We are going to Erbil. It’s warm, warmer than other days!!! The taxis are modern but they hardly ever put the air conditioning on. I guess that if they don’t use it at 48 degrees then they don’t use it, and its because they probably could save money. The windows are down, normally even if it´s super warm the air refreshes you, it hit’s the sweat and you feel a bit fresh. Here that doens’t happened, the air hits my cheeks; it burns them, it hit’s on my arm; my skin get’s dry, it hit’s on my knee; it roasts it. It really irritates my skin, thank go I was having my supplement for skin Hydralyft I found on Tophealthjournal. My lower back is free between my pants and my t-shirt, instead of feeling cold I feel an intense, dry heat. The feeling is similar to being inside a hairdryer. I imagine naked rolling in snow.

I think about the story of the family that so kindly  hosted us. When Saddam Hussein started his anti-Kurd policy there were international organizations working in Iraq. Apparently some of then didn’t have the right papers to work there legally even though they were helping. Saddam said that he’d kill the people that were illegal in the country and the people that collaborated with them. This was the case of the father of the family, he got his family and his things and went to Turkey, Greece and finished in Holland.

They have a house in Choman, the father seemed happy to visit his home, they come here every two years for a month with all the family. Now they face the challenge of immigration with his sons. His sons have been raised in a western country, the older daughters talk good Kurdish, they remember their childhood here and they feel the place as theirs, however they have lived in Holland practically all their lifes, including their teenager years. For the younger son this is probably more strange “something from his parents”. The cultural difference is big, the way of life, of dress, the food, the young way of entertainment… After these years out of Iraq they are not totally seen as Iraqis as they don’t live there, and in the west they are immigrants, they are in between two worlds, on one side they have more cultural heritage because they know two ways of life, on the other they don’t have a clear home.

Arbil is one of the warmest places in Iraq. We are told it’s 50 degrees but we don’t find a thermometer to ratify it. I’ve been hours with my hands wet in sweat, my fingers are wrinkled and the snots have become dry and hard hurting my nose. If I take a pen from my bag it burns, same with the coins or whatever you touch, all burn.

A man in Kurdish dressing. Love it! When the trip finishes I’ll have to do a list of all the things I say I love.

No coins, all notes.

I finish “The Alchemist”, the book that brought me here. I like it(another “love it” for the list), the idea of omens, of understanding the language of the world and of talking with the wind. If I ever meet the French girl that recommended it I’ll say thank you.

Walking by Erbil’s souk I see this drawing of Mecca. You can also buy a replica of the Kaaba, the black square stone which is the holiest place for Islam and which towards all of them pray.

We try to get a bus to come back to the border, but there are none. We get another shared taxi. We just see buses to Mosul, but every time “Mosul” comes up there’s someone coming to inform us not to go, like that man that took his hand through his neck making the noise of sliting it. To be sure we have the right information we call Berashi as a phone-translator, this must be the tenth time we call him.

Arbil is another place that claims to have been inhabited for a long time, the citadel. It’s UNESCO heritage.

With Mosul, Baghdad and Kirkuk are the most dangerous cities of Iraq, what probably means in the world.

In the taxi I think once more about these last days, the hospitality that they have after having had such a hard life. The country worth going, the best: the people. Definitely summer is not the time to come and visit, too dry and too war, the landscapes has lost the green they have in spring and sometimes you are more worried of not dying of dehydration than of enjoying what you are doing but it’s been very interesting to learn about the Kurds and their history, as they say “the other Iraq”.

I hope the Iraqi Kurdistan keeps being a peaceful and as nice a place as it’s now, they are doing fine, they have had a few years of stability. They don’t have it easy, today USA troops have left the country while there are cities in which people die constantly and they are surrounded by countries where the Kurds are not that free. In February 2008, for example, Turkey bombed the north of the Iraqi Kurdistan claiming that PKK was using it as a base for terrorist actions in Turkey.

