Kars

My journal reads..... right now we're in a mini bus bound for Kars. We're still here at the otogar waiting for the bus to be filled up before we leave. We're on Turkish time, so just sit back and relax... finally we leave the otogar and not too far away, another mini bus has broken down and we're picking up their people. The bus is full, there are people sitting on little stools in the aisle. They're passing out bottles of water. It is interesting. The road to Kars is lined with pretty wild flowers. I keep praying that there will lots of wild flowers when we get to Kars. Kars is 'snow' in Turkish and no one visits except to go to Ani. It's at the Turkish-Armenian border which until a few years ago requires a special permit from the police to visit. The sign says 'no smoking' but the driver is smoking. I guess they need to in order to stay awake. ... I see patches of yellow, purple, blue, red and white among the rolling green fields and orange as well. For some reason their variety of poppies is this bright orange color and is really spectacular. We've just stopped for more people to get on board and there are people selling food. I had to go to the bathroom and I couldn't find the 'Bayan' (women) so I ran into the 'bey' (men). That's a taboo. The wild flowers are so delightful. I see a whole patch of blue lupine like flowers, they're everywhere. I see a lone donkey, please don't eat the Flowers. It is going to eat them and broadcast the seeds in its poop. It's like an English garden. We try to imitate nature by cultivating a wild flower meadow but nature does such wondrous things on its own. If one is into wild flowers, one has to come to Kars in June. There's nowhere like it in the world. '
It's late afternoon when we got into Kars. It's a border town and very provincial. They've never seen Asians before and everywhere we went they want our picture. They get disappointed when we tell them we're from the US. They liked it when we say we're from China. We didn't even go to the otogar but was dropped in the middle of town. A taxi brought us to our hotel and agreed to take us to Ani the next day.