{"id":2841,"date":"2017-07-01T20:32:40","date_gmt":"2017-07-01T20:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/?p=2841"},"modified":"2017-07-01T20:32:40","modified_gmt":"2017-07-01T20:32:40","slug":"24th-june-maku-to-erzurum-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/?p=2841","title":{"rendered":"24th June – Maku to Erzurum Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

We leave our hotel this morning for the short drive to the border where we say farewell to Pat, David, Hesam, Mohammad & Hussien. Iran has been fantastic, far exceeding our expactations and we hope that we can return one day to travel further down in the south and in particular visit Shiraz and Esfahan.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We have magnificent views of Mt. Ararat over the border in Turkey with clear blue skies, which is stunning.\u00a0 Standing at 5,137 Metres and believed to be the resting place of Noaha’s Ark this dormant volcano is Turkey’s tallest mountain.<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

We have a last photo of the Silk Road team and our 3 Iranian friends.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We exit from Iran smoothly and the entry into Turkey is also smooth with the whole process taking 2.5 hours which is very good. We have a total distance of 334 km to drive today to Erzurum. \u00a0As we drive into Iran we notice there are dozens of trucks waiting to go into Iran.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We stop in Dogubayazil and visit the Ishak Pasha Palace that was built in 1784 by Ishak Pasha. \u00a0The palace building is magnificent and\u00a0has commanding views over the surrounding countryside which makes a lovely backdrop for lunch.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\" \"\" \"\" \"\" \"\"\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

We drive on magnificent mountain roads with beautiful wildflowers growing on the side of the road. \u00a0We stop for a break & driver change in the mountains by a river.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

We arrive in Erzurum in the afternoon and our hotel isn’t very far from the centre of town, so we are able to walk into the main square where we find a caf\u00e9 to have a coffee and baklava.\u00a0 Later we sit overlooking the Madrese and have a chicken souvlaki for our dinner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We leave our hotel this morning for the short drive to the border where we say farewell to Pat, David, Hesam, Mohammad & Hussien. Iran […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mak.iqt.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/DSC07091.jpg?fit=3648%2C2736&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qvHY-JP","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2861,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions\/2861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mak.iqt.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}