Hiking amidst history in the Southeast
“Here, taste this,” our guide Hüseyin said, plucking a handful of green stems from the ground and offering them to us. The scent and flavor were sharp and unmistakable – garlic, growing wild in the rugged hills behind the town of Hasankeyf in Southeast Turkey. We had set out on a hike as the sun rose, climbing past old cave dwellings and into the canyons. Delicate flowers shook off the morning dew and opened to the sky, leaving the green slopes studded with red blossoms in our wake. Birds circled overhead, spiraling down to round holes in the limestone cliffs where they’d built their mud-dark nests alongside vertiginous staircases and primitive drainpipes carved into the stone.... Read the rest of my article about exploring Hasankeyf, which appeared in the October 2011 issue of Time Out Istanbul, as a jpg or pdf , or click "Read more" below for the full text. To learn more about this amazing and threatened place, visit the blog Hasankeyf Matters and the website