The PKK is a political party/terrorist group pro Kurdish. They mainly act in Turkey where there’s a population of 14 million Kurds that until the year 2002 had forbidden the talk of Kurd in schools or having TVs and Radios in Kurd language. Turkey has loosened its laws in this aspect to get closer to Europe.

I come back to Turkey, to the Kurd zone, knowing more of its culture. I hope it’s not that warm.

See you soon.

Fernando

Here you have the second part of the Iraq video. As in the other one, there is some  unconnected content plus I’ve broken one of my style rules, that is not to cut the same take. I forget myself because of the heat I wasn’t able to do more, and being Iraq, sounds so peculiar that the mistakes are forgotten.

Matt, thanks for being my camera man!!! I remind you his web, he’s got some more videos about Iraq: leavemehere.wordpress.com

In the next post i’ll tell you a bit more about what was that q&a session with all those women.

I love the label “Made in Iraq” there’s probably not many products with that label, there are fruit and vegetables, but nothing like that “family sauce” that had a non very definable taste.

Before finishing the post I’d like to tell you a bit more of what this thing of the Kurdish Iraq is.The Kurdish Iraq is the northern region of Iraq. Since 1970 it has a great deal of independence as the “Autonomous State of Kurdistan” was created.

Since then it has self managed having as a capital the city of Erbil. Saddam Hussein made all possible moves under his hand to wipe out the Kurds until 1991 when the governments of US and England took action, declared the area as a non fly zone(to avoid attacks) and gave more independence to the Kurdish Iraq having a totally independent government from Baghdad. It really works as a different state with it’s own flag and national anthem.

Politically it’s been able to keep peace having two different political parties.

If you want to know more or see a map, just get into this link from Wikipedia.

Hope you’ve find it interesting.
Fernando

No es que esté súper orgulloso de este video, pero con mas de 40 grados todo el rato simplemente no he podido hacer nada mejor.

Algunas notas aclaratorias al vídeo.

– Sulav está más alto de 1000 metros, está prácticamente a la misma altura que Amadiya y eso son algo más de 1800 metros.

– El viaje desde Siria fue más largo de lo que cuento. En Siria fueron unas cinco horas de buses y luego en Turquía nueve de autobús hasta llegar a la frontera.

– Ah, la ventaja de solo haber un hotel es que así no tienes que esforzarte en elegir, que en el vídeo se me pasó contarlo bien. Esto intentaba ser gracioso, pero como en el vídeo no he contado todo lo que tenía que contar pues ha quedado bastante soso…

A Matt le ha gustado esto de los vides y se ha puesto a hacer una especie de video-blog para el recorrido por Iraq. Le está quedando muy bien, si os apetece verlo, lo tenéis aquí: http://leavemehere.wordpress.com/

¡Ya estoy trabajando en la segunda parte!

Fernando

I’m not super proud of this video but with constant over 40 degrees I just haven’t been able to do better.

Notes to the video:

– The trip to the border was much longer, from Syria we had to go to turkey which was like 5 hours, then from turkey to Iraq border was 9 hours, not 7, plus the shared taxi.

– Sulav is higher than 1000 meters, It´s nearly as the same height as Amadiya that is 1800 meters high.

– Ah, the advantage of having just one hotel is that you don’t have to think, hehe, didn’t say it in the video! It was supposed to be funny but if I don’t say it all… it doesn’t make sense in the video.

Matt has liked this things of videos so he’s decided to do a video blog for the Iraq days, if you want, you can check it out in his page, it’s looking very good!  Here is the link: http://leavemehere.wordpress.com/

Working on the second part already!

Fernando

I’m not super proud of this video but with constant over 40 degrees I just haven’t been able to do better.

Notes to the video:

– The trip to the border was much longer, from Syria we had to go to turkey which was like 5 hours, then from turkey to Iraq border was 9 hours, not 7, plus the shared taxi.

– Sulav is higher than 1000 meters, It´s nearly as the same height as Amadiya that is 1800 meters high.

