IRAQ #1 - The Story About the Traveling Band Caspian Caravan and the Journey Over Land to India Part 4 - Kurdistan Iraq

Welcome again to the story about when I traveled overland to India with a band, funding all our expenses with music. A journey that took 1 year and 8 months, through 32 countries!
In this fourth part we are in Kurdistan Iraq

If you want to catch up here are the previous parts:

Part 1 - West Turkey - The Beginning
Part 2 - Central Turkey - Cappadocia & Malatya
Part 3 - East Turkey - Diyarbakir, Kurdistan

Meet the Iraqi Kurdish granpas!

Iraq was not exactly on our route, but as we were in East Turkey, everyone was like "hey, why don't you go to Kurdistan Iraq?" - "Can we do that!?"

This was in 2011 and the Iraq war was still on it's high, so we hadn't imagined that it was simple or wise to venture into Iraq at this time.

Border crossing in the rain, photo from the backwindow of a hitchhiked van. Iraqi and Kurdish flag

Matt contemplating our crazy "plan" - or absent of, cuddled up in an Iraqi blanket

But the situation in Northern Iraq was supposed to be quite peaceful. After Saddam Hussein was 'removed', Northern Iraq became an Autonomous Kurdish Region.
The first real Kurdistan the Kurdish people had seen for centuries. So the Kurdish people in Turkey were quite excited about the whole deal, and that's why they encouraged us to go. So we did!

Our first night in Iraq was spend in this abandoned road side shop, next to the Tigris River

But we were still quite reluctant crossing the border into Iraq in the back of a van!
We got to the Immigration office, and as the first thing, were all served a nice warm cardamon tea!
Then Pete was called in for interrogation, while the rest of us waited in silent and rather nervous unknowing, feeling a bit sorry for Pete who had to take the interrogation!
We guessed we were all fine, but we were one American, 2 British, an Australian and a Dane, alll countries involved in the war on Iraq, so what to expect??

Matt, Pete and Jeff on our first morning on the banks of Tigris

After waiting for a while we all got called in one by one, and got our stamps, which let us stay for 10 days for free.

Pete came out of the office, greeting the officer, as if he had got a new friend!
Well he just wanted to know why we wanted to go to Kurdish Iraq and when I told him we just wanted to see the country, he welcomed us, and couldn't stop talking about all the places we should go and visit and how happy they were to have visitors like us!

Welcome to Kurdistan Iraq - Cardamon Tea

But don't go to Mosul! The officer had warned - That's where all the troubles - and the Arabs - are. We quickly found out that the ones the Iraqi Kurds didn't like, were the Arabs (one thing I've noticed by travelling is that most groups of people have another group of people which they don't like!)

Well they have their good reasons - more about that later!
So we navigated around Mosul and headed for the Kurdish Capital, Erbil!

Centre of Erbil, with most passerby's eyes on us

Sparrow chatting with the police in Erbil, with the old Citadel in the background.

Erbil is the biggest city of Northern Iraq, but is a rather small capital, with around 800.000 inhabitants. It is build up around the old Citadel, which is an incredibly big and old monument!

The earliest evidence for occupation of the citadel mound dates to the 5th millennium BC, and possibly earlier. It appears for the first time in historical sources in the Ebla tablets around 2,300 BC
-- Source Wikipedia

Which makes it around 6-7000 years old!

The site of the citadel may have been occupied as early as the Neolithic period, as pottery fragments possibly dating to that period have been found on the slopes of the mound. (...) Given this evidence for early occupation, the citadel has been called the oldest continuously occupied site in the world.
-- Source Wikipedia

The Citadel of Erbil, photo source Wikipedia

We wandered a bit around in the Citadel, which was mostly empty, seemed almost abandoned. I read now that the citadel has been inscribed on the World Heritage List since 21 June 2014, but it wasn't yet in May 2011 when we were there.

Unfortunately I only have really poor quality photos of the site, but I'll share the best.

Main Entrance

Sparrow in front of the Antique Shop, which was some of the only life in the Citadel - Looking back I regret that I didn't get anything from here, I don't even remember if we really had a look, but back then we really didn't buy anything that we couldn't live without and would just have to carry, with the long journey ahead!

Kurdish Flag in the Center of the Citadel

The only very bad photo I have from one of the better kept beautiful rooms (Jeff and Sparrow)

And just borrowing one photo to show some of the beautiful courtyards!

Image source www.richardwilding.com/

While in the citadel, once again a strange man appeared out of the blue and started guiding us around, like it was his obvious sole purpose in the world!
He was so laid back and sure of what he was doing, and we just later had this strange feeling that we had met a magician..! Hard to describe but there was just a very special air around this guy.
Completely bald, spoke the best English we would hear in Iraq, wore a black suit and spoke to us as if he had known about us and what we had to do always!

Our magician friend leading the way

In the end the end of our tour with Mr.Magic he handed us over to some people from the main TV station, which led us to the next great adventure and which I will tell much more about in the next episode!
There is way too much to write about Iraq to press it in to this one post! So!

Thank you for stopping by! Upvotes, Resteems and Follows always appreciated <3

Please stay tuned for the continuation very very soon!

Links to previous parts:

Part 1 - West Turkey - The Beginning
Part 2 - Central Turkey - Cappadocia & Malatya
Part 3 - East Turkey - Diyarbakir, Kurdistan

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