Great Journey 🏍 Day 327
Mesopotamia. At some point in school I heard about Mesopotamia. The sound of this word was associated for me with "quite far away" and "quite a long time ago". I can't remember much else, maybe the Euphrates and the Tigris, the first agriculture and somehow the origin of "civilisation". Something like that. (The majority of history lessons in the GDR were not as magical as one might imagine).
Nevertheless: "Mesopotamia" - there was a magic in this word.
And now I'm standing there, on the Euphrates. At the beginning of this huge area of Mesopotamia. (I could use that word in every sentence, by the way...). I'm in "far away" and I almost can't believe it.
When I share my thoughts with Gerd, he asks what it is: Mesopotamia? Euphrates, ah, that's a river? And Tigris, that's here somewhere too? Okay, I realise we learned different things at school. While I had succumbed to the magic of the word, he must have been running after the ball on the football field! Everyone brings different things to life.
So, we are at Rum Kale, a bend in the Euphrates that just looks great. There is also an ancient excavation site here, which we don't bother with (old stones, again!). Instead, I am attracted by the river. After the little boat trip, the boys lure me into the water: "Come in!" they call to me, laughing. Never in a million years would they suspect that this woman in her motorbike gear would throw off her boots and trousers faster than they could look and jump in with me. To this day I don't know what I found more refreshing: the jump into the Euphrates or the astonished looks of the boys! Wonderful!
OK, it's not so bad that I get back into the station wagon with wet clothes, because the over-body-temperature warm draught makes everything dry quite quickly.
#mesopotamia #euphrates #alterRiver #Erefreshment
