Turkey Trip Day 5 Akhdamar Island

Day 5 June 1, 2007

Van –Tatvan -Bingoel -Erzurum

We woke up around 6:30 got repacked and went down to the lobby to meet the Belgians. A little after 7:30 they came down and we headed for the minibus to a town not far from the ferry dock. The driver said he would take us the rest of the way to the boat for no extra charge!
On the way we were chatting about our travel plans and I wanted to look at the map in our travel guide. I searched through my bag and realized that I did not have it with me. I had left it either in the hotel or at the restaurant the night before. So now we were without maps and information for the rest of our trip. Luckily we were over halfway done and I still had all the Georgian alphabet and phrases for when we were back in Georgia. I was pretty mad at myself for leaving it, but we would get by somehow without it.
In a little over an hour we reached the ferry port just as a boat was leaving. We jumped on with a large Turkish family going on a picnic and were charged a more than reasonable fair. At least the price was much less than we had anticipated spending. Akhdamar Island is famous for an ancient Armenian Church perched on the rocky island about 3Km out in Lake Van. There were great views of the surrounding mountains and landscape. We hiked up some of the rocks to get some better photos of the church. The Turkish family invited us to have tea with them we refused, knowing how long a ‘tea break’ lasts. This was going to be a long travel day so we didn’t want to get ‘stuck’ on the island.
After an hour or so we got back on a ferry returning to the mainland. This one was packed with a Turkish tour group from Izmir- which is on the western coast of Turkey. It was a group of mostly female teachers dressed very European in sharp contrast to the women in Eastern Turkey. Before heading back to port the captain took a swing around the whole island which afforded us even better views of the mountains and church. Back on the docks we began the process of flagging down a bus to Tatvan, the next town with a bus station, and from there on to Erzurum. We hailed one bus going to what I first thought was Erzurum. We talked to the ticket/porter and he named an outrageous price. I asked how many kilometers it was and he said 1800, which I thought was way, too many- and then I realized that the bus was going to Izmir not Erzurum. Talking with the teachers on the boat I had gotten the names confused and realizing we didn’t want to go all the way to Izmir we let the bus continue on its way. Then of course I stupidly realized that, we still could have gotten on because it was probably going through Tatvan. I already had two travel strikes against me today and it was only 11.00!!! Thankfully Mike didn’t hold it against me!
Luckily about 10 minutes later ANOTHER bus heading to Izmir drove by and they agreed to take us to Tatvan for 10 Lira a person. We rode in style for the next hour and a half!! The buses in Turkey are WONDERFUL!!- comfortable, clean, free water, air conditioning, quiet!!! Paradise on wheels.
We rolled into Tatvan, a small little community on Lave Van, around 12.30. At the ticket office we asked for transportation to Erzurum and were dismayed to find out that there were no more buses heading there that day. We then asked where the next closest city was and if there was a bus going there. The men named a town, which didn’t sound familiar- and since I’d lost our maps we had no way of knowing if this was a good decision. We thanked them and then headed off to look for a map of Turkey. At a bookshop we found what we were looking for- and realized that the town they named was not really where we wanted to go. It was too small and unlikely that there would be transportation to Erzurum from there- and if we got stuck there, the overnight options would be sparser. We found another city that looked promising and back at the ticket office asked if there were buses to Bingoel. Thankfully there was one at 2 so we bought a ticket and then went to eat ice cream. The irony of course was that we had already been offered two opportunities to go to Erzurum and now that we finally wanted to go there- we couldn’t! At 2:00 or so we headed to the bus station outside of town and then boarded another luxury liner heading to Istanbul. We finally got on the road around 3:00. And bumping through constructions sites and over mountain passes and after stopping in every town on the way-5 hours later, we finally reached Bingoel- or more accurately the fork in the road before Bingoel where it turns off to Erzurum. Mike and I disembarked here and decided to poke around trying to find a way to continue to Erzurum. I ran over to a ticket office across the street and found out that there was a bus leaving for Erzurum at 10:00 that evening. It was only 7:00 so we figured we would see if we could find something else in the meantime but if not we would use that option. After sitting on the curb for 45 minutes finally a guy in a small commercial vehicle of sorts offered to take us to Erzurum. We gleefully hopped in and were on our way.
The ride continued to be very windy and bumpy. We did get to watch some cool lightening storms. Our driver also informed us that only a few months ago, this road was where the ‘terrorists’ (most likely PKK factions) shot at the cars going by. We both wondered if the flashes in the sky were really lightening! After a slight delay at yet another military checkpoint we arrived in Erzurum around 10:00. The Belgian couple had given us the name of a decent hotel and our driver knew where it was- Erzurum is the largest city in Eastern Turkey. Settled in our hotel room we went straight to bed.