Leaving Silemani

On August 9th, we headed west towards Arbil, or Hawler, the capital city of Kurdistan. Our plane took off from the airport there at 4:30 on August 11. The drive to Hawler is very scenic and beautiful, it made the three hours a little easier to bear.

This is one of the most notorious prisons in the region, its a U.S. prison for Iraqi terrorists, located an hour west from Silemani:

This is a part of one of the largest bodies of water in Kurdistan, called Dukan:

We took the trip with two of my cousins, Hamawand and Zana. Hamawand got a really sweet SUV that we rode in, and my other cousin Zana drove the pick-up with all our suitcases:

These were little vacation cabins on a mountain overlooking a small town that many people come to vacation for, its a very beautiful place:

Leaving the town:

Houses in the neighborhood we were staying in, in Hawler:

This is a mosque in Hawler, one of the last things we saw before leaving the city:

2 days later we were off in the sky looking down: