BY THE TIME the flat-bottomed car ferry chugged away from the quayside, I could already feel the sun beginning to turn my skin a faint shade of pink. We had started the morning in driving rain under glowering skies, but down here, on the dusty plains, the sun was beating down and the temperature was up past 30°C.
The riverine breeze was welcome, but this was no ordinary body of water. The broad, slow-flowing river we were crossing was the Euphrates, one of the great waterways of antiquity and along whose banks recorded history effectively started. These days, the Euphrates is probably better known for flowing through areas of warfare and strife, but here, in the middle of Turkey, all is (relatively) peaceful. Certainly it was peaceful on this warm and sunny day, with the light sparkling off the water.
Alexander the Great crossed this same river on his way to conquer the known world, but our objective was a bit less ambitious. We were simply
