"How much for the love heart?"
Trip Start
Mar 16, 2009
1
43
47
Trip End
Jul 22, 2009
Goreme,
Cappadocia,
Turkey
Friday, June 26, 2009
Goreme is home to an amazing "open-air" museum consisting of almost 20 Byzantine Churches carved into the rocks of Cappadocia, the oldest of which dates back to the late 11th century.
That was stop one for the day. The "open-air" museum is located about a kilometer outside the center of Goreme, so we had a nice walk there, passing fields with horses and interesting rock formations. It was all beautiful and we were excited to be in the landscape that looks so cool in photos.
The open-air museum is not to be missed, but it is also unfortunately not missed by a single tour bus. The place is packed with tours and tour guides. The key is to eavesdrop while they describe the cool stuff you are going to see inside the churches and then run into the actual churches before the tour group goes inside. It is an art that Kristen and I have not yet perfected.
From the outside, the churches look like, well, rocks. On the inside though there are amazing frescos and arched ceilings and domes cut into the rocks. It's hard to think of the domes being put in today with modern tools, amazing still to think of them being created with chisels hundreds of years ago. The churches are all in the form of a cross imprint in the Byzantine style within the rocks.
When you go in, head to the right and do the loop that way, because if you go in that direction the "dark church" will be your last or second to last stop.
The dark church costs an extra 8 lira, which is annoying, but Kristen and I decided that we probably wouldn't be back in Cappadocia any time soon and we should just bite the bullet.
Good choice.
It's called the "dark church" because almost no light makes it into the alter. Thus, the frescos have been perfectly preserved. And they are spectacular. We got really lucky in there because there was an English speaking tour guide explaining the various paintings all over the ceiling.
I don't think I can properly put into words how incredible the ceilings look, except to say think of the many shapes and arches created in the top of a church or cathedral or other inticrately created building. They are all there inside each of the churches of Goreme...only you are looking at rock, standing in rock.
The depictions of Jesus were quite interesting. He was definitely white. He had a thick beard, which was actually partially parted down the middle, so that his goatee hung off his chin in two sections. It was kind of goofy looking, but every picture of Jesus had the same double beard. His hair was pulled back, but a stretch of it came out of the middle of his forhead. Think a widows peat, only it wasn't a peak, it was more like a plateau. I don't think I've ever actually seen a person whose features matched those of Jesus's figure. Interesting as well was the uniformity of Jesus's depiction; every single picture of him had the same basic qualities I am describing.
The dark church ended up being the highlight of a very good day, which was really quite surprising. It was just that good. I wish I could have taken pictures or something, but obviously you aren't allowed to...which is what has allowed it to remain so pristine. I haven't been to the Sistine Chapel, which Kristen says I would love if I liked the dark church. At the same time, she said the dark church is like a mini version...carved into a rock...really cool.
After the open air museum we walked back to town to pick up our...motor scooters!
I love motor scooters.
I want a motor scooter.
Ok, I actually want a motorcycle. But motor scooters are under rated.
The guy at the motor scooter/ATV was kind of like the paragliding guys...he looked like exactly the kind of dude you could rent ATVs from anywhere. He had a short beard that was perfectly manicured to have little gaps in it. There were vertical stripes throughout the whole beard... It was not the coolest look...though I'm sure he thought it was all the rage.
Actually, we didn't know what we wanted. Hayden told us that quadbiking/ATV riding/Four-wheeling, whatever you want to put it, in Cappadocia was the very best thing to do in all of Turkey. We felt like we sort of had to take the guided ATV tour, which lasts about two and a half hours. But we also wanted to tootle around the rest of the region, and I just love motor scooters, and we had all day.
The ATV guided tour was best done at sunset. They would take us to various valleys and spots and then up to the perfect sunset spot above the town of Goreme. It started at 5:30...It was about 12:00. That sounded pretty good, but we had all day.
So we, of course, did both.
We got some motor scooters, one for Kristen and one for me, which surprised the guys at the shop, they shought we'd just share one, and we rented them for 4 hours. It seemed like a long time, but they were really just our form of transportation.
The guy drew out a long route for us on a little map, which turned out to be pretty terrible, and sent us off in search of various special spots in the region in "North Cappadocia." It was going to be perfect because the next day we'd be doing the "South Cappadocia" tour with a group the next day.
So it was "Wolverines, Go" part two (see the entry from Pohkara, Nepal).
Kristen and I headed out of town in our sweet two person motor scooter gang named the Wolverines in honor of the television show Scrubs. We headed out of town not exactly sure where we were going, armed with a map that was not to scale, and, we soon found out, didn't actually make much sense at all.
But that didn't really matter. We just tootled around on the scooters, which had a top speed of about 75 Kph, which felt nice and fast for both of us. We didn't really find anything we were looking for at all actually for the first long portion of the ride. But the whole area was beautiful, farm land, rock formations, towns with rock houses. It was a great ride.
