Early Monday morning I loaded my suitcases into one of our Pathfinders and left the Ashti Hotel for good (I hope). I asked the logistics guys to reserve me a room in the Palace Hotel when I return. The main reason is that the air conditioning is better there, and it will be summer. The sleepy night clerk and guard woke up long enough to ask me if I was checking out. I chose not to tell anyone I was leaving that day for a bit of added security. Of course when the night guard is crashed in the back of the hotel, you have to know my confidence in local security was high. Not!
It was a dark and rainy night. I just knew I'd get a chance to work that phrase in somewhere. We drove north outside Sulaymaniya and started clearing checkpoints on the back road right away. I had left my trusty and mostly useless CPA badge in my desk drawer. If I were to be kidnapped, I wanted to make sure that they knew I was Canadian and not one of those occupying sons of guns. Once I gain their trust, I could wait until their backs are turned and...HeeYAW!!! Launch myself into the air... OK, OK perhaps roll over them like a tractor or something.
The trip was cloudy and uneventful. I did not even wear my vest. I had it beside me though. The northern part of Kurdistan is the most beautiful, as well. The road less traveled wound along cliffs and the mountains were spectacular. We stopped in a small town for breakfast around 10 AM and met another AsiaCell Pathfinder coming from the border with our networking IT manager who was returning from vacation in Cyprus. I arrived at the border around noon and passed through relatively quickly. The Turkish guard who was searching my luggage gave me a raised eyebrow look when he found the bottle of Blue Label I was bringing home. As mentioned before, I did give a bottle to our departing CEO but another of my contacts managed to find one the night before I left, and after he did so much work to track one down, I just had to buy it too.
Abdul, our Turkish driver, whisked me off to Dyerbaker but not without stopping in the first town to sell a dozen cartons of smuggled cigarettes. I decided not to make an issue out of it. When Darren, our Canadian marketing guru, was picked up a few weeks earlier, Abdul and his brother stuffed cigarette cartons into his luggage. Darren found them and began hurling the cartons on the ground, loudly berating Abdul for his foolishness. Abdul and his brother scrambled around picking them up and asking Darren to calm down. I made it very plain before I left Sulaymaniya that if Abdul tried anything like that with me, he'd be out of a job really fast. Still, the desire to make a few extra bucks runs deep so I guess he just couldn't resist some minor smuggling. Otherwise, Abdul was on his best behavior, even stopping on the road to show me one of the more famous sites in AsiaCell expat history. That same trip where Darren blew his gasket over the cigarettes in his bags, he was lucky not to be hurt on the drive to Dyerbaker. Abdul got a nosebleed and stopped his new van/taxi on the highway. He got out so he wouldn't bleed all over the seats, but forgot to set the parking brake. Darren woke up as the van rolled down a hill into a ditch. Needless to say, it was a memorable trip home. Abdul was more worried about his wrecked van than he was about Darren.
I got into Dyerbaker in time to catch the milk run from Dyerbaker to Ankara to Istanbul, but taking that flight gave me enough time to get a hotel for 6 hours in Istanbul. The next morning I caught the flight from Istanbul to Amsterdam, then to Minneapolis and home. I arrived home at 3:30 PM Wednesday having picked up 9 hours worth of time changes. Wonder of wonders, my bags arrived with me! Customs did not even look at me. Heather and Genavieve met me at the airport and we were headed home.
If you have been following this adventure, let me know next time you see me. It's only Part 1, I know now. There will be a second piece and I hope it ends as successfully, although it won't be as long. Let's see, do I call it "Return to Iraq", "Son of the Iraq Saga", "Iraq 2 - The Revenge"? Well, I will figure out something. Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on this epic. I hope you enjoyed it.
Until next time,
Steve