We park in the car park of the Botan Vadisi National Park. The Botan is a tributary of the Tigris and the Botan Valley covers 120,000 hectares over a length of 29 kilometres. So we are almost back on the Tigris. And - here's the funny thing - an hour away from our friends in Batman.
We have already opened our office in the morning when suddenly there is movement in the car park. The car park attendant and the military are awake. They look at us, greet us and a little later the first thermos flask with tea, paper cups and sugar is in our van. I keep trying to mention that we have our own kitchen, but this either doesn't seem to be understood or is completely ignored.
In the afternoon, there's a knock at the door. A young man in full military fatigues stands in front of us, asks where from, where to and whether we've had tea yet? No matter what we say, he tells us to come into his little house and he and his colleague will make tea for us. I show him with five fingers that we need another five minutes. Tamam, okay, he's waiting for us.
We crawl into a tower that is slightly larger than two phone boxes, but heated, in front of which he and his colleague are keeping watch. What exactly they are guarding here remains unclear. We squeeze onto the bench and take the usual selfie (we refrain from publishing photos with military here), drank tea. One, two, three. Do we want biscuits? Bread? Have we eaten enough? We point to our round bellies, say thank you and go back to our Felix office an hour later.
8 o'clock in the evening: changing of the guard. The new soldiers are in no way inferior to the day shift: Tea is ready, they call out to us. OK, so back out again, back to the hut. No, we don't smoke. Yes, we have children. Yes, Switzerland is beautiful. Yes, we love Turkey. We don't let ourselves be led up the political garden path, praise the Turkish people and mention in passing that we have no idea about politics and are more interested in people and family stories. After an hour of really nice conversation, we retire. We have to go back to work tomorrow. That is accepted.
The next day is similar, but this time we get to drink tea in the national park café for a change. All by ourselves. Just as well, after all we want to prepare ourselves mentally for our trip to Iran. We spread out the map and the young men in the café are amazed. "Is that a map?" Yes, the google maps "in print" I laugh (and have it translated on my mobile phone).
During our lunch break, we hike a little through the national park and spend the evening just the two of us in our Felix. We don't get an invitation to the Military Tower today. Which is somehow a good thing. For once.
Merci for "travelling with us
We are thinking about taking another break from travelling in the summer and visiting our families in Germany and Switzerland. One of the ideas is to organise a Lecture about our long journey to the Persian Gulf to prepare. If you would like to, what would interest you the most? We will also tell stories here that don't find a place here on the blog. We're thinking of the Bern and Berlin area - simply because we have family there. But other places are also conceivable. Feel free to write to us.
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