One of the spots we were supposed to check out was the "Camel," a rock formation that looks like...well...you guessed it...a camel.
We got into this valley on the scooters that looked, for lack of a better way of putting it, just so Cappadocia-like. It was full of the rock formations that look like fully formed extra large hardened drip-castles that you make at the beach when you are a little kid. The road was so cool that I just kept stopping to take pictures of the road itself. I'm not sure the name of that "valley" but near the end of it there was a little parking lot and the "camel" was there. Success! We had actually made it to one of our "spots" on the map that we were headed for. And, of course, we really had no idea how that had happened.
Past that great valley there was a turn off to the left and you could start climbing the hill above the valley, so, even though we really had no idea where the road went, we obviously took the left. We made it up to a bluff with a great view over the valley we had just driven through and a great view of all of Cappadocia. It was outstanding.
We continued on, unsure of where we were going, just following signs to semi-random spots on the map. Only we got lucky again. We made it to a really nice fairy chimney spot with famous cylindrical rocks complete with little hats of rock slabs lying on top of the cylinder. The spot is in a lot of post cards. You can also see the now snow capped volcano off in the distance that played a major role in shaping the region's geology.
We knew we were in a good spot in part because of the parking lot and the shops and the tour buses. But I have decided there is a better measure of whether or not you've arrived in a place of "importance." There was a camel on the side of the road and if you wanted to you could sit on the camel and have your picture taken. If there is a camel picture spot then you really know you are in a place of importance. At the Goreme open -air museum, a terrific UNESCO World Heritage site (which I didn't think was necessarily worth mentioning earlier) there is a random camel that you can get your picture taken on top of...who knows, maybe those Byzantines were big camel fans, it's not out of the question.
We continued on to the town of Urguchup, which was kind of similar to Goreme. There were fewer hotels though and more "real" rock homes. It looked like we were in a real-life version of the Flintstones. People really do live in rock cave homes and park their trucks and BMWs and etc. in rock cave parking car ports. It's really funny.
We had no idea where to go and I slowed up too much in the middle of town, getting whistled at by a traffic cop. It was the first sense either of us had that the roads we were speeding around on were policed or anything.
We tried to go up and around this "mountain" to a "view point" we saw sign posts for, but we never made it. Instead we just did a big circle around the thing and found ourselves in the center of town with the angry traffic cop again... Oh well.
We made it out of town and saw signs for the Rose Valley. The Rose Valley look-out point is really the best place to watch the sunset in Cappadocia. The rock formations of the rose valley are...surprise surprise...rose colored, and the view of the red sunset with the red rock in the forground is supposed to be fantastic. So fantastic in fact that you have to pay money to get to the Rose Valley look out point after 6:30 PM.
Of course, it was about 3:00...so we didn't have to pay.
The view ain't bad during the day either...
It was great. Cappadocia was just so beautiful.
At the lookout point there was a guy selling the same caramel/seseme seed encrusted peanuts that we'd bought earlier on the Agean Coast. They are amazing. We snapped up a bag immediately when we saw them, before we even made it to the look out point.
More riding around brought us back to the rental place content but tired a little before 4:00 PM. We'd been scootering for 3 and a half hours. We'd thought we only needed a 2 hour rental, but apparently the 4 hour rental had really been the right mood.
But, of course, we were exhausted and we'd seen a lot. We decided to take a short nap before our 5:30 ATV riding tour...
A cave is a great place to nap...it's dark and cool...it's perhaps too good for a nap...
"Kristen, wake up!"
"Why?"
"Because it's 5:31!"
"Oh Shit!"
Apparently I'd set my watch alarm for 5:00 AM, not 5:00 PM. Such a typical screw up. We jumped out of bed and sprinted down to the ATV office, arriving at 5:37.
To our delight Phoenix and Jess were there. We had told them that we intended to go ATV riding and when they'd checked in at the office and been told there were two other Fez Bus people on the tour. They'd kept dancing until 4:00 AM the night before and slept in until 1:00 PM...but they were also staying 5 nights as opposed to our 3. We were quite envious.
To our dismay the group was 9 people...
There were 7 girls and 2 guys. Someone asked the ATV rental guy if there would be a guide at the back to make sure people were ok...of course there wasn't going to be so he asked me to bring up the rear and make sure everyone was ok...I didn't want to but I felt guilty for having arrived late...So I, of course, got suck with the job... oh well.
The two and a half hour tour started with us doing a couple laps around town...Pretty boring and not really the off roading we'd been expecting.
Then we went off into the bottom of the Rose Valley though, looking up at the look out point we'd been to on our scooters earlier that day.
In a group of 9 you move quite slow and I was actually a bit disappointed. On the scooter we had had total freedom and had topped out at 75 kph... For the first part of our ATV ride we were being passed by kids on bikes...such is the hazard of being in a group of 9, I guess.
