Southeast Turkey - Day 2

For more photos, see http://anatolianphotos.shutterfly.com/

Today was a little disappointing. Perhaps we have been spoiled by the splendor of yesterday’s visit to Nemrut Dag, expecting today’s visits to dams, houses, churches and mosques to have the same awesome effect on us. Despite the slight letdown, these visits were beautiful, historical, and impressive in their own right. Perhaps on another day, we would have been more in awe.

Ataturk Dam (Ataturk Baraji) – This is the centerpiece of the Southeast Anatolian Project (GAP), a massive complex of dams that, when finished, will consist of 22 structures holding back the waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers for the purpose of irrigation and hydroelectric power. Southeast Turkey is an arid land and one of the least developed in Turkey. The dam project is designed to increase agricultural production and will eventually generate 22% of the country’s electricity.

This $32 billion project does not come without social, cultural and environmental costs, of course. Whole villages have been inundated, with the populations displaced; significant historical sites now sit underwater; and there is reportedly a 10% increase in malaria cases. The countries downriver also complain that Turkey is taking more than its fair share of water from the two large rivers. I am not a huge fan of visiting dams, but this visit puts some of today’s contemporary issues in Turkey in perspective for me. It is also extremely impressive; the engineering is truly awesome. One particularly moving monument, which is the first thing one sees on entering the visitor’s platform, is a statue commemorating the workers who lost their lives building this dam. Sad.

Diyarbakir: This city has been at the center of the conflict between Kurds and the Turkish army for decades. Fifteen years ago, we were forbidden to travel to the entire Southeast region, but Diyarbakir, in particular, was nearly suicidal to visit then. Today, there are still tensions between the two factions, but it is now considered safe to travel here. Diyarbakir is 90% Kurdish, which one can see and hear on the streets; the people are swarthier, and we can hear, even with our rudimentary knowledge of the Turkish language, that people pronounce Turkish words differently. The Kurdish language was outlawed until recently. Although the local language is now legal, I don’t recall hearing words I did not recognize as Turkish.

"Diyar" means "land;" "bakir" means "copper." The city has a long history, at one point being a Hittite center, an Assyrian city, Persian, Roman, Seljuk, and so on. One thing I found fascinating was the statue in one of the city’s central squares: A giant watermelon sits atop a large structure in the central traffic rotary. Guess what Diyarbakir grows throughout the region? Alas, our appetites being whetted for the wonderful watermelon grown in this sunny, hot, arid region, we will have to wait longer; it is too early in the season for fully ripe melons.

Some of the sights we saw in Diyarbakir are:

Ataturk’s House – In nearly every city we’ve visited in Turkey, we’ve encountered a house called "Ataturk’s House." Apparently, each time the hero of the Turkish Republic stayed in a house while visiting, it became "his;" he was such a revered figure throughout the country that the towns gave the houses to him. This was true at least in Diyarbakir. After his death, these houses became a cultural and historical focus for each city. This one, with a beautiful view of the city and countryside, is constructed in a common style for the region, with alternating bands of black and white stone. The gardens surrounding the house are now a public park, with a terrific view of the historic city walls.

Diyarbakir City Walls – Two people have told us that the walls surrounding the old part of the city are second in size and condition only to the Great Wall of China. So we were prepared to be immensely impressed. Well, it turns out that this wall is "only" five kilometers in length—still impressive, but comparing it to the Chinese wall seems out of whack. At any rate, the black basalt stones used in constructing this Byzantine wall, the excellent condition of the remaining structure, and the multiple towers built into it are certainly awesome in their own right.

Mardin Gate – There are four main entrances through the wall. We visited one, the Mardin Gate, named so because it faces the city of Mardin, which we will visit on another day. The gate is huge, affording nice views of the city and walls from its roof. Inside the gate we visited an enormous cavernous building which was built on the site of a former temple to the sun. The current structure was originally a Byzantine church, later local Arabs made it into a mosque. On the day of our visit it was serving as an art gallery, with large photographs of Turkey and France on display, and tables set up to enjoy a cup of the ubiquitous Turkish tea.

