Turkey (Cappadocia)

Day 1: Settling in...

Arrived today on the overnight bus from Selchuk. Random: This keyboard is interesting, it's actually a English keyboard (which is nice) but the spacebar is broken so I still can't type. Anyways, the ride here was beautiful albeit short (probably due to the 2 sleeping pills I bought cuz I can't sleep on the bus) The landscape is amazing, but a little weird (see photos,)

Kind of like a cross between the moon and the grand canyon...

From the edge of the canyon

I met two cool people today, Paul, who is a dutchman working here while he takes a break from travelling, and Linda, an Aussie who is doing the same. Dave and Kirsten went for a hike in the gorge but I stayed home to read. That was the plan anyways, but soon I started talking to Paul and he invited me to go with him and Linda for a bite to eat. We wandered around town for a bit then stopped by the internet cafe, which is where I am now.

Speaking of...I need to get back as I have Dave's Room Key and if they get back from hiking soon I'd better be there...

Got back in time to give Dave back his key, then met up with Nick, our friend from Tennesee that we met on the ferry to Kusadasi, weird, then we later (At Topkapi Palace in Istanbul) ran into a pair of australians that we stayed with in our hostel, weirder...

So we hung out with Nick again for a night, he went to the Turkish Night with us and ended up getting pulled on stage to do some belly dancing with a bunch of Japanese men, it was hilarious! I took these pictures by Nick's Hostel...

The Minaret of the town mosque at sunset

Same scene, different composition

Goreme Town

Goreme Town again

Day 2: The Tour

Went on a tour today, it was really neat but I had food poisoning from the night before so things were a little rough. The night before we had gone to "Turkish Nights" which was a little touristy but still very cool. All you can eat and all you can drink, whirling dervishes, belly dancers, and lots of Turkish dancing.

On the tour today we saw many neat things, the fantastic landscape which some people have dubbed the "Grand Canyon on Acid" the fairy chimneys, a pottery shop, underground cities, a merchants crossing, and a monastery.

We started the tour with Sawash, who turned out to be a really cool tour guide, kind of reminded me of my tour guide in Egypt (Sameh) they were both funny but had a serious side too. We ended up talking about Ataturk and Islam and he told me about how he felt about the radical Muslims, about modern Turkey after Ataturk, etc., it was really interesting.

Even with food poisoning the tour was great, Sawash was a riot, and we saw too much cool stuff to put in this blog, all for about 35 bucks. I was going in and out of being sick most of the day, but still managed to make some friends on the way. A doctor who had just finished med school and his wife, Luke the australian and his girlfriend, and a Danish kid and his father who was visiting him in Turkey (he was doing an exchange). We had lunch together and the father was very nice and very happy that I ended up giving him my lunch because I couldn't stomach it (food poisoning), we also met a nice Polish girl who we ate lunch with but didn't talk much too otherwise (she was in the front of the bus). We visited both the underground cities and the monasteries but I didn't bring my camera in so no pictures :( I'll put the pictures I have in order so you can get a good idea of how the tour went.


Sawash explaining the fairy chimneys to us (far right)

On the bus for our tour, the back of Luke's head, Luke was a nice Australian kid who had just graduated from law school, we ran into him again in Istanbul later too.

First stop: overlooking the canyon where Goreme (the city we stayed in) is located

A donkey in the bottom of the Ilhara Canyon, we made the 3 km hike through the canyon before breaking for lunch.

The doctors wife, (left) she gave me advil when I was sick and the Polish girl

Eating lunch (or not eating it in my case) I was dying in this picture but managed to smile anyways. The guy in the foreground is the Danish father who ate my lunch!

The Merchants Crossing where a 12 century monk/holy man spread his teachings of tolerance

The inside of the Merchants Crossing

Out the window towards the end of the tour

Day 3: Hiking

Went hiking today, the original idea was to get to the Rose Valley but we ended up wandering around for four or five hours and not having enough time. Dave and I started off in Goreme where the Shoestring Hostel was (where we were staying) and blazed our own trail for awhile, after wandering around some fields and scrub for awhile we found these little carved out houses in the cliff, at least we thought they were houses.

Of course Dave is pretty much the next Indiana Jones so he absolutely had to scale the rock face and climb up the the carved out area, I reluctantly followed. After nearly killing ourselves a few times on the way up we made it and found out the "house" was actually a giant shite collector for pigeon poop, which the farmers used to fertilize their fields. We scrambled in, took a few pictures, then scrabbled out again.

We got lost for awhile, although these mysterious blue dots kept showing up reassuring us we were on the right track, found an old abandoned church (from where the Byzantine Christians fled the Ottoman Turks?) and wandered some more.