But the scenery was spectacular, so that was good. Being at the back had its perk too. I'd play the game I used to play when I went on horseback trailrides as a kid and we weren't allowed to do anything but walk our horses. I'd get in the back of the pack and hold back my horse and let it eat and do whatever it wanted... Then with a couple hundred yards in between me and the last horse, I'd kick the horse into gear and trot, or if I was lucky canter. Now I was just doing that with an ATV.
From the base of the Rose Valley we went to the Love Valley. The Love Valley can only be named for the rock representation of a certain male body part used in acts of love. It's very beautiful, but certainly phallically funny... We had a nice little stop for pictures, including awesome jumping photos. There was aguy selling fresh squeezed OJ, which was really good. It was a good stop in Love Valley before we hopped back on the ATVs to cruise a bit more.
On the map, the guy at the ATV shop had showed me an elaborate route of many valleys and cool stops leading us ultimately to the sunset look out spot high above Goreme... Of course, our guide, far ahead on a dirt bike, never actually told us what valley or what places we'd been through and seen. So we really weren't sure whether or not we were getting to all of the places we'd been promised...
We were sure though, that after literally doing a circle around Goreme and then going up a hill passing right by Jess and Phoenix's hostel, we weren't too happy to be off our ATVs and sitting around at our sunset spot at 7:20...about 50 minutes before sunset...and well under two hours after the start of our two and a half hour tour... We were actually so close to Jess and Phoenix's hostel that Phoenix walked down and used the bathroom while we waited.
Grrr....
Of course, it had been a pretty good ride, with some absolutely beautiful spots. And we were in a beautiful spot. The location above Goreme was pretty special, or as I like to joke, it sure didn't suck. We took some great photos, including more jumping shots, of course, though I could never manage to get Jess, Phoenix, and Kristen all correctly in sync for a good shot.
And yet we were all just kind of annoyed. We'd paid 60 lira for a two and a half hour tour...we hadn't really gotten that. The guy at the ATV shop had promised Kristen and me that he'd give us our money back if we weren't satisfied. But I wasn't about to ask for that because I really didn't want my money back, I just wanted what I'd paid for.
Again though, it wasn't like it was the worst thing in the world, which was part of the frustration. It certainly wasn't bad enough to ask for 60 lira back. As we sat up there waiting for the spectacular sunset we'd eventually get to see, we noted that bitching is an integral part of travel. When you put yourself in the hands of others, or when you try to make choices and organize things in an area that is new and different to you, there are inevitably screw ups and problems. It never seems to go just right. And you meet lots of other people who have similar situations and similar frustrations...so you just talk about it constantly, in some ways it leads you to connect with others. It is a very funny phenomenon though, because you always remember the good stuff more than the frustrations, as I've mentioned before. At least those were the conclusions we came to.
The sunset was great from that spot. That was something to be happy about. And in the end the tour was good...just for more like 40 lira than 60. Oh well.
On the whole, I was much more pleased with the motor scootering than the ATV. Among other things, I think motor scooters are a whole lot more fun unless you have a really good off road track. Motor scooters go faster and are smoother. ATVs lack a differential, so they really feel quite squirly on turns. If you've ever driven a car with a locked differential, where the front wheels turn at the same speed rather than adjusting given that the inside wheel on a turn has less distance to cover than the outer wheel, then you will know what I mean by the squirly feeling. On a motor scooter you lean into the turns...on an ATV the turns lean you. I'm sure that on the proper off road track though the benefits of an ATV are more than obvious.
Back at the ATV rental shop our guide had a hose with hot air to blow all of the dust from the ride off you. Kristen and I chose to just deal with the little bit of dust. Phoenix and Jess said it was the first time they had felt violated by air.
Immediately upon leaving the ATV rental spot and stepping out onto the street in search of a restaurant, we ran into the owner of Fat Boys, the awesome bar from the night before, who remembered us and greeted us warmly. He asked us where we were going to dinner.
We really wanted Pottery Kebabs. Pottery Kebabs are a specialty in Cappadocia. The meat or chicken stew is cooked inside of a sealed clay pot that is put right into the wood fired oven. Then a hammer is brought out and the top of the pot is smashed off. Well, it's not really smashed off, its more like you tap the pot pretty hard until the top is loosened and pops off, but Jeremy had told us that they smash off the top of the pot.
Most pottery kebabs are premade. You go into a restaurant and they have various pots with ingredients brought in from the outside already ready-made in the pot. You order, they throw the pot in the fire, and voila, you're done. The best restaurant in town though, Dibek, asks that you order your Kebab at least 3 hours in advance. They make the whole mixture from scratch according to your order and then they cook it.
Well, it turned out that the owner of Fat Boys, the best bar in town, was good friends with the owner of Dibek, the best restaurant in town. So when I told the owner of Fat Boys we wanted to try pottery Kebabs, we were set right up. Though we hadn't ordered in advance, they always make a couple extras in case parties show up with more people than expected or what not. If we waited until 9:00 PM, then they could make us 4 pottery kebabs, 2 chicken and 2 meat. Sweet, we had just gotten into the best restaurant in town, the one where oyu have to order at least 3 hours in advance...and we'd just have to wait a little over 45 minutes. Great!