– Ah, the advantage of having just one hotel is that you don’t have to think, hehe, didn’t say it in the video! It was supposed to be funny but if I don’t say it all… it doesn’t make sense in the video.

Matt has liked this things of videos so he’s decided to do a video blog for the Iraq days, if you want, you can check it out in his page, it’s looking very good!  Here is the link: http://leavemehere.wordpress.com/

Working on the second part already!

Fernando

That’s the first question we are ask in the border just after getting into the country. Here we were, sitting in the sofa of an immigration office, handingn a glass of tea with the tip of our fingers, the tea has a huge lager of sugar at the bottom, with no preliminary the man there ask that.

“Sorry, can you repeat?” His English was not very clear, “tourist” sounded like “terrorist” and “terrorist” like “tourists”, we cant believe what we’ve just heard.

He repeated the question, this time more clear while a little smile came out of his lips. He was teasing us, black black humour, the kind I like. Even we knew he was teasing us we answered astonished “tourist tourist” as self confident as we could nodding our heads bluntly.

He gave us his phone number in case we needed anything. I’ve removed the last two numbers, don’t think it’s so short.

He was in fact a very nice guy, his name was Mahdi, he helped us to solve all of our questions we had. The most important one to be able to move around the country was if there were cash machines, a thing that makes long trips life much easier. After the “tourists or terrorists” the answer to the question of if there were ATMs disoriented us a bit; “Yes, I’ve heard about it, you insert something, a card or something similar, and then there’s money going out… we don’t have of those things here.” This time he was not teasing us, in Dohuk(the first place we went to) there was a cash machine but it was broken, we were told that it would be fix in one month. As we were prepared, we changed money with no hassle.

In the taxi excited and tired we talk about this kind of interview-welcome in which at the beginning we thought we were being ask tramp questions, and then we saw that the only think they wanted was to help and ensure we knew what we were doing. The surreal image continues, we were in Iraq, at night, by a road with no painted lines, with a taxi driver that had no English and with Britney Spears out loud in the car. we continued to Dohuk. We leave Zakho a city descrived as “sex city” by the kids in the turkish village we stopped to cross the border.

We arrive to Dohuk, a disorganized village with some modernization, the buildings looked all new or rehabilitated and seemed all cars had been bought in the last four to five years. In the afternoon there’s quite an activity as during the day over 40 degrees it’s quite unpleasant to be out in the street.

Searching for the hotel we started talking with some policemen, the emblem on the uniform was an eagle grabbing a rifle with her claw. They had very little English but they help us, they like football so I had one of those “World Champion” conversation. They had purelly “Michael Night” style sunglases.

We go for a walk to the souk. In our walk there was a guy approaching us, Berashi, he had been in England and had an English with some funny brit accent. He gave us his phone number and we used him fro a few days as a translator. On the left Mathew, my company in Iraq.

People is extremely calm and kind, they have some face features that I don’t know where to fit them; the skin is a bit darker but not as much as in Syria and Jordan and many of them has the eyes less rounded but not as the Chinese, Koreans or Japanese, maybe here the change starts.

Kurdish Iraq does not have many choices of transport, basically you have to go everywhere by taxi. They are not very expensive and you can share them with more people to make it cheaper. So to go to Sulav, we take a taxi. Sulav is a retreat place for Iraqis, it’s high so it’s not that warm, even though to be fresher they put the tables on the stream. The water was super cold!

Upstream the restaurants there’s a place for swimming, the kids came to ask us things and also jump from a bridge to give some show.

Wet.

What a toy!.

We met a Kurdish family that lived in Holland. The girl talk perfect English. They have a house in Choman, a village that we wanted to go through, they give us some information to move around the area and they invite us to their house… WOW! People is ultra kind everywhere.

We are clearly different and there’s people stopping to say hello all the time. When we leave we see this group of youngsters we talk a bit with them and they tell us to get a picture so we do. The clothes are the normal ones they wear, girls are very colourful. The golden things are just things they bought in the shops to play. Look at the girl that is looking at the camera through his friend arm. They were fun.

