Wednesday 16th December - Kahramanmara to Karadut - “Mike got us stuck”

Why can’t Turkish plumbers get the hot and the cold marked correctly?  More often than not the cold is actually the hot and the hot is actually the cold, which is most annoying with showers as it takes a couple of minutes for the water to run hot when you get the right direction, never mind when you get it wrong.  Also, there seems to be no standard on whether the hot is to right or to the left, so you may as well not bother looking at the tap and just pick a direction and hope.  I bring this up as Anne was looking particularly unhappy this morning as she held the showerhead at arm’s length, patiently hoping for hot water (as you never know if they only have solar water heating, which is next to useless this time of year).  No luck until she turned it to cold, at which point a stream of lovely hot water appeared and her smile returned.

We had breakfast in the hotel with no other tourists in sight, just a dozen or so businessmen.  We checked out and were glad to see the Land Rover had survived unmolested after its night parked on the busy street.  After loading up, we set off on the 250km leg to Nemrut Dagi.

We decided to try the western entrance to Nemrut Dagi National Park and take the shorter, but steeper, route to the car park near the summit (leaving a 600m walk to the top), and return down via the southern gate, close to which our chosen pension for the night was located.  We’d left the snow behind yesterday and it seemed a little warmer, so we were hopeful of reaching the summit.  The western entrance also takes you past a number of other ancient sites, and we first stopped to view the Karakus Tümülüs, a 36 BC burial mound containing the remains of female relatives of King Mithridates II (who cut the two rock ledges and assembled the stone statues of Nemrut Dagi). 

Next was the Roman bridge over the Cendere River, which we later found out you can still drive across (we took the modern bridge downstream),

then we passed the 13th century Mamluk castle

before reaching the remains of the ancient capital of Commagene, called Arsameia.  Little is left other than some stele,

a stone relief

next to the entrance of a steep passageway leading to a cave temple,

and the remnants of the city’s foundations on top of the hill. 

We were warned against going down the passageway as the steps are apparently lethal, and as neither of us fancied falling 158m we heeded the advice.

With a couple of hours of daylight left we pushed on uphill, although the gate attendant had warned that he thought the route to the summit may be impassable due to ice near the top.  We hoped that we could at least get far enough to link up with the main southern access road, some 6km from the summit.  We ascended from about 800m up to 1500m without trouble, although there were some rather sharp hairpin bends to negotiate on the 8km stretch of road.  However, the final two kilometres are unpaved and snow had settled, which gradually got deeper as we got higher, and to make matters worse it had started to snow.  We got perhaps half a kilometre before we ran out of traction as the road curved uphill to the left.  Reversing slightly in order to get up a bit of momentum (it is your friend, after all), the back end of the Land Rover slid off to the right and ended up in the shallow ditch at the edge of the road.  I didn’t feel it wise to get the camera out as Anne had her “cold shower” face on, so apologies for lack of photographic evidence.

Due to its angle, all the Land Rover’s weight was over the back wheels, with the front left almost in the air.  A bit of shovel work and some strategically placed stones failed to help stop the front wheels spinning, nor did Anne jumping up and down on the bull bar.  We considered trying to winch forward, but the only possible anchor was a rather sharp edged rock, and we weren’t confident of being able to safely secure the tree strop around it.  It was still snowing and time was getting on, so we were in a hurry to extricate ourselves.  Returning to the shovel and stone option we invested in a bit more elbow grease to better remove the snow from around the tyres and cleared two tracks, as well as packing in more stones and gravel.  With the floor mats under the front tyres and me on the bull bar, Anne powered out of the ditch and back on the track.  Now all we had to do was reverse back downhill until we could safely turn around, so I walked alongside the Land Rover, guiding Anne backwards (as she refused to let me drive again, I can’t imagine why). 

Once safely back on the snow free paved road we only stopped to give a local man a lift down to the main road before we curved around the southern edge of the mountain to Karadut, where we had intended to carry on up to see if we could reach the south gate for the night.  It was only 1630 but already dark when a man flagged us down as we entered the village.  He told us that the road to the summit was blocked by snow so that settled it, we would stay in Karadut for the night and investigate going up in the morning (perhaps under foot power rather than Land Rover power).  After being invited into the house of Murat, the owner of Karadut Cafe and Restaurant, Pension and Camping (snappy name) as they had the wood burning stove going, we were fed chicken, rice and salad; our first meal sitting on the floor Turkish style.  We also met the mother, wife and two young sons, the latter really liking the multi touch gestures of my iPod Touch (although I think they were less impressed with the endless supply of photos of Roman ruins!).  We said our goodnights early and retired to our accommodation, the upper floor of a converted barn, and are currently listening to the rain as we huddle around the electric fire the owner kindly setup for us for the night.