Macka to Sivas, Turkey

Saturday 14 April 2007

It snowed overnight on the hills around Macka so we are in two minds whether to head inland through the Dogu Karadeniz Mountains which form a barrier between the Black Sea coast and central Turkey. However intrepid as ever we decide to give it a go and climb up to 2000m in ever increasing snow but once past the summit, the sky clears to a beautiful spring day as we descend the other side. Interesting tho’ that there is more snow here in Turkey than we saw in the middle of winter in the Himalayas or the Karakorum, and the snow line is lower at around 1800m. Its also colder at around 5C so we decide not to venture farther east towards Erzurum, but head in a zig zag course towards Sivas in central Turkey.

We reach Sivas by mid afternoon where after checking into the Sultan Otel we explore the C12 Seljuk Monastery and hospital in the centre of the city. Although largely in ruins the main gateways remain with elaborate carvings. On the way back to the hotel we go shopping for gloves and scarves as this town is freezing, then we have dinner in the hotel’s roof top restaurant. We discover that outside Istanbul, alcohol is primarily served in restaurants and bars which are not at street level, a bit like dirty book shops in Sydney, apparently. Anyway the raki (like ouzo or anise, served with water which makes it cloudy and an acquired taste) is flowing, there’s live music and not a headscarf in sight. We can’t understand why the Turks aren’t the size of houses as they all seem to eat a metre slab of bread at each sitting as well as piles of mezza and vast plates of grilled animal.