We are enroute to Gaziantep, the sixth most populous city in Turkey. It is a diverse community populated mostly by ethnic Turks, plus Kurd and Syrian refugees. When we drove through town, we saw substantial damage from the Turkey-Syria 7.8 earthquake, which was followed by a 7.7 after shock, on February 8, 2023. We learned […]
Turkey #6 – Adiyaman and Mount Nemrut
We left our hotel in Aidiyaman by 2:00 AM to climb Mount Nemrut to see the sunrise. Mount Nemrut is 7000 feet high and was designated a World Cultural Heritage site in 1987. The site is covered with statues of the gods, and some consider this site as the 8th Wonder of the World. When the sun […]
Turkey #5 – Sanliurfa
In Sanliurfa we photographed the biblical Abraham’s Pond and also Abraham’s Cave and Mosque in the afternoon. We visited Karahantepe, an archaeological site in Sanluirfa, where we saw the oldest structures that have been discovered, and were built some 12,000 years ago. This was the first temple built by a mysterious civilization and considered the cradle of our […]
Turkey #4 – Mardin
Above is the view of the ancient city of Mardin in South Eastern Turkey, from our hotel balcony. The minaret did not light up until well after the blue hour ended, which is why the sky is black. Mardin is a UNESCO protected city and one of the most significant cities located in SE Turkey. […]
Turkey #3 – Van
We continue our journey exploring Eastern Turkey enroute to Van, which is filled with ancient sites and many views of Mount Arawat. We took a ferry ride out to Akdamar Island, to photograph an Armenian church. This was a perfect chance to send up our drone, to get aerial images of the church (upper-left, upper-center […]
Turkey #2 – Kars & Dogubeyazit
We photographed the ruins of the old Armenian capital of Ani located right on the border between Turkey and Armenia. Ani is an old fort situated at the top of a massive hill, and is currently being restored. We met shepherds with their cattle still working the hills. There are impressive ruins of Armenian churches […]
Turkey 2023 #1 – Istanbul, Uzungöl and Erzurum
We have just started the “off the beaten track photo tour of Eastern Turkey” with Mehmet Ozbalci of Turfantastik. This will be our sixth trip with Mehmet since discovering him nearly a decade ago on our first tour of Western Turkey (click here to see the list of 26 blog posts from that trip). The […]
Bolivia 6 – Parade & Finale
The Republic of Bolivia was founded in 1825. Although Spanish is the official language, there are also 36 Indigenous languages that are officially recognized. The indigenous people felt they were being ignored by the country’s political leaders, and it is estimated there are between 40-70% of the 12 million population are indigenous and minorities. In […]
Bolivia 5 – Fumerols, High Desert and Lagoons
After hours of driving, we stopped at a fumerol field. As the image of our elevation app shows lower-left, we were at over 16,000 feet elevation at this location. I wondered if my drone would handle this altitude, but though it kept complaining about the high altitude, it did amazingly well. Our guide, Alvaro, is […]
Bolivia 4 – Flamingos, Trains and Night Sky
When arranging our trip to Bolivia, we had two major photographic goals — the mirror scenes on the salt flats, and flamingos in the high desert lagoons. We never got the mirror images we envisioned, due to the current drought in Bolivia. Flamingos though, were a different matter! We have chased flamingos across many countries. […]
