Leaving Urgup at 9.30 am we headed off to Nemrut Dagi, site of ancient statues atop Mt Nemrut Dagi. The roads were shocking, many stretches of road works where we had to drive over kilometres of freshly laid asphalt, and we mean freshly laid. And of course it was not sensible for the local drivers to follow each other with sufficient distance to avoid splashing, there was tailgating and passing which resulted in cars with extensive splashes of fresh bitumen. At one point, we stopped for petrol and after 10 minutes, there were lines of wet bitumen under where our mudguards had been. The asphalt also sprayed over the interior and us to a lesser extent.
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Fresh bitumen road |
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Note the drip line forming under mudguards |
Then there were rough and unmade roads which were amongst the worst we have seen. The altitude was up to 2200 metres and we started having trouble with the Puce Goose overheating, having to stop several times to cool down and / or top up water. Fortunately through the mountains there were lots of spring water taps.
Eventually we arrived at the very basic Gunes Guest House at the foot of the final climb to the statues. This is a “dry” guest house but we were allowed to drink our own alcohol, which was kindly provided by Bernard and Chris who still had a stash to finish before we got to “very dry” Iran. Speaking of Chris, he and Liz in the 1974 2.7L Porsche Carrera, arrived very late after finding the worst roads possible and being lost for some time.
The guesthouse provided a good dinner for all of us (delicious soup followed by a chicken stew, quite amazing considering where we were) and a couple of other independent travellers. Preparations were made for an early morning visit to the summit to see the sun rise over the mountains.
(The next five blog entries were emailed to me to add, lot's to read and enjoy from the Puce Goosers, sorry the pictures are a bit small. Noel Macwhirter)
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