Before we got off the bus to visit the Mardin Gate, we were advised to leave all our belongings on the bus, as pickpockets and petty thieves apparently wait for tourists near the gate. The driver and attendant stayed by the locked bus to keep an eye on it. This advice was a little surprising, in that we find the people of this country extremely generous, kind and honest. Trusting as I am (although I did leave my purse on the bus; I’m not stupid), I tried to look at all the young men idly hanging around the gate with respect while giving them the benefit of the doubt, but there certainly were a lot of them. I think the advice we were given was sound after all.

Chaldean Church – Because this area of Turkey hosted some of the earliest Christian and Muslim believers, there are a wide variety of religious buildings representing different faiths and cultures. We visited a modest sized Catholic church, built in the 4th to 5th centuries. Although currently under restoration, it is still in use by descendants of the Babylonians.

Ulu Mosque (Great Mosque) – My travel notes state that this is the first mosque in Turkey. It is old, made of huge blocks of stone, and elaborately decorated in stone carvings. Along the outside wall are carved passages from the Koran, written in Arabic. The courtyard is enormous, and contains an old sundial, the significance of which I forgot to ask Onur, our guide. His explanation was in Turkish. Normally he summarizes each site for us in English, but both of us forgot to ask for an English explanation of this sundial. The shape of the mosque itself represents a style of mosque no longer in vogue. It has a long, rectangular shape, with no domes on the roof. Later Seljuk mosques are square, with flat roofs. More recent mosques are also square, with domed roofs, the latter reputedly influenced by Christian church designs.

Cahil Sikti Ev Museum – This museum was formerly the home of Cahit Sitki Taranci, one of Turkey’s most famous twentieth century poets. While we poked our noses into the restored rooms of this beautiful house, typical of local architecture with its gorgeous enclosed courtyard surrounded by rooms, three schoolboys, smelling tourist money, started to recite in unison one of the writer’s poems. They were terrific, not missing a note. Naturally, we tourists were generous in offering money for their performance—well, truthfully, the others were generous, I was less so. Below is a brief video of part of their performance.

Southeast Turkey - Day 1

Mount Nemrut National Park

For more photos, see http://www.anatolianphotos.shutterfly.com/

For much of the month of May, Larry and I have been working feverishly trying to edit his book manuscript about the history of the death penalty in Connecticut. With a June 15 deadline, imposed only a few weeks ago, we spent as many of our waking hours as possible working to answer hundreds of questions posed by the editor. Alas, the task became impossible to complete by the deadline, despite our best efforts. For one thing, only Larry’s notes, stored in boxes in Hampton, could answer dozens of the questions. But more importantly (to us), we had previously booked, and paid for, two week long tours of Eastern Turkey to end our sojourn on an exciting note before returning to the U.S. on June 15. Fortunately, the publisher extended our deadline, at Larry’s request, to July 15. SO, off we went, from May 22 to May 28 on the first of our long trips to the cradle of civilization—Southeast Turkey.

I will be posting separate entries for each of the days on our trip. This means that, if you are checking my blog next week or after, you will see the entries in reverse order, beginning with Day 6. Sorry! (Of course, that means you won’t see this note until too late).

On May 22 we joined 21 other people and a great tour guide on a Tempo Tur trip to the area of Turkey that had been off limits during our earlier visit to the country in 1994/95. There, and especially in the city of Diyarbakir, the Kurdish insurgency made travel to the area extremely dangerous. Today, it is safe and is being discovered particularly by Turkish tourists also eager to see a part of their country formerly inaccessible to them as well.

Located between the Tigris and Euphrates (sound familiar to all of you who vaguely remember your Western Civ. classes?), the countryside we visited was astonishing in the richness and complexity of its history. The earliest known settlements are here, dating back to 7000 BCE. Evidence is everywhere of dozens, possibly more, civilizations. For example, the road we travelled was often flanked by "huyuk," or "tel," huge flat hills that were sites of multiple layers of earlier settlements, some of which are still awaiting excavation!

