I caught my bus at 7:30, witnessing a little drama at the bus station beforehand. Turkey controls the stray cat and dog population, but they allow a few to roam around. I think it's smart, they seem to love tourists, which are an important source of food for them. During my days in Goreme, a friendly, possibly dim-witted mutt would come around the hostel looking for attention, and I would periodically find and pet him around town. He happened to show up at the bus terminal as I was getting there, and became the target of a pit bull that was loosely tied up to a post. The pit bull got loose and latched onto nice dog's neck, and in pit bull style, would not let go. At this point all the tourists are watching, some yelling to make it stop, but taking no action. The dim witted looking owner is pulling on the leash of his aggressive dog, but generally doing nothing. I walk up to tell him to help, telling him to pull on its ears or give it a quick poke in the eye, and the fucker physically shoves me off. About ten seconds later the pit bull lets go and nice dog runs away with a sore neck. There are no bad dogs, only bad owners.
After a bit of a run around I got to the train station in Kayersi and booked a ticket. Not many tourists take the trains here, so I was an instant novelty. Shortly after sitting down at an outside table I had a young guy sit down and try to practice his English, then a philosophy professor, and another really cool old man. This made the wait go by much quicker. Of course I have to post a photo of a guy sleeping in the station in the most uncomfortable position I could ever imagine, his smelly feet right near my thigh.
Trains are hands down the best way to travel overland. They usually deviat from the highway and follow a more scenic path alongside a river or through an amazing valley. Such was the case with my trip. I boarded at 1am, crashed in my bunk until 8am, and woke up to the spectacular scenery I just described. After a quick breakfast in the dining car, I preoccupied myself with book, music and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Unfortunately for me, because of track work, I couldn't take the train all the way to Kars, instead I had to get off in Erzurum and catch a bus. And of course that authoritarian ass of a Turkish prime minister, the one who's basically been the cause of all the riots during my time here, had to be holding one of his public manipulation rallies. This caused the main roads to be closed, and I had to walk to the bus station. At this point I had been on a train for 15 hours, and was looking at another three hours on a bus. Que annoyance. I managed to get to Kars at 9pm, quickly finding a hotel, eating, and secluding myself in my room.
The next day I caught a hotel run minibus to Ani, an ancient city smack dab against the border of Armenia. It turns out I was lucky, there was six more tourists that had signed up for it, which saved me quite a bit of money. The city was huge, perched above a canyon who's river served as the border between Turkey and Armenia. The city had some very impressive ancient churches, and took about 2 1/2 hours to walk through the entire site.
I'm starting to feel a little ruin'd out at this point, after a month of seeing them nearly every place I visited, and I'm glad that Ani is the last one. The amazing and different landscape of the east made for a great last place to visit before I start my slow progression home through Istanbul tomorrow. I have one more day there, a day in London, and I'll be back home!
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