We walked in and the restaurant had great ambiance. You sit on the floor on cushions at low tables. It feels very "Turkish" or Middle Eastern or perhaps just "Non-Western." The restaurant is housed in a 450 year old building that was renovated extensively in 2004. It is absolutely beautiful and the inside just has such a good feel.
We'd gotten our tea and were waiting for dinner when in walked Jeremy a few minutes later. He'd been passing out front of the restaurant and the owner had told him that the Fez people were inside, so he decided to stop in and say hi. He'd already eaten...but he stayed the whole time. It was a great dinner among friends, filled with the same kind of ridiculous conversations about movies and god knows what else as on the bus the day before. We just had a great time.
And the food... mmmmm....the food was fantastic. The kebab stew was great poured on top of rice. I had the beef and Kristen had the chicken... I had the beef and half of the chicken in other words. So good. It also came with red beat salad...which I found out I really like! Everyone laughed quite hard when I scarfed down the beats.
"What is that?"
"Heck if I know!"
Yum yum yum.
Even though we'd eaten a feast, we weren't ready to go home. Jess and Phoenix wanted cake...how could we refuse?
The five of us walked into a bakery down the street...
They had little personal cakes that looked quite good...they cost 4 lira a person.
Above the personal cakes were regular sized cakes, including a nice heart shaped valentines day-like cake with chocolate flakes on top and cherries.
"How much for the love-heart?" Jeremy asked, careful to distinguish "love" hearts from "heart" hearts.
"25 Lira."
"We'll take it," I chimed in.
So, yeah, given the option of personal cakes for 4 lira apiece or a full cake for 5 lira apiece, we went for the love heart.
We sat down to devour our cake, but first we wanted to take a picture at Phoenix's request, who was the first to whip out her camera. The owner of the bakery asked us where we were all from, and then asked Phoenix the more directed question, "Are you Chinese?"
A big smile came across her face, genuinely touched that someone had correctly guessed her blended ethnicity. "Well, actually yes...how did you know?"
"Because you have camera," he responded without missing a beat.
I don't think I've laughed that hard in months. I don't think any of us have laughed that hard in months. I haven't laughed that hard since. Man, way to be blunt.
I just wonder how he knew she was Chinese and not Japanese.
It was much better than when the guy asked her if she was Venezuelan. It was just great.
When we were sitting there an American, Oren, I'd met the day earlier at the hostel from DC, having graduated from Blair High School two years after me. Oren walked in with another American who saw my Williams Football shirt and asked me if I knew Brian Morrissey, our former star tailback and the all-time Williams rushing leader who I played with for three years in college. That kid had gone to high school with Mo. Small world. I never learned his name, but anyways the two Americans sat down with us.
In any international setting among a group of people from various countries, much of the conversation is a discussion of cultural and country differences. In fact, that will always dominate conversation. "What are things like in Australia?" "What about in America?" etc. etc. You share your stories and customs. You laugh about what is the same and what is different. But the key is to share, not to dominate. The key is to not just talk about where you are from. And, as we all should know, "interested is interesting."
Oren really didn't seem to get any of that. He was content to come in and dominate the conversation, but all he wanted to talk about was America, and mostly DC. Of course a discussion of getting into traffic leaving Antayla soon became Oren's take on traffic in the DC area and the normal day to day complaining about the inefficiencies of the Beltway. I really don't think anybody could have cared less about the Beltway.
Oren badly wanted to start the Rugby vs. Football argument. I have had that argument about 40 times in 3 months. It never ends well. Well, actually, it just never ends. But he just didn't get that. I just kept having to say, "Look man, we don't want to talk about that, they don't watch football, we don't watch rugby, we're never going to agree, they'll never get it, they think we'll never get it." It was a pretty tense situation on my end.
If anyone ever wants to really have the discussion I will keep it simple and explain why football is about a thousand times a tougher and rougher sport than rugby... but it just wasn't an argument worth having at that time, and it's just become an argument not worth having with people in Rugby cultures. We'll never see eye to eye.
Of course it was probably my fault as I started talking briefly about the Redskins with him...
I don't know, I think it was because he'd just spent the semester studying abroad in Israel and hadn't even headed home, instead spending some time on the road in Turkey before heading back to Israel for a summer. He was probably both really happy to meet someone from home and used to being in a setting, Israel, where people are probably quite a bit more familiar with America. At least I would hope that's the case, we certainly send enough money their way.
Anyway, his behavior was in a way a lesson to us all: don't dominate and talk non-stop about where you are from and what things are like back home. Everyone has a different reference point...and what's best for you is not always best for everyone else.
There was also another lesson learned that night: You can put down what's yours...but be careful when talking about other people's places.
