On Friday we had to say goodbye to Sulaymaniyah and our friends and head back towards the border. We had a lovely breakfast of pancakes before heading out to meet our driver. The night before we had met some guys at the English center who tried to arrange a way to drive with us. It didn't end up working, but someone's brother's uncle (or something like that) was a private driver and between all of these people, a private driver was arranged to take us from Sulaymaniah to the border with Turkey, and the route was arranged to be the most scenic (and safe). It's so nice to have people taking care of you!
Our driver was an older man who didn't speak English, but our friends actually called him a couple of times during the trip to check up on us and to make sure that everything was okay. Everything was (mostly) okay, although our driver seemed intent on setting some sort of land-travel speed record. It started raining a half an hour into our 6 hour drive and never really stopped, but we just kept driving. We were going 140 km/hr on some of the smallest mountain roads in Iraq! Luckily, these small roads didn't have as many people, so there was less passing-on-blind-curves than on the larger, more busy roads.
Driving in Iraq is really... unique. Lanes are really just a suggestion, but most of the times people don't drive in them. And there appears to be no speed limit, except randomly-placed speed bumps, which all cars will grind to a crawl to cross over. The only rules of driving that I could catch were: 1) honk when you're passing someone because otherwise they won't know to stay in their lane, 2) put on your hazard lights when slowing down to go over a speed bump, 3) if it's okay for someone to pass you on a mostly-blind curve, turn on your blinker and slow down a little to let them know that they can pass, and 4) drive down the smoothest part of the road whenever possible, especially if it's the opposite side of the road.
So, we hurtled through the countryside in Kurdish Iraq. What we could see was quite stunning, but it was really raining quite hard, so our view was obscured. We had a brief stop at a mosque for noon prayers for our driver and a little later a stop for lunch, but otherwise we were on a mission of speed.
After lunch the rain became harder, and even our driver had to slow down, although he was still passing people. We were in the mountains, and we started to experience massive streams gushing across the road, carrying rocks and mud. We really had to slow down to get through some of these, but our driver was not to be deterred. I'm really thankful that we got through the mountains when we did, given how the situation deteriorated.
We made it out of the mountains and were driving on flats near the border when the water situation really got a little out of control. The roads were quite new, but were not built with continued, monsoon-style rain in mind, so it was basically a wide stretch of asphalt with very high curbs and no drainage. And, as we were in the plain heading towards the Tigris River at the border between Iraq and Turkey, basically all of the water was heading toward us. And our driver didn't speak English, so our attempts to get him to stop or turn around didn't really work.
At first, we were just driving through some big puddles. Then we were driving more slowly through some lakes. Then we were crawling through inches of water, and we could feel the water moving beneath our feet. Then the water started hitting the sides of the car, and it sounded like we were in a pontoon boat. Finally, we really couldn't move any further because the water was so deep. People were stalling all around us. Even semis couldn't really move. An army bulldozer came up next to us and literally started tearing up the side of the road to try to open some sort of outlet for the water. (I'm impressed with how quickly they were there, actually.) There were men out knee-deep in this nasty, rocky, muddy water trying to direct traffic and rescue stalled cars.
While this may sound a little dangerous, we knew that we weren't in danger of being washed away, because there was really nowhere for us to be washed away to. Probably the biggest danger was the potential for CO poisoning, as we started smelling exhausted and realized that our tailpipe was under water. So, we sat with the windows open in the torrential downpour in our taxi that felt and sounded like a pontoon boat.
Finally our driver got bored with waiting and decided to just go. He went slow enough and didn't stall, thankfully, because I didn't want to get out in that murky water. However, I started noticing that my feet were wet and realized that water was pouring into the car! This still did not appear to phase the driver, so we drove the last 10 minutes to the border with approximately 6 inches of water sloshing around in the bottom of the taxi. Thankfully our bags didn't get wet, as the trunk was high enough. Our driver delivered us to the border and began bailing out his car. We felt so bad! I really never expected that our trip to Iraq would involve flash floods.
Once at the border, we really felt like we had just been through the wringer, between the white-knuckle driving and the pontoon-boat experience at the end. And the experience was just starting.
We procured a taxi driver to get us across the border and into Mardin, where I would fly out of the next day. He really knew how to work the system. Since Kurdish people really like Americans, he and Brian would go to the front of a line and get the guards to let us skip ahead because we were American. While Brian was standing for hours in the pouring rain, Jessi and I stayed nice and warm and dry in the car (there are benefits to being a second-class citizen at times). At all of the posts, the people just wanted to see Brian, and Jessi and I got through mostly without a second glance. We got through the Kurdish border formalities in about two hours, skipping past hundreds of people and cars.
However, things then ground to a halt. We got onto the bridge over the Tigris River between Iraq and Turkey and stopped. We were on the bridge (over the raging Tigris River in heavy rain) for 4 hours without moving. I think we literally drove across Northern Iraq in a shorter amount of time than it took for us to cross this bridge. We didn't really have any idea what was going on, but there was no moving forwards or backwards, so we just sat. Eventually we found out that that the Turkish computers were down. Seriously.
Once things were moving again, we got through the Turkish border stations in about 1.5 hours, but, again, we were flying through because we were Americans! They really didn't search our bags or even ask us about the cigarettes that our driver had us carry in for him.
At this point, we had been with this driver for 7 or 8 hours and had gone 2 km or so. We all have decided that we are most definitely flying the next time, war zone taxes or no war zone taxes. I do think it's a little ironic that the major problems that we had at the border coming and going were on the Turkish side, and not the Kurdish side, which doesn't even have reliable electricity!
