Day 6 - July 7th
We took a look around the Basilica of St. John where it is believe St. John spent his last years and was buried. Then we hopped on a bus to Denizili/Pammukale. A man driving a small mini-bus intercepted us when almost to Denizili. He took us to Pammukale, but more specifically, to his hotel off the beaten path. We thanked him for the ride and then hoofed it over to a different hotel that was recommended to us by the folks at the Hotel Bella.After check-in and lunch, we went up to Pammukale. Pammukale is like a petrified waterfall mountain formed from calcium. It was the site of Roman baths. Water continues to flow over the whole area and you can continue to make use of the baths as the Romans did. We walked through Pammukale to the top and reached the Ancient Roman city of Hieropolis. The original city was founded as far back as the 2nd century BC. It is really a cool place and there are lots of ruins off the beaten path that I suspect most tourists never see.
We finished off the day with a buffet dinner at our hotel. The only reason this is of note is I made a point to try the different things, and my favorite thing there was fried zucchini. I hate zucchini, so I'm still pretty confused by this. I decided to try a bit of Curry to see if maybe it was different and better in Turkey as well, but no, it was just as bad as normal. :)
Today's increased vocabulary included: bosver (bosh-ver) which translates literally as "give empty" and is used as a form of "never mind", farket mez which means "it doesn't matter", yok (yolk) which means "no more, done, none", lutfen (loot-fen) which you don't really hear used in spoken Turkish means please, sok (soak) means cold, istyorum means "I want", and neckadar means "how much."
Basilica of St. John - Tomb of St. John.
Basilica of St. John - Overlooking Isa Bey Camii Mosque - Me.
Basilica of St. John - Overlooking Isa Bey Camii Mosque - Closer.
Basilica of St. John - Castle in distance.
Basilica of St. John - Turtle, he must be a Holy Turtle.
Pammukale - Toby and Hassan in water.
Pammukale - Toby and Hassan in water 2.
Pammukale - Water.
Pammukale - Wind blowing the water.
Pammukale - Cliffs.
Hieropolis - Toby, just leaving Pammukale.
Hieropolis - Me, Theatre behind.
Hieropolis - Toby, Theatre.
Hieropolis - Me, Theatre.
Hieropolis - Looking out of Necropolis Temple.*** 12 second movie(4.1mb) - Hieropolis - Temple next to Necropolis. Right click, Save As.
Hieropolis - Toby and Hassan.
Hieropolis - Grove of trees - Toby and Hassan.
Hieropolis - Hassan tries his hand at begging.Back to Top
Day 7 - July 8th
We took a little mini-van to another old city called Aphrodisias. It got its name around the 3rd Century BC. We spent the early part of the day wandering around the city and exploring the museum. Neatest thing about this city was the colosseum.Then it was back to Pammukale to pick up our things, a short bus ride to Danizili and then a bit of time killing until our night bus to Goreme left that night. We wandered the city a bit, spent some time at an Internet café, and then went to a movie theater. Little kids selling packets of tissue paper ambushed us, but Toby managed to fend them off. We saw Johnny English. It was much better than I thought it would be. After we had left, Hassan realized he had forgotten his wallet. He raced back inside and was lucky enough to recover it without incident. We got some ice cream, and then I trashed Toby and Hassan at some more Pishte before we boarded our night bus.
Aphrodites - Entrance.
Aphrodites - Colosseum.
Aphrodites - Colosseum, Me.
Aphrodites - Farmers working outside the Colosseum.
Aphrodites - Ruins, flowers.
Aphrodites.
Aphrodites 2.
Aphrodites - Theatre, Hassan.
Aphrodites - Theatre, Hassan 2.Back to Top
Day 8 - July 9th
We arrived in Goreme (which is in the part of Turkey known as Cappadocia) at around 7:30am and started our hotel search. We ended up picking the Panoramic Pension because Toby wanted to stay in a "cave room." The lady that runs the place is extremely nice and I actually highly recommend this as a good cheap place to stay if you ever plan to be in the area. (Tel 0-384 271 2040)After breakfast we hiked over to the open-air museum. It basically was the site of a large cave dwelling Christian population dating back to like the 2nd century AD. The highlight here was a place called the Tokali Church. It is the oldest known rock cut church in the region (10th Century), and the entire place is covered with very vibrant and beautiful frescoes. One set of panels stretching from left to right in the church tells the story of Jesus' life.