We were all talking about the geographical and population make up of Australia. Australia is about the area of the lower 48, but the vast majority of that area is barren dessert. The population is 21 million, or 1/15th the population of the US. Phoenix and Jess were talking about how much of the country really is just desert, except of course for Uluru (you are no longer allowed to call it Ayers Rock by decree of the Australian government).
"Yeah," said Jeremy, the Kiwi. "You fly over Australia and you look down and it's all the same, its so boring!"
"It's not the same!" Phoenix interjected, "No way, it's desert but it's different, it's diverse, I like the desert!"
You can't be a Kiwi and talk about how boring the Aussie landscape is...you can only be an Aussie and talk about how boring the Aussie landscape is.
Lesson learned. Haha.
Jeremy, Kristen, and I had a good laugh about that on the way back to our hostel. We didn't finish the cake, though we did make Phoenix finish her enormous piece, despite her protests, and we put it in the fridge at the hostel with a plan to meet up the next day and finish it at Fat Boys...Yes, we were planning a BYO Cake night at the bar.
But there was another action packed Cappadocia day in store before that.
We signed up for the South Cappadocia tour, since we'd been able to hit many of the North Cappadocia sights the day before. The best part of the South Cappadocia tour on the docket: we would visit one of Cappadocia's famed "Underground Cities."
The tour started with a stop at the "Goreme Panorama." I was worried that that was a bad sign of things to come. Hadn't we seen the Goreme panorama? And our tour van was so full that Kristen and I rode up front with the driver. But actually, the Goreme Panorama was a different look out spot that was phenomenol, and a place for phenomenal jumping photos. It was also a great place to get together and learn a little about the history of the region that I've included earlier.
It was also where we first ran into Jennifer and Catherine, who had just arrived on the night bus from Olympos and were doing the exact same tour with a different tour company. Funny. There would be two more friends at Fat Boys that night.
It was about a 30 minute drive to the Underground City, during which time our comical 23 year old tour guide got to know everyone on the bus, making introductions and finding out where we were all from and stuff. He cracked a lot of jokes and said a lot of very un-PC things. He called the guy from Japan Samuri... But probably the funniest was when a guy said he was from South Korea.
"So is your name Lee or Kim?"
He was quite a joker, as was the bus driver who showed off his command of various phrases in multiple languages. He didn't speak fluent English, but he could tell us how to say camel in Japanese...
The underground city we went to was very impressive. So in the early years of Christianity, Christian Hittite settlers in the Cappadocia region faced a lot of persecution from the Romans. Later the Christians had to worry about Arab invaders as well storming into central Anatolia. So they built massive underground cave networks in the soft rocks of Cappadocia (so "soft" you can ship away at them with your finger nails. They literally made underground cities to live in for generally 4 months at a time. The caves had intricate ventilation shafts which would allow them to breathe. The halls were tight and narrow such that if invaders ever discovered the cities they would surely not have the upper hand coming through tight spaces onto the spears of defenders. They had places to store food and they even dug wells so that should invaders try to poison their water sources they'd still have water. The underground cities have not been completely excavated, but archeologists estimate that as many as 5000 people lived in the cities.
It doesn't matter how "soft" the rock is, the fact that people made these cities over 1500 years ago is incredible. The fact they are still structurally significant today is also remarkable. To think that people really lived under the ground for months at a time also reflects the power of their religious devotion, and, of course the force of persectution. Very impressive.
Of course, like so many times on tours or while travelling, the "attraction" wasn't as entertaining as the people you meet. The tour guide was a hoot...
I was standing at the urinal in the bathroom when in walks our happy-go-lucky goofy tour guide. He steps up to the urinal a couple down from me and lets loose a contented "Ahhhhhhhh."
"In my mind, there are three things that relaxes the peoples," he said. "Small toilet, big toilet, and erection."
I laughed awkwardly.
"What Jimmy, you don't like sex? I do, it's my business of life."
Oh man, what a funny thing to hear at the urinal. The candidness of it all, of course, reminded me of a conversation that Lin has with Prabu, his best Indian friend, in Shantaram.
I gave away the book, so luckily for all the young readers out there I can't quote it...
But there was something very amusing about our tour guide, or the owner of the bakery the night before, or even the waiter two days before... They certainly weren't shy, that's for sure.
We drove from the underground city to the Ilhara Valley...or as our tour guide pronounced it, the Ilhara Walley. We drove across large fields of amber waves of grain...almost America-like, haha...with two snow capped volcanos looking Mt. Ranier-esqe in the background.
On our ride there we got more linguistic entertainment from Ibrahim, our bus driver who had by then told us his name. From my count he could say thank you in 13 languages. He quized us, but every now and then his Turkish accent made the words indistinguishable.
It was clear Ibrahim wasn't used to having passangers up front. He loved talking to us.
It was a great drive.
