One flew over the cuckoo's nest

One flew over the cuckoo's nest the other day. That is, Northern Iraq. At least it said so on my onboard flight plan. I was quite chuffed that I was still onboard after flying over Northern Iraq, what with the new war there and everything. I have no idea why Etihad chooses to fly over war zones. Who knows the ways of pilots.

Perhaps if Etihad could perhaps take somewhat less than an hour and a half to load passengers into their tiny seats they wouldn't have to make up time by flying the most direct route over war zones and thus would not need to dehydrate their passengers by flying at 38,000 feet. Just some thoughts for them to ponder.

Looking down, I didn't hate Iraq immediately, which is as much as you could hope for the place. Despite its notoriety, despite its danger, despite its... endlessness, Iraq looks quite beautiful from the air, which is my first and only choice of location for tourism of this region.

From 38,000 feet, around 11.5 kilometres, Iraq resembles a big piece of brown paper that has been scrunched and flattened again. It's a crumpled, arid landscape for miles and miles.

While steadfastly gazing at the barrenness below and at the other jumbos cruising past towards the direction we were coming from I notice a gigantic, jagged mountain capped in snow in the distance, in the middle of the desert.

A snow capped monster in the middle of the desert.  Looked mighty majestic rising up through the clouds. Pretty amazing if you care to think about it.

Turns out it was Mount Ararat in Turkey, one of two in the Mountains of Ararat. It is the place named in the Book of Genesis where Noah's Ark came to rest after the great flood. Noted.

I worked out on Googy Maps that I saw this mountainous stunner from approximately 300-400 kilometres away. It rises nearly 18,000 feet and seems to be located in the very definition of absolutely fucking nowhere.

Meanwhile, back in Iraq, the mountains were jagged, brown and dusty. While the whole region looks so remote, and it is, nearly every impossibly high mountain range has a tiny village set into its crater or summit, with what looks like a dirt track down the mountain to another slightly larger village at the bottom.

The ones at the bottom have strips of green running through them, and the slightly bigger villages are encircled with a tinge of green.

Fascinating how farmers can irrigate and grow crops and supply for the villages, with some encompassing huge swathes of land.  Sometimes it's good to stop watching House of Cards for a moment and just look out the window.