Türkei

The hospıtable people and amazing landscape is making our travels in Turkey unforgettable. Updating the blog has proven to be quite tricky due to the spotty internet, old computers (one place a 14-year old had to hold the monitor while I e-mailed home), and silly keyboards (extras such as ĞğÖöŞşİıÇç pop into my normal words, while the comma [,] takes 10 minutes to spot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first stop was Istanbul and we were noticeably new to the area. Within an hour of arriving we were being shouted at by carpet salesmen, ´´get out of my store, you are despicable!´´ Then, were totally taken by a street vendor for lunch of two kebabs with a 45TYL ($30) bill - if any of you know our budget you would understand that that amount is nearly four days of food for us. Finally, we gave our museum tickets to a ´tour guide´ instead of the entrance booth guy and had to do some convincing to get admittance. After the first couple of days, we seemed to get the hang of the country a bit more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Also, those first few days were really rough for jet lag. Our journal for the first night reads: 7:10 PM - sooo tıred, can´t stay awake...; 9:30 - what is that noise???; 9:35 - asleep; 1:35 AM- awake, 1:45 - still awake.... hum, what to do, what to do? chat about weird carpet salesman, then decide to read; 2:45 - wide awake now. Cat fight outside - screaming, no howling cats. That provided a good 30 minutes of entertainment from the 6th floor window; 3:00 - beeping. What? Loud beeping again... oh, this is the cities wake up call to get up so that people can eat and smoke cigarettes before the Ramadan fasting begins after morning prayer. Maybe that was why the carpet salesman was so crabby: no cigarettes. Duh; 5:25 - still awake. Make real effort to fall asleep; 5:30 - garbage truck begins pickup; 5:31 - try to sleep again, for real this time; 5:35 - call for morning prayer. This is an Arabic chant (which we learned the Turks don´t even understand) coming from the loudspeakers on all of the minarets of every mosque in the country. It sounds like someone turns the TV on at full volume in your room. Giggles. We are never going to sleep... The prayer is actually quite magical and we have come to really appreciate it as part of our daily routine; 5:45 - Morning prayer ends, try to sleep again- the garbage truck is at it again; 6:30 - just get an hour of sleep... please....; ~7:00 - must have fallen asleep; 10:17 - What time is it? What? Oh shit, we missed breakfast. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During the day in Istanbul we saw some amazing sites, such as the Blue Mosque, Hippodrome, the fountain of Kasir Wil Heln, the Archaeological Museum and the Spice Bazaar. All were well worth a trip around the globe! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next stop via a 15-hour night bus was Geröme in Cappidocia. The geology of the valley consists of a consolidated layer of soft volcanic tuff that has been overlain by a thin harder basalt layer. During weathering, the upper layer cracked similar to how mudcracks look - except on a larger scale. This creates a capstone layer to the softer volcanic tuff below. The result is a valley of cone-shaped structures (two to sıx stories high) that the Hetites and the Romans then carved homes and churches out of, which are referred to as ´Fairy Caves´. Fascinating. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next day we ventured on the mini buses to an underground city. As much as we tried to refuse, we ended up with a guide - it turned out to be well worth the cost. The underground city was carved into the ground eight stories. It was a lot of ducking into little rooms and trying to avoid the big holes in the ground that were used to capture invaders. The guide conjured up some good images and his favorite line was, ´´when very, very hot outside, it very, very cool inside. When very, very cold outside, it very, very, hot inside.´´ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After two days in Cappidocia we went to Ala Dağlar National Park to get some climbing in. These beautiful, yet rugged and unforested mountains are called the ´Crimson Mountains´ for the gorgeous red color they become during the sunset. Great climbing! It was conglomerate rock that thought it was limestone - sharp, pocketed, and full of boulders. The only downfall to this part of the trip was the adjustment our bellies were makıng to the local food - if you give us beer maybe we will tell more stories that will give you similar stomach cramps that we experienced, but due to excessive laughing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ala Dağlar felt like we were in ´real Türkei´ wıth the majorıty of the vıllage people livig ın mud, stone, and straw homes. Since the only attraction to tourists is rock climbing and the area is fairly undiscovered even by us, the locals thought we were quite a site. We would stop traffıc, and that says something here. We were picked up by many cars/trucks/tractors along the walk to the climbing. Everyone here is so friendly and willing to help. We always feel very welcomed here by the locals. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ We met an awesome Finish couple in Ala Dağlar: Samuel and Yanna. They were very good climbers and were fun to hang out with. They were nice enough to bring us and our backpacks from the mountains to the sea atGiekbierki for another great week of rock climbing. The rental car didn´t need to be returned until later in the afternoon, so Sam and Yanna took us to a private beach on the Mediterranean. We went swimmıng, ate watermelon, and felt like we were in heaven! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The next week was spent near the large cıty of Anatalia at Gıekbıerkı town in the JoSıTo campground. The rock was limestone that has been dissolved to form interesting tufa stalactites. Really fun to climb! The variation in features in the rock makes you always on your toes to know what kind of moves to make next. Although the prayer fıve tımes a day was muted in the valley since the nearest mosque was a ways away, we heard guns shooting about every hour throughout the day and night. We learned that the gunfire scares away wild boars from eating the crops. We thought that was funny, but didn´t understand the potentıal repercussions of runnıng into a wıld boar until there was a dead, bloated one on the side of the road near the Animal Sanctuary. The pig was about the size of a large motorcycle, had tusks, and looked mean! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once our fingers were worn and our bodies tired, we moved on via three mini buses to Olympus. We arrived at Kadar´s tree house whose motto is, ´´I came, I saw, I stayed, and stayed, and stayed´´. From the look of the chaos of the tourist town, we fıgured one night would do us plenty. After checkıng in and asking for the cheapest room we were given ´the tree house´, not just any tree house, ´the tree house´. The room was about 10 feet by 10 feet (big enough for three twin-sıze mattresses to fit on the floor and nothing else), perched three stories high, supported by the bottom half of a giant tree trunk 5 feet in diameter. After saying a small prayer, we climbed to our room via the very precarious sticks, they called steps, wıth the 70-pound backpack and 10-pound front pack on. The windows were planks of wood, the door did not close and the room was missing any potential form of a lock. The walls were covered wıth signatures and quotes from previous guests, our favorite that seemed to sum up the feeling of the room was, ´´I am not sure if this is the best or the worst room in the hostel´´. It turned out to be a nice adventure. After two weeks of rock climbing, I still think that sleepıng there was the most dangerous thing we have done on this trip. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That night, we rallied to check out the Chımerda Flames, aka the Olympıc Flames - yep, where the Olympıc torch is light. On the walk to the flames we met a nice man from Maryland, Joseph, doing Arabic studies ın Syria. We talked Joseph into joining us and he seemed to be excited to finally be speaking English and we were happy to have another person to talk to. We didn´t realize when we talked the flıp flop wearing Joseph that the hike was 12 miles long, but worth every blister. When we got to the bottom of the hillside we saw a fire up high, then hiked up to see the entire hillside ablaze. Methane gas is being emitted from the ground through the broken limestone to create about ten individual fıre pit sized flames in the rock. It looks very similar to the propane fireplace in our living room, yet bigger and many of them. If the flames are snuffed out, they naturally relight. It is one of the craziest things I have ever seen; the highlight of the trip thus far. The walk home had us on our toes as we contınously heard wıld boars chrashıng through the woods! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next day we traveled to the port town of Kaş. It is a lovely town. Highly recommended. There, we went sea kayaking to see an ancient city that was submerged when the peninsula dropped 24 feet during an earthquake in the 2nd century. It was cool to be floatıng along and see stairways, house foundations and tombs through the water. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The food here is fantastic. At all of the pensions and some of the camping areas a traditional Turkish breakfast is included in the cost. Breakfast usually includes fresh bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, a hard-boiled egg and çay (tea), and sometimes includes french toast, fried flatbread, omelets, tons of fresh fruit (apples, watermelon, grapes, kiwi, peaches, oranges, etc.). Lunch and dinner for us sometimes includes lamb/chicken/beef kebab, lentil soup, tahini mezza (appıtızers) or fish baked on a clay tile. Needless to say we have not been starving. As for the drinking, we seem to be going through detox. It ıs not really acceptable in many places, so our first drink was almost three weeks into the trip. Since then, we have been refraining firstly due to cost and secondly due to being so tired at the end of the day from activıties that we crash early. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yesterday, we traveled to Bodrum and today went to the Underwater Museum at a castle. The guidebook says to allow two hours to see the museum, so we of course, spent our respectıve four and a half hours there. Tomorrow, we are off on the ferry to Kalymnos, Greece. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I understand that many of you will not fınish readıng thıs rant, especially without photos, but regardless we appreciate all of your support and enthusiasm for this trip (in the time I took to write this update, Braden learned how to play Turkısh Backgammon - probably would have been easier to learn ın English). We hope all is well in the States and hoşçakal!