In the Ilhara Valley we went for a group hike. Thankfully we would be getting some excercise in Cappadocia after all. Had we had more time we would have gone on a number of great hikes in the area, but due to time constraints we opted for quicker methods of transport to see more.
The Ilhara Valley is very pretty, it's more of a canyon than a valley and there are old caves on each side. The wildflowers are terrific, and our 7 km walk was a very pleasant experience...except...
For the Aussie girls...
We met three pairs of Aussie girls in Turkey. Two pairs were great, one pair was...well...dreadful.
These two were traveling for 6 months. They'd been on the road for about as long as we have.
They are the greatest world travelers ever!
EVER!
There has never been a deal that they haven't gotten. They have never stayed in a bad hotel. They have never purchased an expensive beer. They know the best places for everything.
This is what they told us for all of the 7 k walk and all of the hour long lunch.
Let's see, they'd spent a month in Manhattan, but gosh, Turkish food was SO expensive, and beers at 5 lira ($3.33 roughly for 500 mL) were just outrageous.
"You know where the cheapest beer is? London."
They were so full of it... Honestly, they somehow had a story about how they'd done everything cheaply and successfully and they'd spent a month in Manhattan and time in London where, "All the pubs have 1 pound beers, it is just so cheap."
That's news to Londoners...I asked Jeremy, who lived in London for 8 months before Turkey if he'd found that to be the case..."Um, maybe in the dodgy ones."
Catherine, who'd lived in London for a year and a half, said the same things...
There were the typical complaints about the prices of food in the States. "God, it's all just so expensive, and the tipping is ridiculous."
The American at our table and Kristen and I tried to explain the concept of tipping to the Aussies...it was no use...
Of course they thought food was too expensive...they spent a month in New York!
The night before they'd gotten free dirtbike rides from Hitchhikers, the ATV rental place, which is part of the reason they were scandalized to hear what we'd paid for our rentals (which of course they somewhat rudely asked about). One of them was pretty...she'd bought a handbag from a carpet shot... The owner's best friend worked at Hitchhikers... So the two of the them took the two girls out to dinner and then for a dirtbike ride to the Love Valley, where after sunset they built a bonfire for the four of them.
"I mean, they were just so nice you know, they said they weren't going to charge us, just for gas you know, and then I mean they didn't even do that. They were so nice about it."
Well yeah, they were nice about it...they thought they were on a double date! Ugg!
"And I mean, one of them tried to kiss me, but I just told him no, and he was totally fine with that. He was so nice."
Yeah, I'm sure he was totally fine with it. If he weren't fine with it he probably would have raped you or hit you or something that would have landed him in jail for the rest of his life...
The ignorance of it all really bothered me. But what really bothered me was thinking about the wages of the people who had taken the girls out. It was more likely that they weren't really "owners" of the businesses. It was also likely that buying two girls dinner and taking them out for a night ride was a somewhat considerable investment... Did the girls object? No. It was clear what the guys wanted and what they were thinking...but no, the girls they didn't care, they were just so happy the guys were being "nice," blowing their paychecks on a couple of annoying Aussie girls. I feel bad for those guys, I really do.
Lesson from the Aussie girls: do not talk non-stop about your trip. Do not never shut up about how amazing you are as a travelar. As we left lunch, which was in an idyllic spot where we ate on little raised platforms in the middle of the river, Kristen said, "Let's that be a lesson not to talk too much about the trip when we get home." I hope I learned that lesson properly.
From lunch we went to what was probably my favorite spot of the tour "Selim's cathedral/monastary." It was named for Selim, an Ottoman sultan who had been buried there, but the main attraction was an amazingly intricate monastary that had been cut into the cool rock formations. That's Cappadocia for you: amazing rock formations and amazing creations of people made within rock formations.
We made it all the way back to Goreme before a short stop at the Pigeon "Walley" for another good photo opt. Then, of course, we had to be taken to a place to buy something. The "Onyx demonstration" was a pain, but luckily it was over quick and we could talk with Jennifer and Catherine (arriving for their own Onyx demonstation) in the showroom. They were headed to Dibek's for dinner, having ordered their pottery kebabs immediately upon arrival in Goreme. They were in for a treat.
Our generally great tour ended around 6:00 pm. We were happy we'd done it. It had been good value, we'd liked our guide and our driver, we'd been taken to sights too far away for motor scootering, and it'd been a good experience. Two thumbs up.
Before heading back to the Hostel, we decided to stop in at the second hand English bookstore in town. The space was owned by someone else, but the books themselves were the collection of a middle aged British woman engaged in deep conversation with two British tourists. I couldn't help but eavesdrop.
"You know, the place has been changing a lot. I've been here for 10 years and I moved in far out of town away from the hotels, you know trying to get away from it all, and you know now my place is just surrounded by hotels. They're just building them constantly and it's always full of tourists and people are always trying to cater to the tourists. You know it's become a big place for gap year people, a lot of Aussies, to so they have the upscale and the hostels and pensions and yeah, it's just taking over the town."
