The mystery is not why some people cannot read.
The marvel is that any of us can.
To illustrate this, put your fingers in your ears and look at this picture.
Where Their Bodies Lay
Bullets
The ridge abruptly rises near the lake’s edge. It is more than a half mile long and hundreds of feet high. The flat ground extending from its base (undoubtedly a flood plain from more remote times) renders the promontory all the more stunning. Walls and towers cling to the rock like barnacles. I wonder why these man-made constructions were thought necessary. The plunge to the flat is so vertical, so awful, that the ridge ably protects itself.
Lost Love, Lost Kingdom
Where the Road Ends
The place where the road ends is the place where the trail begins. For us, that place is called Çevirme. Our top-heavy transport has not traveled far from Doğubeyazıt. I look at my watch. It has been less than an hour since leaving the soldiers of the gendarmerie and the security of the asphalt surface. In that time, we skirted the east side of the Şeyhli Marsh on a road of packed earth and rock. Uraz told us that we were fortunate this day to have a dry run. Rain can reduce this road to an impassable mudhole. No one doubted him.
Stone Palaces
Between Van and Iran
On the eastern end of Turkey rests Lake Van, the largest lake in the country. It has many claims to fame: a deep history, a saline character, and even a “Loch Ness” style monster rumored to haunt its depths. Of these, it is the first that brings us here (although the third is certainly interesting!). In the first millennium BC, a kingdom remembered as Urartu was centered in the region. In fact, the capital of the kingdom was erected on a rocky knob rising above the water’s edge. A scramble over these ruins is is goal for another day, as is additional attention to the mysterious Urartians.