On 1 March I blew out of Urfa like a bat out of hell, telling myself that in March I’d walk 572 kilometers (355 miles) and end the month in Van. Actually, I thought it was barely possible. It was almost 2-1/2 times my monthly average for the walk.
Yesterday, on the 30th of March, I arrived in Van.
Van is a city of 353,000 people. It sits on the eastern edge of Lake Van at an elevation of 1727 meters (5666 feet). Van is the last major city on the way to the Turkey/Iran border 100 kilometers (62 miles) to the east.