In this post we take a day trip to: the Ahmed Awa Waterfall, Tawela and Halabja.
I made a cultural boo-boo today. I placed what looked like a towel in the front of our bathroom door so we could dry our feet when exiting the bathroom since the shower has no screen and the floor gets wet. While I was out a hotel staffer came by to fix the internet in our room and was shocked to see the “towel” in front of out bathroom door. It was a prayer rug. He asked Reggie to remove it at once! Poor guy – he got the wrap!
Our day started with a coffee on our way the Ahmed Awa Waterfall because the hotel coffee machine was broken. We also had to re-gas the aircon since it was not working and you cannot survive the high thirties this way.
The Ahmed Awa Waterfall is nothing really special. It is located in a very narrow gorge. You can only get to it via a rickety van run by the locals. There is a whole village surrounding the falls, all under trees with the river from the falls running underneath it. Quite a nice life for them. The alleyways are narrow and the viewing area for the falls is tiny. We were lucky arriving there early in the morning because when we left there were too many people. You need to climb up rocks to see the waterfall close up and behind a gate that prevent people from standing under it. The falls are 827m above sea level and the water falls approx. 30-40m. Would only make the trip here first thing in the morning and on a workday.
Tawela is a small village right on the border between Kurdish Iraq and Iran. You can walk to the border, which is marked by a long canal with flowing water in it – the canal is narrow enough that you can place one leg in Iraq and the other in Iran !!! A real gimmick that attracts hundreds of people.
Halabja (Pop 245,700, Elev 900m, Founded 1650) on the other hand is no gimmick – it is the site of a terrible chemical attack and genocide that took place on 16 March 1988 on the Kurdish people of this village by the Baathist military forces of Saddam Hussein claiming the lives of 5,000 Kurds. We visited the local cemetery where memorials have been set up for 2,000 of those killed and buried in mass graves, the biggest of which holds 1,500 bodies. There is also a statue and grave markers inside the cemetery for the 3,000 whose bodies were never found. Saddam Hussein's military forces attacked Iranian and Kurdish targets with combinations of mustard gas and nerve agents through the use of aerial bombs, 122-millimeter rockets, and conventional artillery shells. Many of these can be seen at the Halabja Memorial located near the cemetery that contains details and actual photos of the aftermath of the massacre as well as the tanks, plane and armaments that were used to perpetrate this crime.
From Halabja we returned to Sulaymaniyah where I spent a quiet evening dining in and watching a movie in my room to get early sleep for my 3rd run tomorrow in Iraq…
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