for Erzurum to Yusufeli and Yusufeli itself.
Our 60-something local tour guide Nuri picked us up from our hotel promising that each day of our tour would be better than the one before. He had a strange driving style. His seat was so far forward that he could have steered the car by gripping the steering wheel with his teeth. Hunched over like this he looked like Mr Magoo without the spectacles and he admitted that his eyesight wasn’t the best. Despite this he drove at a fast clip on the four-lane roads through the valleys and cut corners wherever possible. Travelling with Nuri was a lot like doing a road trip with your Grandfather but despite repeating some of the same stories, he didn’t talk constantly and we settled into a semi-comfortable silence for most of the driving.
Our first stop was Tortum village which is nestled under high rocky mountains. Nuri stopped for a chat with his friends, something that happened in every village, and only just restrained himself from having a quick cup of tea. We travelled on and nearby, a few kilometres down a tiny road off the highway which we never would have found ourselves, we saw what we will call the Tortum castle, improbably perched on a rocky outcrop. I don’t know how they managed to build it up there but it’s very difficult to clamber up even without a suit of armour on so it must have been impossible for invaders.
Driving further on through the valley we noticed elaborate brass water taps set into stone with constantly running fresh mountain water. You can just pull over and fill up your water bottle. It’s a strange site for a couple of Aussies more used to water restrictions and droughts. You really want to pull over and turn the tap off to stop wasting water. Every town has free water taps which anyone is welcome to come and use.
Our next stop was the Oltu castle which despite not being open that day was still good to circumnavigate from the ground. There was a rash of building during the Crusades with many Christian-style castles and churches being erected. Almost all the churches we saw in the area were constructed in the 11th century when the European powers were conducting campaigns to free up the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and doing a bit of plundering along the way.
We drove up a lovely little valley with quaint houses and trees beginning to show their summer foliage lining the narrow road. The small church here was still being used but mainly as a mosque, although Christians could still pray there. The local imam opened it up for us to have a poke around in. At almost 1000 years old it is in remarkably good condition although the frescoes have faded with time. The Turkish carpets lining the floor would be a good addition to many European churches.
The final church of the day, called Oskvank, is amazing, all the more so because of its crumbling structure. High domed with the faint traces of frescoes remaining, walking inside you can still see the sky through the half collapsed dome. This is a particularly holy Armenian church and the visiting Armenian priests and pilgrims have been known to hack rocks and engravings loose to carry home with them as talismans. We were again the only visitors at this church and there is no entrance fee or guard, just a big sign telling you that it’s a Turkish Heritage Site. Apart from naming it as such there doesn’t seem to be much care or attention given to the site.
We stopped at a cay evi (tea house) for Nuri to get his tea and biscuit fix for the afternoon. He slammed down three big glasses of black tea in no time, leaving at least two dozen more required before he hit his daily average. Our planned itinerary was to drive to the Kackar Mountains (pronounced catch-car and deriving from the Armenian for cross-stone), through the Georgian valley to Kars and the Ani ruins before finishing in Dogubeyazit (pronounced normally but with a soft ‘g’). We would then spend a couple of days in Dogubeyazit, Nuri would drive the car back to Erzurum and we would catch the bus later. We planned it this way to cut down on the number of days that we would be paying for car rental. Once in the car again Nuri started angling for us to extend our time with him by telling us how dangerous a city Dogubeyazit is, but he was sure we would be fine on our own. He said that one time he had been in the city with another tour group and overheard some men speaking in Kurdish saying how they were going to ambush and kill some people in the tour. He told the tour operator about it and she freaked out but Nuri calmed her down and talked to the men, personally averting the crisis and winning the tour operator’s lifelong admiration. But he was sure we would be fine there, even though Dogubeyazit is the only city in Turkey where he feels unsafe. We just made non-committal noises as he veered at speed around another corner on the wrong side of the road.
We arrived late in the day at the Tortum waterfall next, of course, Tortum lake. The waterfall is spectacular but as Nuri often pointed out to us, everything around here is much better in summer. The waterfall is fed by an artificial lake which powers a hydro plant. This would explain the huge number of powerlines in the area which managed to creep into almost every potential photo. There are many more dams planned for this region and many of the gorges which are popular for white water rafting are slated for future dams. The town we stayed in that night, Yusufeli, is going to be underwater when they get around to finishing the nearby dam. There are numerous empty apartment buildings in Yusufeli trying to take advantage of the government compensation by hastily erecting buildings before the area is flooded.
Night had fallen when we entered town and Nuri made calls from his car to a few guesthouses, none of which were open for the season. We tried a hotel instead, which was basic. Outside the window the river roared passed but the short beds had foot boards which I demonstrated would not be ideal for my long body. Nuri moved us on to another, even more basic hotel without a toilet in the room. Nuri wouldn’t accept that either so we went over the road to an even more basic room which did have a separate toilet that didn’t flush and a shower which you could only have used by standing on the toilet. We insisted we were happy with the room just so Nuri would stop marching us around town.
We had a very pleasant dinner by the rushing water of the river, some home-made kofte meatballs and rice. Nuri joined us for all our meals, as though he couldn’t relax until we were safely locked inside our room.
Full photo sets for Erzurum to Yusufeli and Yusufeli itself.
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