4/9/19 Ovacik and on to Erzincan

It turns out that most people go to Tunceli to visit Ovacik and visit the sacred site of the source of the Munzer River.    It was a 60km drive along the Munzur River with some more spectacular views.

The outskirts of Ovacek - mountains over 3000m with tiny patches of snow

We didn't have much idea of where to go once we got to Ovacik, so I asked a local via google translate, whether anyone could tell us a bit about the place.  He phoned his neice Yagmuc who arrived about 5 minutes later and spent about half an hour with us.

She tried to explain the Alevi religion - a faith with strong shamanistic and Zoroastrian roots and an emphasis on inner spirituality with slight links to Islam.  Most of Tunceli and Ovacik are Alevis.  They were severely persecuted back in the 30's under Attaturk.

She also told us there's a push to dam the Munzur valley - so far they've managed to stop it, but that could change.  Here's a good article of Alevis and the Munzur Valley.  She was a delightful 16yo with good English and invited us back to her house to meet her family.  She goes to school in Istanbul and plans to go to Uni once she's finished school.  Her sister had assisted a US journalist as a translator when he was writing a story on the valley.

We then headed a further 16km up the valley to Munzur Gozeleri where Alevis come to make sacrifices and light candles.  It's also a popular tourist destination, and where the Munzur River begins - bubbling out of the mountainside.

This is only about 100m from where it was first bubbling out

Cooking up our lunch

Jagmur had suggested a mountain village for us to visit, but the instructions were fairly vague.  We headed off in our little Renault Cleo on a rough dirt road, but after over an hour, we never found the village.

The Munzur is a dead end valley so we had to head back to Tunceli. We got there around 5 and decided to drive another couple of hours onto Erzincan.  More amazing countryside.  Also picked up a couple of hitchhikers - plenty of them around in Turkey.  Apparently it's a good and relatively easy way to travel.