The Road to Nemrut

This was all part of the plan.  I knew that even with all the troglodytic attractions that Cappadocia had to offer, I would still have a few days to spare.  That's when I decided to go to Nemrut.  There wasn't that much to it.  I just gave the guy at my hotel some money and waited for the van to pick me up.  The big circle around east-central Turkey would take three days.  The first day is just about getting to Adiyaman, base camp for Nemrut.  Because it's Turkey there are any number of historically significant places we could have stopped, but Emre, our guide, decided we should see a Caravansary - you know, a place where caravans stopped.  These things are all over the place in Turkey, but this one is really well preserved.  Here are some photos:

 The well-preserved entrance...

 

...well-preserved ornament...

...the other side of the well-preserved entrance...

...well-preserved ornament...

...well-preserved ornament... 

...here's where they kept the camels, horses, mules and whatnot.  Dig the cool Stargate effect!

And here's the courtyard.  So how old do you think this place is?  I was thinking 200, maybe 300 years.  But no.  It's 800 years old.  How about that!

The rest of the ride to Adiyaman was photo-free.  But we did eat lunch in the mountains - I ate a whole fish! - and we stopped in Kahramanmaras for ice cream.  This is something that everyone must do if they're in the area.  Quite honestly, it's probably not only the best goat ice cream I've ever had, but probably the best ice cream, period.  One of our group members was a vegan, so she was SOL on the experience.  Well, too bad.  Still, she was very nice.  Just a word about the group: they all turned out to be great.  We were 15 in all, Americans, Dutch, Germans and Australians, plus the driver and guide were Turkish, of course.  

We made it to Adiyaman in the early evening and checked into the Hotel Antiochos, which seemed pretty appropriate, since the next day we were going to see the handiwork of the real Antiochos close up on Nemrut.  We all got to bed early.  Reveille was scheduled for 3:30am.