Episode 8: In which she refuses a "taxi"

Location: Mt Nemrut
Date: 25.05.06

After an ordinary dinner, we headed to bed. We were feeling ambitious enough, or masochistic enough, to try and be up for the sunrise. This required us to leave at 4am. Huzzah.

The gossamer-thin air burned the back of my throat more harshly than it had done the night before, and I thought something would burst before I got to the summit. Meanwhile the sun was climbing faster than I was.

At exactly the instant I wanted to collapse in a heap, a man appeared in front of me leading a donkey.

"Taxi?"

It was tempting, believe me. But a misguided sense of ego and the backpacker instinct to spend as little as possible combined forces and made me say no.

The man didn't move. Neither did the "taxi". He asked again. I still said no. Damn.

The sunrise was entirely worth the effort, thankfully. The crowd was different to the previous evening, a lot more Turks than foreigners, and mercifully there was no inane cheering.