We'd passed the bookshop in our 9 man ATV caravan the night before...I guess I could see her point.
"But you know the money's coming in, the people have good roads and they have good wages and power and good houses and I mean I guess you can't do anything to change that. You know it's just a shame though it really is, but I guess it's good too. It just used to be different."
Tourists are always sure its a "shame" when places change, as are many residents... I don't like change personally. I don't like the way my hometown has changed; how the beautiful forest a couple miles from my house was turned into a montrous housing development of McMansions. I don't like the way Jackson Hole keeps getting more and more built up. So I do get that. But is "change" always a shame? And to the degree that change represents progress, what is "shameful" about it. But to the tourist or perhaps the ex-pat, she was from North England she told me, the "authentic" is the ideal. "Authentic" though, it seems, always operates independently of the tourist. I mean, Goreme is and always will be Goreme... But somehow the Goreme of 10 years ago was more authentic, or at least that's what the woman was implying, and less "touristy." The more "touristy" the less "authentic," which is such an irony when one realizes the degree to which tourists are always seeking out "authenticity." I really wanted to ask her why it was "a shame" at all? Because now she had hotels near her? What about the house built before her? Did its inhabitant think it was a "shame" when she moved in? Yes its a little more complicated than that, but not completely. A change had to happen for all of us to find a home, so it's very funny when we turn up our noses at the change that occurs around us. My house was once a forest also... But NIMBY syndrome is probably as human as anything (NIMBY being Not In My Back Yard). Oh well, still interesting to listen to the conversation and especially to hear the very type of debate we had over and over again in Nepal with respect to a different tourist location.
Kristen and I were both excited for the night ahead at dinner that night. That, of course, did not keep us from thoroughly enjoying our Pides, which were definitely the best we'd had in Turkey. The crust had a distinctly tandoori flavor that was just so good... Or was that just because earlier at the underground city our tour guid had pointed out the Tandoori ovens and reminded us that the Turks were closely related to Indians who had moved away from the subcontinent and across Asia to Anatolia.
We got our cake from the fridge and brought it down to the bar. Outside of Fatboys there are a number of square seating areas with mattress pads where you sit on the floor around very low tables.
Like clockwork all of our friends started showing up. Jennifer and Catherine were introduced to Jessica and Phoenix, our Aussie friends became friends.
A middle aged Brit at the table next to ours overheard that I was American and joined us for a bit. Clive and his buddies were riding motorcycles from London around the world... The whole way. They were soon taking their cycles across all the "stans" (Kazakstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, etc.) and into Siberia, all the way across Asia, then on a ferry across the Pacific and across North America as well. They'd end up in NYC on their BMW roadsters. Clive claimed that a BMW was a real bike, a Harley was a nothing. I'll talk a Harley's character any day. Their plan at the time did not include a pass through Yellowstone. I told Clive I would definitely suggest that they try to make it down there, but it was great that they planned to enter the States by coming down through Glacier National Park. They then planned to make at least 600 miles in a day across South Dakota. He was asking me about speed limits in the States, certain that they'd be oppressive.
"If anybody tries to stop me, I'm just pulling out the Union Jack," he explained, "and saying we've got fucking troops in afghanistan too, so what are you going to do about it!"
I'd love to see that! Maybe he's forgotton that there's nothing Americans like more than kicking out the British...
I wasn't too dissappointed when he left our table, though I have to say I thought his trip sounded pretty interesting.
We waited awhile to break open the cake for Jeremy to arrive, but he was a little late. By the time he got there we had totally destroyed the thing.
We were joing by a couple of Canadians and an American. That's where I learned that Canada had recognized the Armenian Genocide and that that was why they paid so much for their Visas.
Exhausted, Jennifer and Catherine left early. It was nice to see them again, but as usual it was a bittersweet experience...I do at least know who do see if I have any health problems while in Melbourne. I really do have to go back to Australia at some point.
As the night wore on though, Phoenix was getting back into the dancing mood that had kept her and Jess out until 4:00 Am two nights before.
We started talking a lot about dancing and about goofy dance music.
My personal favorite uber goofy dance song: the YMCA. Well, actually I don't like the song, and it's actually not that fun to dance to. As only a crazy politico like me could actually think, I love the YMCA for the irony in it's popularity. Take any sporting event anywhere in America and you can find the YMCA. Everyone does it, old, young, male, female, etc. It's at baseball, football, basketball, probably even Nascar (though I've never bothered to watch). It's a sensation. And...
It's clearly a song about being a young gay guy! "You can get yourself cleaned, you can have a good meal, you can do whatever you feel!" Just listen to the words sometime! It's a celebration of being gay sung by an all gay group. Ok, so it may not be quite as obvious as "In the Navy," but it's clearly there...