Our driver drove us to Mardin (not via the road on the border with Syria, but one through the mountains with several army checkpoints). At first he seemed like a granny driver to us, but then we realized that he was just driving a normal rate of speed through the mountains and night. We didn't arrive in Mardin until 2 am, but were able to call ahead and make sure that a hotel room was available. What a day!
Our driver was an older man who didn't speak English, but our friends actually called him a couple of times during the trip to check up on us and to make sure that everything was okay. Everything was (mostly) okay, although our driver seemed intent on setting some sort of land-travel speed record. It started raining a half an hour into our 6 hour drive and never really stopped, but we just kept driving. We were going 140 km/hr on some of the smallest mountain roads in Iraq! Luckily, these small roads didn't have as many people, so there was less passing-on-blind-curves than on the larger, more busy roads.
Driving in Iraq is really... unique. Lanes are really just a suggestion, but most of the times people don't drive in them. And there appears to be no speed limit, except randomly-placed speed bumps, which all cars will grind to a crawl to cross over. The only rules of driving that I could catch were: 1) honk when you're passing someone because otherwise they won't know to stay in their lane, 2) put on your hazard lights when slowing down to go over a speed bump, 3) if it's okay for someone to pass you on a mostly-blind curve, turn on your blinker and slow down a little to let them know that they can pass, and 4) drive down the smoothest part of the road whenever possible, especially if it's the opposite side of the road.
So, we hurtled through the countryside in Kurdish Iraq. What we could see was quite stunning, but it was really raining quite hard, so our view was obscured. We had a brief stop at a mosque for noon prayers for our driver and a little later a stop for lunch, but otherwise we were on a mission of speed.
After lunch the rain became harder, and even our driver had to slow down, although he was still passing people. We were in the mountains, and we started to experience massive streams gushing across the road, carrying rocks and mud. We really had to slow down to get through some of these, but our driver was not to be deterred. I'm really thankful that we got through the mountains when we did, given how the situation deteriorated.
We made it out of the mountains and were driving on flats near the border when the water situation really got a little out of control. The roads were quite new, but were not built with continued, monsoon-style rain in mind, so it was basically a wide stretch of asphalt with very high curbs and no drainage. And, as we were in the plain heading towards the Tigris River at the border between Iraq and Turkey, basically all of the water was heading toward us. And our driver didn't speak English, so our attempts to get him to stop or turn around didn't really work.
At first, we were just driving through some big puddles. Then we were driving more slowly through some lakes. Then we were crawling through inches of water, and we could feel the water moving beneath our feet. Then the water started hitting the sides of the car, and it sounded like we were in a pontoon boat. Finally, we really couldn't move any further because the water was so deep. People were stalling all around us. Even semis couldn't really move. An army bulldozer came up next to us and literally started tearing up the side of the road to try to open some sort of outlet for the water. (I'm impressed with how quickly they were there, actually.) There were men out knee-deep in this nasty, rocky, muddy water trying to direct traffic and rescue stalled cars.
 |
| Yes, we were making a wake. |
 |
| Note the man in knee-deep water. |
While this may sound a little dangerous, we knew that we weren't in danger of being washed away, because there was really nowhere for us to be washed away to. Probably the biggest danger was the potential for CO poisoning, as we started smelling exhausted and realized that our tailpipe was under water. So, we sat with the windows open in the torrential downpour in our taxi that felt and sounded like a pontoon boat.
Finally our driver got bored with waiting and decided to just go. He went slow enough and didn't stall, thankfully, because I didn't want to get out in that murky water. However, I started noticing that my feet were wet and realized that water was pouring into the car! This still did not appear to phase the driver, so we drove the last 10 minutes to the border with approximately 6 inches of water sloshing around in the bottom of the taxi. Thankfully our bags didn't get wet, as the trunk was high enough. Our driver delivered us to the border and began bailing out his car. We felt so bad! I really never expected that our trip to Iraq would involve flash floods.
Once at the border, we really felt like we had just been through the wringer, between the white-knuckle driving and the pontoon-boat experience at the end. And the experience was just starting.
We procured a taxi driver to get us across the border and into Mardin, where I would fly out of the next day. He really knew how to work the system. Since Kurdish people really like Americans, he and Brian would go to the front of a line and get the guards to let us skip ahead because we were American. While Brian was standing for hours in the pouring rain, Jessi and I stayed nice and warm and dry in the car (there are benefits to being a second-class citizen at times). At all of the posts, the people just wanted to see Brian, and Jessi and I got through mostly without a second glance. We got through the Kurdish border formalities in about two hours, skipping past hundreds of people and cars.
However, things then ground to a halt. We got onto the bridge over the Tigris River between Iraq and Turkey and stopped. We were on the bridge (over the raging Tigris River in heavy rain) for 4 hours without moving. I think we literally drove across Northern Iraq in a shorter amount of time than it took for us to cross this bridge. We didn't really have any idea what was going on, but there was no moving forwards or backwards, so we just sat. Eventually we found out that that the Turkish computers were down. Seriously.
Once things were moving again, we got through the Turkish border stations in about 1.5 hours, but, again, we were flying through because we were Americans! They really didn't search our bags or even ask us about the cigarettes that our driver had us carry in for him.
At this point, we had been with this driver for 7 or 8 hours and had gone 2 km or so. We all have decided that we are most definitely flying the next time, war zone taxes or no war zone taxes. I do think it's a little ironic that the major problems that we had at the border coming and going were on the Turkish side, and not the Kurdish side, which doesn't even have reliable electricity!
Our driver drove us to Mardin (not via the road on the border with Syria, but one through the mountains with several army checkpoints). At first he seemed like a granny driver to us, but then we realized that he was just driving a normal rate of speed through the mountains and night. We didn't arrive in Mardin until 2 am, but were able to call ahead and make sure that a hotel room was available. What a day!