Large sections of the area are now inundated with water dammed up from the two big rivers by a series of dams constructed over the past several years. The GAP project, building and maintaining these dams, has nearly completed the construction of all 22 projected dams, bringing (on the plus side) irrigation to this extremely dry region, and hydroelectric power to remote towns and villages. On the negative side, the waters are also the cause of an increase in malaria, the displacement of entire village populations, and the drowning of historically significant sites. I have also been told that Iraq and Syria, downriver, are none too happy about the decrease in the water that reaches their countries.

Our six day trip covered 2,374 kilometers by bus. That’s 1475 miles on a bus. Luckily for us, Turkish buses are very comfortable, clean and efficient. And our bus drivers were amazing.
After the long overnight, nearly sleepless trip from Ankara to Kahta, we checked into the Zeus hotel, which was the only one of five hotels where we truly enjoyed the food. All the others served some variation of meat kebap. Larry certainly got mighty tired of eggplant and cuke and tomato salad, with little other variety. I at least was able to eat some chicken and terrific fish. Otherwise, I too was not impressed with the food, so this will be the last mention of it. (But we will always be grateful for the Zeus hotel food).

This first day’s cultural visit was to the Mount Nemrut National Park, which included several sites from the time of the Commagene kingdom, a brief civilization dating from 162 BCE to about 72 AD.

Karakus Tumulus – Our first stop, after resting at the hotel (and a nice solo swim in the hotel pool for me) was the Karakus Tumulus, a large pile of rocks the size of a fist which was typical of other tumuli in the area. The graves of the women of the royal family of the Commagene kingdom are believed to lie under these rocks. Karakus means "black bird" and may refer to the eagle on top of one of the remaining columns surrounding the tumulus. Some consider this mound to be a smaller version of the one atop Nemrut Dag (below), where the king Antiochus himself is supposedly buried.

Cendere Bridge – In 210 AD, four Commagene cities built this single arch bridge over a tributary of the Euphrates River to honor the Roman emperor, Septemus Severus, his wife and his two sons. Four Corinthian columns formerly flanked the ends of the bridge; only three now remain. One of Severus’s sons, Caracalla, assuming the throne on the death of his father, murdered his brother, Geta, and removed the column representing his brother, along with any references to the latter throughout the Roman Empire. This bridge is the oldest remaining bridge in Turkey and one of the oldest in the world. At 1,800 years old, it is still in use, mostly by tourists, and is in excellent condition.

Arsemeia (today: Eskikale, or "Old Castle") – This city on top of a tall promontory was the ancient capital of the Commagene kingdom, and was founded by Mithridates I around 80 BC. The more recent capital, Yenikale ("New Castle") is now buried under the waters of the GAP dams. Climbing up a somewhat scary path along the side of the hill, we passed a stele depicting Mithras, the god of the sun (called Apollo in the West), and the god of a secret cult in ancient times. Later, we passed two tunnels carved into the stone, reputedly sites of secret rites of the cult. The openings of the tunnels are blocked; they extend about 500 feet down into the mountain, and the steep carved stairways are apparently very dangerous to descend. At the mouth of one of the caves is a relief of Antiochus I shaking hands with Hercules; above the opening is a long carved account in Greek of the founding of the city. Higher up the hill are the remains of the city itself; we did not, though, go any higher. The view was unbelievable!

Nemrut Dag (Mount Nemrut) - One of the key highlights of this trip ended this first day of sight seeing. After a harrowing ride on three minibuses, ours driven by a seeming daredevil, up mountain roads with, as usual, no guardrails, we arrived at the top of the 7,000 foot high Mount Nemrut (sometimes referred to as Nemrud), a UNESCO World Heritage site.