We hiked back to Goreme cross country over some farm land and up some hills to check out some of the cave houses along the way. The whole countryside here seems to be dotted with cave dwellings. After some lunch, we took a dolmus to the nearby Uchisar castle. We spoke with a student of English named Mehmet for a bit on the castle top.
We decided to hike back to Goreme through a nearby valley. At one point we reached a particularly impossible part of the path and encountered a local farmer. He led us back and across to the other side of a valley on a path he told us he made himself. When he got us to the end of his territory he asked if we had any cigarettes. I felt bad that none of us were smokers, but on the other hand, during the whole journey he had been complaining in Turkish to Hassan about the smoking tourists that caused so many fires in his valley.
We got back to Goreme and had some dinner. Toby and Hassan got a meal that was cooked inside a bit of pottery, and then they had to smash it to get at their food. It was kind of interesting, but didn't exactly seem like the best idea, as was evidenced when both of them encountered tiny pieces of pottery in their meal. I ordered some orange juice and water, and Toby and Hassan got some coke. The reason I mention this is shortly after we ordered, we watched a boy walk from the restaurant to a market next door, and come back with a bottle of coke, a bottle of water, and some oranges. :) That night I got horribly feverish; perhaps sun poisoning from a really bad burn.
Goreme - Cave Houses.
Goreme - Valley, Farmland, Caves.
Goreme - Same pic with Me and Toby.
Goreme - Looking slightly towards open-air museum.
Goreme - Me, climbing toward city, farm behind me.*** 21 second movie(6.9mb) - Goreme - Panorama near the city.
Goreme - City of Goreme, Hassan.
Goreme - City of Goreme 2.
Goreme - Uchisar castle in the distance.
Uchisar castle - Camel.
Uchisar castle - Toby on top.
Uchisar castle - Toby and Hassan.
Uchisar castle - Hassan and I.
Goreme - Our cave room at Panoramic Pension - Toby and Hassan.Back to Top
Day 9 - July 10th
Slept a bit later than normal as I was still a bit under the weather, but then got some breakfast and hopped on a bus to Derinkuyu. This place is an ancient underground city, possibly dating back thousands of years to the Hittites originally. Its deepest point is about 85meters down. It has bedrooms, dining rooms, wine cellars, stables, a church, kitchens, a school, etc. From the 7th to the 13th Centuries Christians who were escaping persecution inhabited it. They would enter the underground cities any time there was a nearby military threat and hide underground until they left. This city is purported to have held 10,000 people in its prime. One of the more interesting things inside are these round wheels of rock that could be rolled across the entrances to tunnels. They would have been next to impossible to move from the outside, and just in case that was ever a possibility, they had a little hole in the middle so that you could stab the invaders with spears. ;)As we left Derinkuyu old women selling trinkets ambushed us. Toby and Hassan both bought little Cappadocia stone city lamps. I got a neat looking lion. We had lunch in the form of something called Gurzime, which is basically another Turkish bread thing. This one was stuffed with potatoes and parsley, and it was really nasty. We headed back to Goreme.
Once in Goreme, we hopped a dolmus to the nearby Zelve. Zelve was the *best* place we went on the whole trip, without a doubt. Zelve was one of the largest communities in the area, a huge cave town honeycombed in three valleys. Christians and Muslims apparently lived together here with no difficulties until 1924 when the Christians had to leave due to some kind of minority exchange. Zelve remained inhabited until the 1950s when the risk of erosion and cave collapses became to great. You can tell when wandering around that the place is falling a part and it is a great tragedy. I am really happy I got to see it as there is no telling how long it will continue to stick around.
Anyway, we climbed all around and explored all the houses, churches, etc in one of the three valleys. We pulled out our flashlights and explored a lot of completely dark connecting tunnels deep in the rock. My favorite part of this exploration was the tunnels in between levels. These were like stone chimneys with hand/footholds cut into the rock at various intervals that we had to snake up to fully explore. It was fantastic!
Unfortunately, our time came to an end there as it hit closing time, and the last bus back to Goreme was going to be leaving soon. In fact, when we got back to the entrance gate, it was already closed and locked and we had to hop the fence to get out of the park. We boarded our bus and had to take a brief detour to Avanos, but finally ended up back in Goreme.