Next, we finally found a trail again, wandered through this georgeous cliff-top trail and found our way back to Goreme. Just in time to say goodbye to everybody and catch our bus to Cannakale. Crazy day...here are the pics.

Climbing up the pigeon crap collector

Dave ascending to another cave dwelling

on our hike through the canyon

Fresco from inside a church carved in the cliff.

Day 4: Roaming around Goreme

We had time to kill in Goreme before going to Cannakale so we went to a restaurant for a bite to eat, ran into Luke there, and Dave had his first experience with a nargile, which is a water pipe for smoking flavored tobacco. We said goodbye to everyone at the pension and got ready to board our bus for Cannakale...

Dave trying out the nargile

Andrew, the world traveller at our pension, he had been to 92 different countries and showed no signs of letting up!

Saying goodbye to the ShoeString Cave Pension, bye...bye...I'm going to miss the bus!
- posted by mark @ 5:55 AM (0) comments

 

Turkey (Kusadasi, Selchuk)

Another new keyboard to learnö Turkısh thıs tımeç
(This is what happens when you use a Turkish Keyboard)

A little Turkish pronunciation guide for yah... the language is all but impossible to learn (or was for me anyways) the translation for "Do you speak English?" was only 4 words but about 50 syllables long...

• Pammakale (Paam-ah-kahl-ey)
  
• Kusadasi (Koosh-ah-daas-ee)
  
• Selcuk (Shel-chook)


• Cappadocıa (Kapp-ah-doke-e-ah)


• Scircise (your guess is as good as mine I think Sheer-see (the Greek Village)

Got into Samos on the overnight ferry, the ferry ride was beautiful here are some pics (see pics) sleeping was another matter we arrıved at 3:00 AM and had to wait outside the tourist offce for about 4 hours for it to open so we could go to Turkey. It was alright though, I took a stroll along the harbor, and saw the cutest little girl walking around drinking chocolate milk so of course I had to take her picture.

On the ferry ride to Samos

Dave at the harbor at about 5:00 AM

A little girl drinking chocolate milk

Fnally got through customs and into Kusadasi and were picked up by 'Ned' (seems odd for a Turkish name?), he was really cool and helped us out a lot at our stay at Attilas Getaway which was really nice (see pics) and cheap too (about $9 a night).

Turkey is both more westernized and more green than I thought it would be, it's a very beautiful country...

// Day 1: Attila's getaway, R&R

Attilas Getaway was a kind of resort locale, the people were really nice and we met some interesting people here, this was our base camp for Ephesus and Selchuk. The place was really neat had sitting areas, a bar, pool table, pool. (see pics)

The pool at Attila's Getaway

Attilas Getaway again...

Met some really cool people here, Scott and Paul from Australia, Sunday the bartender, Attilla, the owner who was an Aussie-Turk and seemed to want to propogate with every girl who came through there, and Ned and his Dad who owned a carpet shop, which was a strike against them but they turned out to be really cool.

// Day 2: Pammukale(Paam-a-kal-ey), Climbing Another one of Dave's mountains //

It was a 3 hour bus ride to Pammukale, my impressions were that the white cliffs were not worth it but the ruins definately were,(see pics)

The "City of the Dead" at Pammakale

A crypt in the City of the Dead

more ruins...

Paul the Australian

Some weird lady at the Ampitheatre who wanted us to take her picture

Me at the ruins...

A photo of Kirsten taking a photo

Scott and Paul...

I did not even know it but there were several different civilizations that flourished in this area, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine. Dave wandered off by himself again to explore the parts off the map so I hung out with Scott and Paul from Australia and checked out the ampitheatre and the pools.

When we got back Dave had not had enough adventure for the day so he wanted to climb up the hill behind the hostel. I was up for it so we grabbed the camera and went, even managed to get Paul the Australian to come with. It was a brutal ascent and the grade was sometimes 50 degrees or more but we made it in time for a georgeous sunset (see pic) and still got back in time for dinner.

Sunset from Dave's Mountain (#2)

A view from the top of Dave's Mountain

Day 3: Ephesus, St. Johns Basilica, Temple of Artemis, Selchuk, Scircise

Ephesus

Ephesus was really neat, all marble and one of the best preserved ruins in Turkey, it's funny that it used to be a port city with this roadway (see pic) leading down to the port. But...the river that fed into the harbor silted up and the harbor filled in and Ephesus went to ruin. The harbor is about 20 kilometers away now. Our guide for the ruins was excellent, had studied to be an archaeologist for a time, and was extremely knowledgeable about the history of the area. She sat downa dn gave us about a 45 minutes lecture on Ephesus alone which was very interesting. Pics from Ephesus...

The walk that used to go to the harbor (the harbor is behind that hill now in the distance)

Closeup shot of the ruins, those are eggs in the top of the picture, weird...