From the parking lot, we climbed the remaining 500 feet or so to the first of two terraces cut from stone at the top of the mountain. The very tip of the summit, between the two terraces is a 150 foot pyramid constructed of loose stone, reputedly containing the tombs of Antiochus 1, the Commagene ruler who oversaw the creation of this colossal site during his reign around the first century BCE.

Nobody knows for sure whether there is a tomb or any remains within the summit’s tumulus because it cannot be excavated (or looted) without the entire structure of loose stone collapsing atop any intruders. Clever. Interestingly, similar grandiose tombs and/or monuments in Egypt were engineered from more permanent materials; i.e., huge stone blocks. But their very strength enabled robbers to penetrate the pyramids and carry off treasures, unlike the tumulus atop Nemrut Dag, which remains intact.

From a distance, one can see the summit’s tumulus, which creates the illusion of a very pointy summit. The terraces on either side of the tumulus, though, are not visible from below the mountain, or from any distance for that matter. Only by climbing the mountain, or, in our case, the very top to the summit, can one see why Nemrut Dag is such an amazing site, which has recently become one of the symbols of Turkey and a popular tourist destination. So, donning our warm clothes (I had five layers, including a down vest and still felt cold), we braved the strong winds and cold and climbed to the top, passing up the opportunity to take a "taxi" (i.e., a donkey) up the steepest bit.

We first reached the Western terrace, where Antiochus, son of Mithridates, had constructed a temple, of which only the base remains. Facing due West, colossal statues of himself and various gods look out over the spectacular landscape below. Earthquakes, unfortunately, collapsed the statues such that all the heads fell to the ground. Recent renovations, however, stood the heads upright, at the base of their respective bodies. There are plans to one day hoist the heads back onto the bodies, but, frankly, I think the current configuration is fine as it is. The western terrace’s statues pay tribute to the Mesopotamian ancestry of Antiochus; the eastern terrace to his Persian ancestry.

Moving around the tumulus to the eastern terrace, we see many of the same type of statues, including Antiochus again, this time wearing a Persian style head covering. Also on view are reliefs depicting Antiochus shaking hands with several historical or mythical figures; e.g., Hercules, Zeus, and Apollo. The latter, Apollo, was also named Mithras by the Persians and was the center of a cult religion that supposedly practiced secret rites in caves throughout the region (see above).

By the time we were ready to depart, the sun was very low. We were planning to stay atop the mountain until sunset, but left early because clouds were beginning to form and some people had not worn enough warm clothing. As we descended the summit, I mentioned to Larry that the eleven hour bus trip was worth it just to see this site alone. Amazing!

Because there is so much more to describe about Nemrut Dag, including the specific gods and the rich history of the area, I will let the internet do so. Besides, it is all too confusing to make sense of the changes in civilizations, cultures, rulers, religions and so on, so I’ve given up trying. Here is a helpful web site: http://www.adiyamanli.org/mt_nemrut.htm
　

Tekirova, Native Americans, and early farewells

For more photographs, see: http://www.anatolianphotos.shutterfly.com/

On Friday, May 14, Meldan hosted another party to bid us farewell. Although it is another three weeks before we head back to the States, this was the only date on which nearly everyone could come. One couple, the cultural affairs officer and his wife, both of whom are very nice, showed up the previous Friday, ready to party. When they saw Meldan’s look of shock on that earlier date, Rachel, the wife, turned to Tom and said "I thought it was next week." Anyway, we had a nice time and, as always, scads of food, all served very elegantly.

The very next morning, we headed to the bus station to board a bus to Tekirova, a resort community on the eastern part of the Teke Peninsula, west of Antalya. There, we met up with some of the people from the night before, including the Embassy’s public affairs officer. The purpose of the trip was for all the Fulbrighters to get together from all over the country for an "evaluation" meeting. Some of us think it was simply an all expenses paid vacation for the Fulbright Commissioners, including the U.S. Ambassador.

