I always wondered what the inside of a volcano looked like - perhaps a big gaping hole filled with boiling lava that you can peer into from the ridge of the crater? Perhaps, but the inside of Mt. Nemrut (the one near Tatvan, not the big one with the stone heads) didn't look like that. Instead it was like being in a countrysituated inside a rocky pie crust! The road up to Mt. Nemrut was a small rocky road which, like so many in the Kurdish areas of Turkey, showed neglect - no money from the government for road repairs. In fact, the driving is so slow and difficult, that you will likely have to pay a driver at least $60-80 YTL to take you up here as it takes about a half day for this trip.
To thye side of the lake in the second picture were canvas tents of campers. In fact, it is so quiet and peaceful here that I imagined it must be lovely to have a summer house inside the crater of a volcano... that is until I felt the water in this small lake... BOILING! (OK, maybe it was only just really hot, but the surrounding stones were hot enough that I couldn't touch them).
Below is a closer look at the "hot" lake. If you look at the bottom of the lake, you can see small bubbles coming up from the ground. I expected the water to smell like sulphur or something, but the water was completely odorless.
This picture shows the sun starting to sink over the big lake - the colder one. When I reached this larger lake, there were some young people there from the prior night's wedding. They lend me some men's shorts and we all went swimming. This was definately a highlight. The water was very cool and crisp and again, completely without odor. The water was clean and refreshing instead of sticky or salty... just like mountain streams in Canada.
The final picture is of the view of Tatvan from the mountain.
After descending the mountain, the taxi driver insisted on taking me to his home where his wife and son fed me crab apples, pears and apricots from the trees inside the courtyard of their home. All in all, a very nice evening which ended with a dinner of fish from the lake, cold yogurt soup and coffee with a new friend from the wedding party.
To thye side of the lake in the second picture were canvas tents of campers. In fact, it is so quiet and peaceful here that I imagined it must be lovely to have a summer house inside the crater of a volcano... that is until I felt the water in this small lake... BOILING! (OK, maybe it was only just really hot, but the surrounding stones were hot enough that I couldn't touch them). 
Below is a closer look at the "hot" lake. If you look at the bottom of the lake, you can see small bubbles coming up from the ground. I expected the water to smell like sulphur or something, but the water was completely odorless. 
This picture shows the sun starting to sink over the big lake - the colder one. When I reached this larger lake, there were some young people there from the prior night's wedding. They lend me some men's shorts and we all went swimming. This was definately a highlight. The water was very cool and crisp and again, completely without odor. The water was clean and refreshing instead of sticky or salty... just like mountain streams in Canada.
The final picture is of the view of Tatvan from the mountain.
After descending the mountain, the taxi driver insisted on taking me to his home where his wife and son fed me crab apples, pears and apricots from the trees inside the courtyard of their home. All in all, a very nice evening which ended with a dinner of fish from the lake, cold yogurt soup and coffee with a new friend from the wedding party.
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