Hallway while I was exploring the ruins,

The Roman Ampitheatre in the town

The remains of the library, it has been restored to some extent

Dave doing a statue pose...

Me doing a statue pose...

St. Johns

This place held special significance for me as it is supposably where St. John is buried, although I heard that his body had been moved?? Anyways, it is labeled a church, but it is a ruin. The people at the time cannibalized the nearby Temple of Artemis and built a church with the material. It was a spiritual place for me, but kind of ruined when a busload of Japanese tourists showed up and started taking pictures posing on St. Johns grave...

The ruins of the church...

The burial place of St. John, although this remains controversial...

Temple of Artemis

One of the seven wonders of the ancient world...it used to be a colossal greek temple but now is two pillars moored in a swamp. If you look at the foundation and use your imagination you can imagine what it looked like a couple of thousand years ago.

The ruins of the Temple of Artemis, complete with swamp

Closeup shot of the ruins

Selcuk

Selchuk is a small town and a convenient place to stay while you explore all of sights in this area. It was kind of deserted while we were there, but still plenty of pushy restaurant owners and carpet salesman about.
//Flashback...// This is where Dave had his first Turkish dining experience, we ordered these crepe like things and his had a rock in it! We think it was a rock anyways, and he chipped both his upper and lower tooth on it, we were in Turkey though and what can you do??

Scirsise, the Greek Village

This is a short dolmus ride from Selchuk, our first time on the dolmus and this one chugged along these canyon roads with sheer drop-offs right next to the door and the door never closed! (see pic) We were used to Turkish driving by this point though. The village itself was trapped in time, it was settled originally by Greeks either colonizing or fleeing from Greece and hadn't changed much in a couple of hundred years. We just wandered around town, everybody was very friendly and they all wanted us to try (and buy) their fruit wines which are grown in the region. Apple, peach, mulberry, cherry, you name it and they have it. I liked the mulberry and the peach the best so I bought a couple of bottles to take home. I was going to give one to Sharrow but I figured he would rather have a nice red than "fruity" table wine.

On the dolmus (Turkish mini-bus), no big deal that the door was wide open while we driving;)

Kirsten checking out the town

Racks of fruit wine, the town's main export!

Don't know why I took this picture, looks rustic though...


Next Stop: Cappadocıa... (Kapp-ah-doke-e-ah)
- posted by mark @ 10:20 AM (0) comments

 

Greece, (Crete)

Santorini was nice, but after 5 days I was ready to move on, we decided to go to Crete and Andrew moved on the Mykonos, I hope he had fun there, he was a nice guy but I was all Andrew'd out so I was not sorry to part with him.

Day 1: Knossos

Out of time again, gotta make this quick. Went to Knossos the first day in Crete which was really cool, best preserved ruins in Greece. "Sir" Arthur Evans, an English archaelogist has excavated the ruins and has done some restoring which is quite controversial (see pics). Apparently, he has done some liberal guessing though and more or less restored what he thought looked cool according to some people. It was sooooo hot this day, we ducked into the shade for lunch and Dave discovered yet more pottery shards to add to his collection. Overall, Knossos was cool but smaller than I thought it would be, it wouldn't have been worth the hassle to get here but the ruins were unique in the fact that you could actually see what they used to look like (remember what I said about Evans "restoration" work. See the pics to get an idea of what I'm talking about.


Ruins at Knossos

Some of Evans "Restoration Work" I appreciate it anyways

The old walkway to the village, but now it just goes to the freeway...

Day 2: Heraklion's Beaches

The second day we went to the beach, it was beautiful, best beach we have had so far. The beaches on Santorini were black sand and rocky which burnt your feet and cut them at the same time, not really pleasant, but the beaches on Crete were beautiful, white sand and really nice. We visited the beach just outside of Heraklion, weren't really sure where to get off but as usual the Greek people were very nice and helped us out.

The beach in Crete

Some lady videotaping, never knew I had her on film :)
- posted by mark @ 3:39 PM (0) comments

 

Greece cont'd (Santorini)

Have lots to write but only 5 minutes of time left at the internet cafe! Santorini was really cool, different than what I thought but cool nonetheless. It was a very volcanic and barren island, lots of towering cliffs and it was much bigger and more spread out than any of the other islands I have been too.

When we got off the ferry Dave was all worried about getting a hotel room, I just laughed and said not to worry about it. Sure enough, there were about 50 people yelling and screaming to give us hotel rooms since the tourist season was not yet in full swing. We got a sweet hotel room, with a pool and a fridge for 10 euros a night (about $12)

// Greece Santorini //

Day 1: Travel

We got up at 5AM to board a ferry for Santorini at 7:30, I had to say goodbye to Kirsty which was sad but I will keep in touch. As usual (like on a plane) we arrived an hour before departure (like they recommended) and proceeded to sit around for 45 minutes doing nothing, I needed that sleep! Here's the harbor after the sun came up about 7.