At the risk of sounding ungrateful for three days at a Mediterranean resort, at no expense to us, this was not a completely satisfying trip. For one thing, the meeting was nearly useless. Each Fulbright member was given about four minutes to sum up their year, and make recommendations to improve the program. That was pretty much it. Then we were on our own to do what we wanted for a day and a half.

Because the Fulbright Commission planned nothing, nor gave us any information about what was available, a lot of us floundered around trying to figure out how to get to some of the incredible sights nearby. The Commissioners, who had been here many times before, all took off on their own excursions, leaving those of us who’d never been there behind. (Some Fulbrighters knew the lay of the land and how to get around so they, too, took off). Some of us negotiated a full day’s boat ride, with a lunch on the boat, swimming, and trips to some historical sights, but the plans got extremely complicated, and ultimately fell through due to some stingy individuals and a few temper tantrums (not me, this time!) Just as the plans had finally jelled, about twelve hours after we started them, one Fulbright staff member informed us that she booked a boat for us for the afternoon—for free. A half hour earlier, she told me that nothing was planned. Aaargh! There went all our plans for the all day trip and the visits to historical sights. Our stingy companions jumped at the chance for the free boat ride, leaving the rest of us in the lurch. (We needed a minimum number of people for the all day trip).

So, off we all went on a two and a half hour ride along the coast. The bad part was missing those sights—Phaselis, where Alexander the Great summered during one of his campaigns; Olympus, with its ruins peeking out of jungle like growths; the Chimera, a mountain still spewing perpetual fires from gases escaping within, the fires of antiquity, where the myth of Pegasus takes place. And the mountains surrounding the resort went unexplored by all but the U.S. Ambassador and his wife, who knew how to get to the paths, but felt no compulsion to let anyone else know.

Were we irritated? Mightily. Was the boat trip a waste of time? NO! We got to swim in the Mediterranean, jumping off the boat that had stopped in a cove, within sight of a peculiar rock formation that looked exactly like the profile of a woman’s head. It is called "Cleopatra’s Rock." And the brief trip was very relaxing, the weather was gorgeous, and the Mediterranean very very blue. The only glitch was the uncertainty of the whereabouts of two Fulbright students who swam to shore, then disappeared for about an hour, as we all waited for them on the boat. (We had visions of Antonioni’s "L’Aventura," where a woman disappears from a Mediterranean island, never again to be found). Eventually they were rescued by the captain and a crew member who had to take a rowboat to another beach to find them. The students were bemused that they had been holding up a whole boat load of people, and didn’t seem at all remorseful.

As for the resort where we stayed for three days, it is not at all the type of place I would have chosen. A real "resort," with water sports, disco, four pools, all you can eat and drink (including alcohol, which was "free" the entire time), it catered to Russian tourists. Great, I thought, we’ll be among vodka swilling, disco dancing tourists, who will keep us awake all night. Not so! First of all, the resort was beautifully designed, with the rooms located far from the disco. The Russian tourists seemed to be all families. There were little kids all over the place, mostly very young, who were probably the most well behaved kids I’ve seen in a long time. Nobody drank in excess. The music stopped reasonably early. The water was great, the weather perfect, the scenery gorgeous. So, despite our frustrations with the Fulbright staff, we ended up having a good time. We even danced our last night away (until about 10:30 p.m.—we’re not all that young, and the music stopped anyway), choosing to forget all our irritations of the weekend. It’s still not the type of place I would normally choose. But, it was free to us, and ended up being a pleasant surprise.

Returning to Ankara, we had one more Native American group meeting, at the home of a woman named Ece, who is a documentary film maker for TRT, the official Turkish television station. She showed us one of the documentaries she had created about bears in Turkey. It was terrific, even if it has nothing to do with Native Americans. Interestingly, one of the people there we hadn’t seen since the meetings of fifteen years ago. I said to him, "I understand you are a doctor." His response was: "That is an insult; I am a surgeon." I avoided him for the rest of the evening, but had a good time otherwise.