In front of Sulav it’s Amadiya, a village sitúate 1985 meters above sea, the village it has nothing, not even a cafe but it has this wall remains. The guy sitting the was our voluntary “guide”, he had some English and he took us round the village, I think he wanted to practise his English apart from the fact that there´s footing else to do in the village. I kind of thing also that it’s cool walking by a foreigner also.

Amadiya also has the views.

Sulav was an expensive place for Iraqi standards, if eating the previous day cost us six euro here it was double so we decided to prepare a sandwich in the crappiest hotel room in the planet.

From here we want to go to Gully Alli Beg, a canyon that seems to have some good landscapes. We are thinking on calling the Holand-Kurdish family so maybe they can show us around. The taxi to got o Gully Alli Beg want’s to charge us 90 dollars per person so we decide to hitchhike.

Opposite  to what I thought, there is not a big army presence. The border is like any other with no extra reinforcement and in the country you don’t see that many army vehicles(I’ve seen more in the Kurdish Turkey area). The only thing that makes you remind that you are near a war zone is that there are checkpoints in the roads where you just have to show your passport and hardly ever they ask you anything, it’s a procedure with no tension.

On the way to Gully Alli Beg.

Views of Gully Ali Beg canyon, there’s really no much here so we keep going to Choman, we haven’t been able to contact our new family.

In the gas station in Gully Ali Beg the assistant there helps us to get into this car. It breaks in the middle of the way, it’s 46 degrees and something got broken.

See you soon.
Fernando

It all started three days ago.

Going for a walk, next to my hotel  to wind up, I  see a bookshop. I have been thinking lately of reading a novel , I would like to disconnect from the trip thing, read about people with another life different from going  from one place to another. My readings are based on travel guides, books from the country where I am, news about new countries I am going to vist, and to continue with the same subject, most of the conversations I have with other travellers are about places and routes. The conversations with the locals are similar, I usually tell them about my trip to satisfy their curiosity. I ask for books in English. She takes me to a little shelf with a dozen books.  Great! They have some! A French girl comes as well.  Another person looking for a book.  I put away Dan Brown ‘s books, very thick and addictive, I don’t want to get too hooked. I see some books from Paulo Cohello, as I haven’t read any of his, it takes my fanc. They are very thin,  I take “The Alchemist”. The French girl recommends it to me,  she says it’s the best one from Paulo Cohello.  I don’t think anymore, I get it, pay and leave.

I find it funny that it starts in Andalucía(south of Spain), and after that I don’t like that the main character starts travelling. I wanted a settled life. I laugh a bit and carry on reading, maybe my fate is to read this book so that’s what I do. To top it he starts travelling in Arabic countries and in the deserts,  he wants to get to Egypt, to the pyramids. I like the book,  it’s very iconic, everyone can find something with which he can identify himself. The main character learns to believe in omens. I like the idea: follow the tips life brings you, follow that tip-instincts to see where it gets you.

It could be the cause of it, next a breakfast a quite cocky guy starts to talk to me, I met him waiting for the shower and we had one of those travelling conversations. He has travelled a lot, but he is a little bit egocentric. I enjoy him, but couldn’t stand him for three full  days. His ego is a little bit extensive so he enrols in the conversation a guy who is in the table next to us.  Mathew, a serious Australian guy.  The “boring” goes and I talk to Mathew, he has been travelling for a year, he also has a blog, he takes pictures with old cameras. With only 26 years old, he has travelled to 62 different countries.I see his Middle east Lonely Planet , the countries it contains are Egypt,  Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. We talk about Iraq, I tell him that I have met people who have known people who have been there, which sounds like that the friends cousin neighbour has had an affair with the work colleague of his bother in law. I can see he is curious about the country. The Kurdish Iraq seems to be a quiet zone and independent of the Iraq war.

