The trip from South Eastern Turkey to the far North East was long. 36 hours of bums on buses.  When we get to the mountains we’re so spaced out we mix up the shuttle bus to a campsite and a minibus to a village 30km away ... a 3 hour ride up winding pot-holed roads later and we arrive in (thankfully) a lovely little village right up in the mountains.

 

The village, Barhal, is no more than a cluster of houses clinging to the woody slopes above a noisy, rapid mountain stream.  We find a place to stay in a little hostel stuck on the of the hill.  A guy takes our bags and straps them to a wooden platform attached to what looks like a flying fox.  Our bags fly up through the forest; we trudge up the muddy path.

 

A couple of short walks: one to a ridge, one along a stream. The scenery is stunning, but  the weather didn’t hold so we didn’t get up high.  We run out of money and realise it was time to leave Turkey - the Georgian border is only a few hours away...

HA