Harbor in Piraeus (Athens)

On the ferry ride, yours truly

Dave with the video camera, we collected almost 3 hours of footage on this trip!

Santorini is beautiful but not what I expected, it is much bigger and more spread out than the other islands I have been too. I kind of have mixed feelings about it, like it for some reasons and dislike it for others, I guess it kind of sucks that everyone is kind of doing their own thing here and we haven't really met anyone.

Day 2-4 Exploring Santorini, beaches, discovering ruins

We rented a car though which has been interesting to drive, the one rule of the road is not to get hit. I have been doing all the driving even though I'm the only person who forgot to bring their drivers license (oops), this is because Andrew rented a stickshift but he can't drive one. Dave has also rented a scooter and he has been tooling around the island on that, I feel much more comfortable in a car, even a little rollerskate one like we have.

At the beach again today, went swimming in the Aegean yesterday and it was as nice as I remember from the last time, cool and refreshing yet not freezing like Lake Superior. We saw several other beaches which I will post pictures of...

The "Red Beach" wow!

Dave and Kirsten's scooter and our beast of a car (foreground)

Fruit Seller

Dave's at dinner, don't worry he always looks like that :)

Fira at Sunset


We are going to go scuba diving tommorrow so I have to go and set that up right now, full PADDY certification was really expensive so Kirsten and I are just doing a "discovery dive" to see if we like it.
I have a little more time now, it's the middle of the night and I am on a ferry in the middle of the Aegean Sea on the way to Athens, this boat must have a satellite uplink, cool!

Day 5: Scuba diving

Anyways, Santorini was nice, Andrew (this guy we met on the overnight ferry to Greece) continued to follow us, we got lots of sunshine, and we went scuba diving! I was a little nervous at first but Chris, our guide from Canada (who had an uncanny similarity to Kevin Sorbo, remember the "Hercules" tv show?) showed us how the equipment worked and since we did not do a decompression dive it wasn't a big deal. I only had to surface once becuase I had to cough and it was a little weird for me to cough while breathing out of a tank 25 feet underwater. Scuba Diving was really neat but there was not much to look at under the water, a few fish and a lot of seaweed covered rocks, I was more focused on getting the equipment to work correctly and trying to make myself buoyant (not sinking or ascending) than to see anything though so it worked out. Chris took some underwater pictures of us so if he emails them to me I will post them here (still waiting Chris!).

I continued to drive the car which was a good thing because Andrew could not drive a stick, we went to Perissa beach, then went to see the ruins of some ancient city, I forget the name, then on to another beach.

I was happily sunbathing until Dave (a.k.a. Indiana Jones) had the brilliant idea that we should climb this hill and he and I did. The climb sucked but we found a deserted ancient city at the top which was really cool. Dave continued to line his pockets with pottery shards and we took some pictures

Dave's Mountain

Dave's Mountain fron the top, that's the beach that the previous picture was taken from! See why the climb sucked! We will probably never get home with Dave taking pottery shards out of every country we visit but oh well, better that than drugs I guess....

Several more days of fun in the sun passed on Santorini, we did, scuba diving, laying on the beach, climbing a barren mountain, laying some more on the beach, eating, laying on the beach, I think that's all of it. Wait! we went on a sightseeing tour our last day there, a really cool pirate looking sailing ship that took us to the volcano.

The "Pirate Ship"

Little boy on the ship who seems to be enjoying himself

A hot young lady at a hot volcano crater

...then to the hot springs, which weren't really hot but kind of lukewarm brown water, ewww. Then we returned to the Old Town Port and it's 570 some steps which I had walked the day before (see pic).
Up the stairs, once was enough for me

This time, I hired one of the donkey's to carry me up the hill. It was really fun, mine was plodding along then it would practically gallop up the hill when this English guy behind me was about to pull ahead. We "raced" our donkey's up the staircase for awhile, then he finally pulled ahead and mine decided to quit! I had to pull it up the stairs the rest of the way by it's halter but it was a fun time and I didn't mind. Then I carried a kid up the stairs past all the donkeys and finally rejoined Dave, who had taken pictures of my predicament(!) at the top. We all laughed about it, then went to watch the sunset which was beautiful.

From the donkey's back, he was a quitter!

The caldera (volcano crater) at sunset

Overall, I liked Santorini but I think I like Ios and Mykonos a little bit more, they are a little more compact and I like the towns better, Santorini is beautiful in it's own way though and there is a lot to do here. Next stop: Crete...

The Jetboat destined for Crete...

- posted by mark @ 10:05 AM (0) comments