I go to buy a juice and send a postcard, I think about “The Alchemist”, in the American woman had met travellers that loved Iraq, in the news I saw the last day by chance about Iraq Kurdistan, in Matt who is interested in Iraq, in the selfish man who” introduced” us, in that me on my own wouldn’t go, but now that I have someone to  go with…  In my trip which is being so easy, and I would like to get it more complicated… It’s all clear, they are omens as the main character of the book says,  “ you must follow the omen”. I get back to the hotel and look for Mathew, who does not seem to be a so serious any more, and tell him that I, on my own I wouldn’t  go to Iraq, but if he wants to come with me, we could go together.

Two days later, after going through Mar Musa monastery, at 2 pm we are in the new bus station in Homs. We need to cross all of  Syria to the north and 549 km of Turkey , because the border from Syria to Iraq is closed to foreigners and the only way to go is from Turkey.

After  the minibus and the bus to Homs, a two hour bus, a taxi of another two hours, night in Antep, and a nine hours bus to Silopi in Turkey, we are  20 km from the border, bargaining the taxi, a yellow Berlingo, ready to enter Bush´s “the axis of evil”.

See you soon… I hope
Fernando

To wind up I walk to the souk to have an ice-cream with pistachio over it mmmmmm’

I just spent the night, next day I want to go very early to Mar Musa Monastery on the way to Turkey. It is a monastery from the 6th century that was abandoned around 1830. The name comes from Moses-Musa. In 1982 Father Paolo started the reconstruction until 1991 when he settled there in a permanent way. The monastery is ecumenical mixture. This means that there are monks and nuns from different religious sects. It is possible to visit it for the day or to overnight.

Instead of staying in the hotel with many stars I stayed with my father a week ago I go to mi Hotel-hostel. It costs me less sleeping in Al Rabie than in the star studded hotel. It’s true that in the hotel you have great advantages such as being able to ask for your praying mat.

The best thing of my hotel is the patio, a place with silence, plants, fountain and a water melon in the fountain. It´s ideal to meet other travellers.

Syria has an elaborated cuisine, the photo only has the starters or mezze. This is in the hotel Orient pearl.

Here are some other restaurant recommendations:
– Orient Pearl is one of the newest and the food is excellent.
– Naranj in the Christian neighbourhood.
– Al Hallabi, with Aleppan cuisine, known as the best cuisine in the country.
– If you want a night view(or daylight) from the city, you can go to one of the countries up in the hill but don’t expect either great food nor service.

I buy some bread.

Stairs to go up to the monastery, there is no road. I arrive just for lunch.

I think summer is not the best moment to visit it, there were around 50 people for dinner and the monks are not even 10. I expected a more inaccessible place, with more monks that visitors, so my experience got a bit adultaretad. In winter it has to be much more interesting being able to talk more in depth than the “Where are you from?”.

It’s sunset, a group leaves the monastery walking to another nearby monastery, I read for a little bit enjoying the image.

Do you like my room?

In the morning and afternoon they have a meditation hour, after that there is the prayer. The praying has quite a lot of singing, you can’t expect less form a country with the oldest score in the world. It’s from the 1500 B.C.

Being so many people the place looked like a free hostel run by monks more than a monastery that hosts people, but I’ve liked visiting. I love these places where different people try to get together instead of separating, maybe these places are seeds and the world can improve bit by bit.

When I say hello to Father Paolo, a former Jesuits, I say hello from Barbara from Antilock. Father Paolo has an incredible personality, he is one of those people that when he talks everybody just pays as much attention as possible.

I leave the place with a bit more hope in the world. With me I have a Belgian and a German that are travelling in the area. We are in the minibus with our bags on top of us. I keep going north to leave Syria. The next stop of the trip is Georgia, but… plans are meant to be change, aren’t they?

I leave this country with it’s dentist president, amazingly hospitable people, deserts, roman ruins, abandoned cities, water Norias, forgotten castles, exciting history and good food. From all these things the one that makes you feel good even with the huge language barrier is the people. Syrians ar honest, jokers, helpful and positive. I hope the rising tourism will help progress and have a less hard life and that it does not change the pleasant character I’ve found in their people.

See you soon.
Fenando