On Friday, May 21, Hacettepe hosted a visit from the Seven Falls Indian Dancers, a family of a half dozen or so Native Americans who perform throughout the summer at various powwows and other venues. They incorporate traditional Native American dance with contemporary interpretations and costumes. During lunch, one of the dancers told me she has been to a powwow at Foxwoods in Connecticut, where I had once attended one of the gatherings. She is the world champion Southern Indian female dancer.

Above is a brief video clip I took of one of the dancers forming a traditional "grass dance." I hope you can open and view it easily.

This blog entry was written in haste, as we need to catch a bus to the Southeast in a few hours. If you are reading it before we return from our Southeast Turkey trip, forgive its rambling nature. If you are lucky enough to read it after I’ve had a chance to edit the entry, it may read more smoothly. (Of course, I will then have removed this paragraph). So, sorry about the "draft" nature, but I’ve got a bus to catch. Gorusuruz!
　

Cappadocia and Başdere tree planting

April 30 - May 2

For more photographs see: http://www.anatolianphotos.shutterfly.com/

Cappadocia, about five hours’ drive east of Ankara, is as surreal as it gets. Several millennia of selective erosion of tuff from massive volcanic eruptions long ago, have created a landscape like no other in the world.

So soft is the tuff stone that early Christians, unable to practice their religion in peace during Roman rule, began to carve homes and churches into cliffs, hillsides and the “fairy chimneys” that dot the landscape of the central Anatolian plain. Over a period of seven hundred years, beginning in the 4th century B.C.E., more than 200 churches, thousands of cave homes, and several enormous underground cities created a maze of structures that simply defy the imagination. It is nearly impossible to adequately describe how unreal and spectacular this area of Turkey is.

Larry and I have been to this region twice before, on our visit fifteen years ago. We had not planned on visiting Cappadocia again, as there are so many other places in Turkey we would still like to see. But when we were presented with the opportunity of joining one hundred or more Americans in planting trees in a Cappadocia village called Başdere, we signed up, and even made a modest contribution to the purchase of some saplings.

Ray and Barbara very generously offered to drive us, rather than taking a bus full of families with young kids.

This trip to Cappadocia differed from the previous two in many ways, including the hotel we booked. In Göreme, one of the major tourist towns in Cappadocia, we stayed in one of the more affordable “cave hotels.” For the equivalent of $40 per night, we had our very own cave room—cut into the tuff, with rough sides and ceiling, but a smooth, pretty wooden floor. The kilims hung on the wall made it look quite cozy and a little less “cave-y.” The room was comfortable if small. The bathroom was not so clean—mold was evidence that the moisture was not sufficiently vented. But the view was spectacular and the price was right. I’m sure that the pseudo (but beautiful) “cave” hotel a few yards down the hill would have been cleaner and more luxurious, if we had wanted to spend about $1000 per night. We were quite happy, thank you very much, with our little Sarihan Otel (trans.: “yellow caravansaray”).

After a somewhat overpriced lunch, we headed to the Göreme National Open Air Museum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a large concentration of carved structures and a wide variety of churches. The earlier ones contained somewhat crude frescoes, in one color, red. As the centuries progressed, the frescoes and the structures themselves became more elaborate. One church, called Karanlık Kilise (“Dark, without light, church”) had so few window openings that the frescoes are as fresh and bright as the day they were painted. Frescoes in other churches show fading and wear, while still others have been damaged by iconoclasts many centuries ago.
Fifteen years ago, we walked throughout this park on paths that were tricky to navigate – they were simply tuff pathways, with some loose sand on slopes that ranged from a slight incline to quite steep. The intervening years saw the installation of cobbled walkways, stairways and observation platforms, easing the formerly difficult walk and/or climb to several of the churches, monasteries and homes. Turkey has made a real effort to ease the comfort of tourists, both domestic and international. Of course, the hefty entry fee helps.

The following day, we headed to Başdere, where we joined one hundred or more Americans and about two hundred villagers in the fourth annual Earth Day Tree Planting sponsored by the U.S. Embassy (and originated by the Embassy’s gardener, a native of the village), and local municipal leaders and organizations.

