Route of Turkey trip in 2014
High pastures and water reeds
Today, we headed north over the chain of Taurus mountains that must have been formed with much violence, as the limestone has been pushed up, angled and sheered off by a massive force. The roads through the mountains, again, are beautifully engineered, wide and scenic, clothed in fir and pine forests. We see goat and sheep herds as we gain higher ground and don’t take too much notice until we pass a small cluster of tents and realise that these have to belong to traditional yöreks, mountain nomads, moving their animals up from the hot coastal plains to their cool mountain pastures for the summer. Their traditional tents have waterproof coatings these days, and while their clusters look something like gypsies they are not classified as such: they are the remnants of a proud and independent people who were among the early users of Anatolian land, the Turkmen from Central Asia. In recent decades the Turkish government has attempted a settlement program for the yöreks, offer...
Comments
Post a Comment