And no one seems to listen or get it...so in a horrifically homophobic country you have the most homophobic people jumping up and down celebrating gayness in spite of themselves. And I love it! Because really, who cares? From now on there should be a rule: if you have ever done the YMCA you cannot legally oppose gay marriage. I'll be the entire Republican caucus has done the YMCA. I wouldn't be surprised if it has ever been played at a Convention to stir up the crowd...I'd be that it has. Oh man, that'd be a good way to legalize gay marriage everywhere.
Of course, on the topic of truly goofy songs, the Macarena was up there...
Phoenix was storing all of this in her memory bank...
We also talked about the "Life is good, na na na na na" song we kept hearing on the Gulet cruise, or anywhere else in Turkey for that matter... Actually the song is "Live is Life" by the Swiss band Opus, which was recently rereleased in 2008. It is all the rage in Turkey...they love it!
Finally it was time to move inside to the dance floor. The entire front porch of the bar and all the tables out there were full, but we started the move inside...
At first it was just some of us... the Canadians for instance weren't into it.
The bar started filling up a bit though...
Three Eastern-European girls walked in, though I'm not positive where they were from... They seemed pretty luke warm about the dancing, trying to dance a bit before sitting down and shooting bored glances around the room.
More and more people were filing in, but the dance floor just wasn't expanding at a proportionate rate...
And then I looked over and saw the Aussie wife on the computer setting up the next song and she smiled.
That familiar guitar riff came on and the place went nuts...the stand offish trip in the corner were up on their feet...
"Big wheels keep on turning...."
Ahh, I was so happy, the REAL SWEET HOME ALABAMA. And, of course, it totally energized the crowd. Sometimes you just can't mess with a classic.
And of course, if you have a classic, sometimes you just have to follow it up with a classic. Totally different, but Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" kept the crowd alive.
And from then on it was like we were back in a real bar, not just a tiny sleepy tourist town. I mean, yeah, there were a lot of tourists, but it was full of people dancing and having a good time, and it was a very collegial atmosphere. People knew each other, introduced friends to friends, etc. It was just great.
And of course Phoenix had a few tricks up her sleeve... She kept running to the bar and returning with a devious grin before, believe it or not, YMCA and the Macarena actually made appearences. I don't know what was more amazing, that the songs were played or that the dance party was good enough that they didn't kill the vibe.
"Live is Life" was a big hit with all the Turks in the bar, and the non-Turks.
I will never know if those three girls energized by "Sweet Home Alabama" were Eastern European or not...but I will say that I really don't think they spoke English given that they were the only people who didn't "get low" during the chorus to Flow Rida's "Low" which says "shorty got low low low low low low low low." Either they didn't speak English or 8 times wasn't enough.
Then of course people started getting pushed in for dance solos...Kristen told me to do the worm...and I am a one-trick pony...so I did it...I would regret it later.
Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" came on the owner of Dibek, which I have mentioned is the best restaurant in town and is housed in a 450 year old building, was dragging me out in the middle of the dance floor to groove with him. What a night, haha.
As if reading my mind, the DJ played "Land Down Under" and "You Shook Me All Night Long," two great Aussie songs that stand alone and would never fit together...
The dog from the Shoestring Hostel was there with the hostel workers. Kristen dissappeared from the dance floor every few minutes to "pet the puppy" and occasionally picked it up and brought it back to dance with her.
On a big screen television some ridiculous game show featured a bulldog and a chimpanzee trading sit ups... where the heck were we?
It was just so fun.
It finally got late and so we just decided to leave after the next decent song, which ended up being Fatboy Slim's "Funk Soul Brother." It wasn't a great song to end on, but it had to end sadly.
We said our sad goodbyes to Phoneix and Jess and headed home.
I was very sad to leave Cappadocia. More than just being a terrific place, in a matter of days it had started to feel very home like. We were friends with the owners at the best bar and restaurant in town. We had a cast of characters and a group of people that were recognizable and that we got along with and were friends with. It had all the feelings that I miss from home.
I mean, as I regretted our departure I thought about how weird it was to just long for a place where I could meet up with all my friends and have a good time.
I mean, I promise, my aspiration in life is not to be a character on the sitcom Cheers.
Though, was there a happy successful lawyer on Cheers?
Just kidding.
But anyway, it just felt so good for a night to be in that type of a stituation and that type of atmosphere. To have friends, to know people. To have inside jokes even, as Phoenix's little giggles showed off, while the rest of the crowd wondered why we were actually listening to the Macarena.
It was fun, that's really all there is to it.
In some ways, as sad as I was to leave Cappadocia though, it was an almost perfect travel experience. I loved the place, I had a great time in the place, but in doing so it reminded me what I missed about home and made me look forward to going home.
I've got a lot to do and a lot to see before that, and I don't wish away a minute of it.
But when I'm on a plane home, I definetely will think about how much fun we had in Goreme on our motor scooters, exploring the "walleys" and even in Fatboys, and I think I'll be ready to stay in one place for a bit.
