Sunday, September 13 Van
After sleeping most of yesterday I felt a little
better this morning. Went for breakfast hoping to get some watermelon but
wouldn't you know, for the first time all trip, there was no fruit at all and no
one around to ask. I settled for a hardboiled egg.
We drove for about an hour around the shores of Lake
Van (referred to as the sea by local people) where we had to wait for the ferry
to Akdamar Island because the ferries only run when they have twelve
passengers. After waiting more than an hour Omer and Mehmet negotiated a
price for them to take the two of us across to the island. There were four
others there but they were unprepared to pay the extra cost. On the island
sits the Church of the Holy Cross built by Armenians in the early 1900's.
It is renowned as one of the finest examples of Armenian architecture. (See
photos) At one point around 1950 the Turkish government was going to
demolish the church but a public outcry saved it and eventually the government
put 1.5 million dollars into restoring it.
We then proceeded to Van a short distance away.
We drove past the "castle" but all you can see from road level is the
walls and I wasn't in any shape to climb up to it.
My stomach was acting up again so I spent the rest of
the day in bed, skipping dinner once again. Two days in a row where dinner
was included in the cost of the hotel and I couldn't take advantage of either.
Between my back and the flu I am not doing many of the
things on my itinerary and that is a real disappointment. Once again as we
were driving I saw a few photo opportunities but the van was going so fast we
were past them before I could ask to stop. I mentioned it to Omer again
and he insists that we could always back up. Trouble with that theory is
that often there are no real shoulders on which to pull off and there are many
large trucks on the highways. We'll see how it goes tomorrow on the long
drive to Kars.