Subject: Post: In the morning we still were not too sure what should we do. After thinking and negotiating, not to mention counting our cash stash for a while we finally decided we would go to Erbil today, even if we risk running out of cash. And, that probably wouldn't be a problem as Don also had some cash and there even should be a working international ATM or two in Erbil nowadays.<p> Erbil is one of the oldest places in the world where people have been living, and we would regret skipping it so much that we just had to do it, even with the cash problems and the road there being a bit dangerous. The first records of people living in Erbil date back like 10000 years.<p> An hour or two of trying to find a taxi and the correct way to use it to pay decent price, we finally jumped onto a taxi towards Erbil. We agreed a price of 60 US dollars, that was exactly not cheap, but it was the best we could do under those conditions, meaning mostly our nonexistent Kurdish or Arabic skills.. A proper street price would have been 25000 Iraqi dinars per person, meaning about 40 USD for the two of us. Well, 10 USD per person, fuck it...<p> Our taxi cruised through the mountains south from Erbil, unfortunately closing in to the well known city of Mosul. The city that nowadays is being known as one of the most dangerous places on the earth and which enjoys multiple daily bomb explosions among all other violence. The taxi passed through the far suburbs of Mosul, about 20km from the downtown, luckily without any problems. With our heads still on the natural places we continued towards Erbil through a few Kurdish military checkpoints. Our passports were checked twice, but otherwise they did not pay much attention on us. Many people passing through have had their bags searched etc, but this time that was not the case.<p> An hour after Mosul we finally arrived to Erbil, 150 kilometers behind us since Dohuk. We jumped out the taxi and started looking for a hotel, which turned out to be quite a bit more challenging task we though we would be. We went through our list of maybe ten hotels, none of them had any space.<p> At the point where we were almost giving up and going to ask one of the ridiculously expensive 50 USD hotels of Erbil we visited one more random hotel. Surprisingly the hotel owner spoke good English, and explained to us that at this time of year all the people from Baghdad and other southern really hot cities come to Kurdistan to escape the worst heat and to spend their vacations here. At first he did not have any space either, but while we were chatting with another American tourist (the first traveler we have met while in Iraq) two guys left the hotel and we got a decent room upstairs.<p> Tomorrow we should be getting a better room, the hotel owner apologized the quality of this room.. Well, the room is perfectly fine for us, about the same as the one last night in Dohuk. 30 USD for the room, not cheap but we were kinda short of choise here.. Only squat toilets also, and Don has been suffering some stomach problems since yesterday. The Iraqi tap water is not the most friendly to our western stomaches :)<p> We took our stinking and dirty clothes to a laundry (which refused to wash underwear, so I guess we will be using the hotel bathroom for that tomorrow.), and climbed up the hill to the Citadel of Erbil. That place has been continuously inhabitated for the last 8000 years or something, nowadays it's just a ghost town in ruins though. According to Lonely Planet there is still one family living, to keep up the continuous inhabitation. We walked around for a while, seeing the magnificient view over Erbil and I chatted for a while with a young journalist from Baghdad. I guess he just wanted to practice his English :)<p> On the way down the hill we decided to visit outside the city to have a beer in one of the few restauraunts serving beer in here. We met a Kurdish guy living in the US who drove us there and searched the place for us. I just love the friendliness of these guys. They would give you even their mother or something just because they are proud of their country and culture and are happy of you coming to see it. The German beergarden was well hidden in a shady neighborhood a few kilometers from the downtown Erbil, was more than pricey (8 USD for a beer..) and almost all the customers were foreigners probably working here.<p> On the way back after a beer we picked up a few beers more in a shop and took a taxi back to the hostel, just to sit the rest of the evening chatting and drinking those while enjoying the frequent electricity blackouts. Walking through the neighbourhood I was really amazed of the situation. We were walking in a dark neighbourhood in the suburbs of an Iraqi city, and I felt there was no danger at all. Any crime seems to be totally unexistant in here. I would have never thought that before we came in here... Latitude: Longitude: Security Code:
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