25 July, Hasankeyf
Has Bahçe 100TL (breakfast included)
Hasankeyf is under threat from a proposed hydroelectric
dam that will flood the town as well as numerous other villages along the
Tigris. Perhaps we should therefore have visited some of her historic sites.
Instead, we spent the morning beneath the trees at our motel, catching up on
some writing and correspondence, and spent the hot afternoon in our
air-conditioned room, watching movies and resting. Our motel has a rustic charm
augmented by the numerous animals that wander its shaded enclosure: geese,
cats, turkeys, fat-tailed sheep, rabbits and one discontented cow. During our
stay in Hasankeyf, we saw only one local woman and that in the kitchen of the
restaurant at which we ate on our first evening. Apparently women here do not
even come into town to catch the dolmuş / bus, but are collected instead at
their homes. A lifestyle so different from mine, it is impossible to imagine.

Hasankeyf - new bridge

Hasankeyf - old bridge