Alahan

Our traditional Friday trip to Konya was replaced with a field trip to Alahan. This is an old Byzantine monastery site with some hints of Roman foundations. It is up on a hillside, commanding awesome views of the valley. 18 of us went, squeezed into one minivan and 2 cars. Our caravan left site at 9:30 and drove for about 2 hours south. I was squeezed in the back seat between Mike and Dave both of whom fell asleep at various points of the journey. It was a real pleasure to leave site but also to get out of the Konya Plain. The landscape changed dramatically once the flat, agricultural plain changes into elevated woodland, much like New Mexico or northern Arizona. Even the geology changed, from a river basin in Konya to a limestone mountainscape. We found some fossils in the limestone while walking around so my guess this was an old sea bed that got pushed up through tectonics, given the massive plates in Turkey. The temperature changed slightly towards a Mediterranean climate, appropriate since we were only 150km inland from the south coast (near Mersin, if anyone wants to look it up). Alahan itself is tucked away on a limestone hillside over looking the valley below. There were many standing pillars with engravings of fish, grapes and angels. The most impressive thing was right at the very end- a monastery with three stories of standing walls. There was a series of columns and arches, under a series of columns and arches, under a series of columns and arches. It was amazing! I've never seen anything quite like that before. Even though we were all archaeologists, none of us knew anything about the site. Doru also works at Pompeii so he recognized a little of the Roman stuff but the majority of the site is much later, early Christian material. There were a few late Greek inscriptions and a few tombs but mostly the caves were empty and smelled bad. We only stayed there for about an hour then our tummies collectively growled and it was time to go find food.

Baptism pool

Rumor had it that there was a good fish place nearby so we asked a guard on our way out. This place was about 5km down a very narrow, one road lane with directions like, "take a left at the donkey and drive past the chicken coop ½ mile". As we were driving further and further into the hills, I began to wonder about the quality and "freshness" of the fish and decided that perhaps I should order something else. But apparently there is a tradition of fish farms in the mountainous areas and this place ended up being a series of concrete pools, filled with various sizes of trout. We were the only people in the restaurant and quickly filled the place. We were served a variety of starters, like grilled eggplant with garlic, spicy yogurt, beans, and fried potatoes to go with our fish. Fish and chips a la Turka! The fish came grilled and it was beautiful- it still had a head, skin and a tail. Only the middle bits were missing. The fish was a bit flavorless and dry but enough lemon juice and solved that problem. After the meal, we had a round of Turkish coffee and fortune readings. At the bottom of a Turkish coffee are all the grounds- finer than espresso grounds. You put the saucer over the cup, give the cup a good swirl then tip it upside down. All the grounds slide down the cup and are collected in the saucer. We leave this for a few minutes, until the grounds are dry then you read each other's fortunes from the patterns left by the grounds. It is much like reading tea leaves in China, I suppose. Many of us had "horses" in our futures so since we all work together, maybe we'll get a visit from a horse on site? Richard was "carrying a burden" and had flying saucers in his future and Lisa was going to fall off a cliff and I had someone "coming towards me". Is it literal or symbolic? The question remains unanswered.

Church overview

Details

Doru

lunch

me

mini-tortoise

pillars

Slobo

Three stories!