Motorcycle Explorer December 2014 Issue 3 | Page 19

MOUNTAINS
E
astward the region was mountainous, the heart of the country. Deep gorges, bared peaks,
narrow roads, gravel tracks. It was getting dark. I kept going through a dark canyon. As I reached a
checkpoint the darkness made it too dangerous to proceed. The Peshmergas invited me into
their check post to eat and drink tea. The post was sand floor and a hole in one corner that
served as drainage. I asked their permission to sleep with them but they told me that a few
hundred meters away was a hotel. A hotel in the middle of a mountainous nowhere? It was
surreal Pank Resort. An installation of European cabins.
I
woke up in my cabin. The horizon was clear and pure. The eternal mountains, the timeless sun,
the infinite blue were all around me. The manager of the complex told me that the owner had
come that day, who wanted to meet me. I was invited to his table. He was an educated Kurd who
spoke English very well he’d lived in Sweden. From there he took the model for the surreal
complex at the heart of the Kurdish mountains and just 70 kilometres from the border with Iran,
a very unsettled area that is not expected to become a tourist spot in the coming years.
The guy was surprised to see me there. He
wanted to know the reason why I had
travel to Iraq. It was not an easy question to
answer, so I answered as I did to the check
point captain in Erbil when he asked me
the same question:
"Do you watch the news on television." I
asked.
"Yes,"- he said.
"Well, I do not, "- I replied- "I do not believe
what they say on television. I prefer to see
for myself."