Unbelievably, we planted 1,500 trees in 2 ½ hours! Admittedly, I use the term “we” loosely; my short, square shovel being virtually useless on the rocky hillside, I mostly got in people’s way taking pictures. But I tried. Larry was given a proper shovel to use, and, with his unfulfilled desire (in Turkey) to dig in the dirt, he worked like crazy. Every now and then, I patted down the soil or carried some of the saplings to a new hole for planting--then took more pictures.

At lunchtime, the village women who had prepared a feast for all three hundred workers, served us a fine lunch in the village’s central park.

In four years, this program has planted an astounding 8,000 trees. As part of the country’s reforestation projects, the town has only about eight million more trees to go :-), but they’ve made a good start.

Afternoon being free, we continued our sight-seeing. First we visited a place called “Paşabaği,” where there is a beautiful concentration of fairy chimneys seemingly marching through the surreal valleys. Some looked like gigantic mushrooms. Others, especially those in the nearby “Love Valley” looked like – well, guess (see the photos if I’ve actually stumped you).

These stone monoliths were formed when a layer of hard rock, sitting on top of a deeper layer of tuff, channeled rain in such a way that the softer tuff was sculpted into tall cylinders, capped by a wider, but thinner, layer of darker, harder stone. It looks as though the huge cylinders have little “caps” on top, although the local populace (or just us tourists?) refer to the structures as “fairy chimneys.”

Later, we stopped at a roadside observation point where, looking down from the road, we saw some of the most amazing giant fairy chimneys. To me, it was a trip down memory lane. I have photographs of all of us, five year old Anna included, at this very spot fifteen years ago, when a student, Şaban, took us to many sights in Cappadocia and hosted us in his parents’ summer home in Kayseri.

Our last stop of the day was a town we had never heard of, called “Uçhisar,” meaning “Three Castles.” Two of the castles are actually in other towns. The one in Uçhisar was a gigantic outcropping, carved inside and out and forming a lookout “castle” that dominates the landscape in this part of Cappadocia. Larry and I toyed with the idea of climbing it from an inside stairway, but decided against it. We were tired and Ray and Barbara, even more tired, were waiting in the car. Besides, we had seen so many panoramic views by then that we had had enough for the day.

Climbing down from the hill at the base of the castle, I finally saw Mt. Erciyes! This is the mountain that sits next to Kayseri and made itself invisible during our entire Kayseri trip a few months ago. It is also one of the mountains that spewed all the ash – later tuff – that surrounded us.

In planning our trip to Cappadocia, we picked out a few other sights we had hoped to see, but were unable to. One was at least one of the several underground cities carved down into the stone, some of which extend up to fifteen or twenty stories deep. Capable of housing as many as 40,000 people for six months, these cities were the perfect hiding places for populations harassed by Roman troops. We had visited one of these cities fifteen years ago, but were game to climb down again.

Other sights we hoped to see again were the Ihlara Valley, and Mustafapaşa. The Valley is a rift, with, again, churches and homes built down into the sheer stone. The small town of Mustafapaşa had been the home of wealthy Greeks, with large, beautiful stone mansions left behind after the Greeks left Turkey. On our first trip to Cappadocia so many years ago, we visited Mustafapaşa briefly one evening. Not succeeding in finding a needed WC, I saw an open door, leading to another open door, with a facility beckoning me. Only after I emerged did I look more carefully, only to find that I had brazenly walked into somebody’s private house! (They never saw me--I think).

Anyway, we’ve got lots of memories of Cappadocia, some old and some new. Another example of the latter is the sight of dozens of hot air balloons floating above the city of Göreme in the early morning. I would estimate that it will take another three visits to see all I would still like to see – both for the first time, and as a repeat. It is an amazing place. Here is a web site that may help fill in where mere words, and even my photographs fail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia and http://www.cappadociaturkey.net/