January 24, 2005

Alone with the Hittites

Hattuşa, Turkey

It's the end of the day and I find myself in Ankara. How did that happen? I was determined not to set foot in this town again (least favourite capital cities: Ankara and Tehran. Most favourite capital cities: Beijing and Yerevan). Instead I find myself walking the dirty, depressing streets of Ulus once more. At least I'm staying in a different flea-pit this time. But back to the beginning...

Arising from Prince Charles' hotel I stroll across the snow-covered town to find the dolmuş to Boğankale. "Wait in here", says a guy working in a tea house. I'm soon hunkered down with the locals and being supplied with countless glasses of tea. An hour passes. No dolmuş. I ask the guy serving the drinks. He runs outside for a few minutes and returns with a young taxi driver. No dolmuş they say. The roads are too treacherous. The taxi will go for about the same price.

We run around the town and pick up some more people then head off for the 30kms to Boğankale. On arrival the driver assures me that he'll need to accompany me for the day as I'll never be able to walk around by myself in the treacherous ankle-deep snow. For a very reasonable price, he says. I shake him off and head up to Hattuşa. Ancient city of the Hittite civilization, dating to about the 14th century BC.

The ruins are low and sparse but the setting was magnificent. The weather was perfect, with blue skies and not a breath of wind. Several inches of fresh snow removed all traces of footprints. I was the only person in sight.

The snow squeaked beneath my boots. "Champagne powder" they call it in Utah. So light you could run your fingers through it and not feel a thing. Sunlight sparkled across the surface as if it was strewn with diamonds. The bright points of light dancing across the snow with every footstep.

I spent a couple of hours walking around. By the end the bottom of my trousers were frozen solid. I catch a lift with a grossly overloaded truck to the next site, a couple of miles away.

By the end of the day I'm heading back to Sungurlu with the same taxi driver. He tries to sell me some old postcards and wooden carvings on the way. "I carve them myself", he says, "at night". Riiigghht.

We land right in front of a bus company in Sungurlu. I go in to check out the times of buses tomorrow and before I know it I'm bundled on to an old minibus and bound for Ankara, where I can change for my real destination of Safranbolu. I'm thinking that this is the courtesy bus to take us to the real bus. No! This is the bus for the whole three hour trip. Our departure is delayed for quite some time while they heatedly debate who exactly should go from the excess of potential passengers. In the end it's solved. They all go! Jammed in to every available space.

I'm still slightly dazed by it all when we reach Ankara. It's too late now to continue. Nothing for it but to take a room for the night. Back to the wasteland of Ulus.

Posted by David at January 24, 2005 10:10 AM