We ate dinner at the Sedef restaurant. I had probably the best wood fired American pizza available in Turkey there. It was great. Then we had some baklava and ice cream for desert. We went back to the hotel and played OK (a Turkish tile game) and drank a bit until bed.
Derinkuyu - Bottomless pit or well? You be the judge.
Derinkuyu - Missionary School, Toby.
Derinkuyu - Tunnel, Me.
Zelve - Me in front of a Mosque.
Zelve - Inside mosque, looking out.
Zelve - Me and Hassan inside a cave window, high above the ground.
Zelve - Looking down from one of those cave windows.
Zelve - Toby and Hassan inside a pitch black cave.
Zelve - Looking down a stone chimney at Toby eating the local fruit.
Zelve - Looking out on Zelve from another high cave window.
Zelve - Me climbing up a stone chimney.
Zelve - Me looking down from the ceiling of rock above Toby.
Zelve - Hassan.Back to Top
Day 10 - July 11th
We checked out of the Paradise Pension, but the lady was kind enough to let us leave our luggage there for the day. Toby and I finally managed to get our postcards mailed out.We rented some street bikes and road them 9 km or so to Avanos. We browsed the shops there and looked at a bunch of pottery. Toby and Hassan both made some pottery. We road our bikes back to Goreme and returned them. We returned to the Sedef for lunch and I tried their spaghetti, which wasn't all that great. Then we went back to the open-air museum so Toby could buy a camel table. Essentially a folding table intricately carved out of one piece of wood. I bought a little drum there. Next we returned to the Pension for some showers, and then down to the bus station to wait for our bus.
We talked to a nice Dutch guy for a while here. He was heading to Syria next, so Toby told him all about his travels there. Our bus took us to Kyseri first for a bit of a layover. Our bags were being watched by a man at the bus station that reminded me of a crooked relative of mine. I didn't feel comfortable about this, but Toby assured me it would be ok. We set out in search of food.
We couldn't find anything that appetizing, so settled for a greasy spoon type of place right by the bus station. We sat outside on the patio, right next to the street. This place had no menus, you just had to order stuff and see if they had it. Our waiter set down some bread for us and returned to the kitchen with our orders. Out of nowhere, the strangest sound seemed to arise. It sounded like a cross between a diesel truck and a swarm of insects. I saw what appeared to be a large billowing white cloud coming down the street towards us. Dumbstruck, mouth gaping open, I asked Toby what the hell that was. Slowly, at the head of the cloud, a truck came into view. It was apparently the source of this giant cloud. Toby recognized it as a mosquito poison truck. Apparently they spray large amounts of mosquito poison to try and keep the mosquito population down. Lovely. As the truck passed us, the two story tall cloud of white mosquito poison wafted slowly towards us, until a slightly dispersed version engulfed our position. So much for that bread.
Toby got us some replacement bread and it arrived about the same time as an ambulance pulled up behind us. The two ambulance people got out and pulled out a man on a gurney. They wheeled him up directly behind our table and then took a seat at the table behind us. Their ambulance stalled after a bit and they had to get up and push start it, but then returned to their seats. Our dinner arrived. When I turned around to look at the gurney guy, I noticed that he was now eating a bowl of soup. Toby began to dig into his meal when he suddenly exclaimed the Toby equivalent of "what the fuck?" He had cut into what looked like a small steak filet, and it turned out to be the heart of some mystery animal. Hassan was pretty happy about this and was happy to take it off of Toby's plate. I took another glance behind me and noticed that gurney man was now talking on a cell phone and smoking a cigarette. Bordisa Turkiye.
We finished our meal and went back to the bus stop. A note here about public restrooms in Turkey, they don't believe in toilet paper. In fact, you will be lucky to find any kind of paper product in their restrooms. So walking into a typical stall, what you will see is a porcelain circle set in the ground and a small pitcher of water off to the side. Who needs toilet paper when you have a hand and some water? Needless to say, our hotels always had normal restrooms or I would have exploded. Anyway, we boarded our bus and were in the second to last row. After a few minutes, like an entire village boarded the bus and sat in the row behind us. There must have been like 10 grandparents, parents and children stuffed into those 4 seats. And none of them had seen a shower in ages by the smell wafting forward. Ah well, what can ya do.
Avanos - Toby making pottery.*** 13 second movie(4.6mb) - Avanos - Toby making pottery.
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