Nigde: First Hospitality

  Nigde, Niğde, Turkey
Saturday, April 5, 2008

29th Apr 2008

This Could Happen to You

Does the title sound ominous? I hope so.

But it's meant to tease. This morning it turned out that Mustafa was more than true to his word. (You know, in traveling sometimes promises of the night before just don't often have a life the next day). But, not in this case.

Mustafa was conducting business in the hotel's sixth floor dining room as I had my typical Turkish hotel included breakfast. He stepped over to where I was reading in my new book (Eastern Turkey: A Guide and History by Gwyn Williams, 1972) to say that he had arranged his day so as to be able to not only accompany me to the Gümuşler Monestary, but that he had the use of his father`s car and would guide me around to other sites of interest in and around Niğde.

Well, this started to sound too good to be true, and my suspicions (Oh, dirty me) began to arouse. So rather than crassly ask if this was a tour that was going to in the end surprise and cost me, I tried to humourously ask him, "You mean you`re going to do all this for me just to be a good guy?" And he said, "yes."

Mustafa of Niğde

It also seemed to turn out that here was a young fellow who had spent many of his college days in the large Turkish port city of Izmir, and then had gone to Oxford, England for a year. Now he was back in his provincial home town after a long absence, and he was somewhat bored. I guess I had stimulated him with some ideas the day before, and he was seeking some more. He also seemed to need a sort of personal reintroduction to his own town, as much had changed in his, I think, about 10 year absence. I think my picture of him reveals a bit of intellectually isolated melancholy.

In his father's car we first set off for the Gümüşler Monestary, about 6 miles outside of Niğde. It is also in the neighborhood that Mustafa had grown up, and in which the family keeps a summer home. The hotel is, I guess, something of a side line for the family. Their main business is fruit crop production. Namely apples and other tree fruits. Very much like in the Hood River Valley of my home state of Oregon. (Reenforcing my characterizing Turkish geography as like Oregon on steroids). The family's holdings seemed pretty extensive by what I saw pointed out to me.

Well, the Eski Gümüşler Monestary! Here is the description from the Turkish Culture Ministry:Gümüşler Monastery:

The Smiling Virgin

"The monastery is located nine kilometers away from the city center and four kilometers to the Niğde-Kayseri highway. The Rock engraved monastery is one of the beautiful creations of the 10th century Byzantine art and is one of the most preserved creations that could still remain until the present day. The monastery is dated to the 10th century and there are symbols that the construction of the monastery had continued between 8th and 12th centuries. There are frescos that are extremely well preserved and wonderfully colored inside the church. The frescos depict the birth of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus, the introduction to the church, the apostles and the notables of Christianity. At the niche to the left of the Abscissa, 'the Smiling Mary and the infant Jesus' is depicted. This fresco was determined to be the only smiling Mary depiction in the whole Anatolia."

As for myself, I'm not an old hand by any means. But I have now visited the two main Cappadocian tourist areas, the Ilarha Gorge and the Göreme region. Except for the unique geological features of the former, this one monestary has in a nutshell what the others have pretty much. In mini form it has the cut rock underground city, the church frescoes. True, these frescoes are of more recent vintage than the fourth and fifth century ones of Göreme, but these are essentially complete and undamaged, and in fine color. At a mere 2 YTL it is an amazing
thumbnail of what troops of tourists are marched through in Cappadocia to the north. And today it was just Mustafa, myself, and the guard. A local imam (Moslem priest) joined us for a few moments.

This website has black and white photos of the place and frescoes:

http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/0b22297a.html

I could not take pictures.

After the monestary Mustafa drove me to two other sites which I would have not otherwise seen, they being 1) not known to me, and 2) even further out of town. One was a large pool from Roman times. There were some fish in the water. I'm not a fisherman but they sort of looked like trout to me: speckled and with a reddish stripe down the side. I'd say between 10 and 13 inches.

The other site was a Roman aqueduct which had been associated with the pool--taking water away to an urban zone that has been under some archaeological investigation in recent times.

We went back to the city and had some soup. Then we visited other sites in the city, including
a small but very fine historical/cultural museum. It had very well written English parallel explanations. This part of Anatolia is really where civilization started. It wasn't actually in Mesopotamia, as I learned in school, what, now 50 years ago or more. The large Mesopotamian civilizations were outgrowths of the transformations from hunter-gatherers to agriculture and animal domestication, and metallurgy that were discovered/invented in these regions, the knowledge of which then migrated south to yet more fertile areas of the downstream Tirgris and Euphrates drainages.

Later in the afternoon/early evening I went by myself for a bite to eat. It's amazing. After all the Turkish I have tried to study, and even with what little I do know, I can walk into a restaurant and be virtually mute. I grin like a fool, mumble a couple of words in English and a couple in Turkish. Well, the Turks are ever eager to please (and not a bit in a subservient manner), and the end
result was that I got all that I actually wanted, and more. I had what must have been a half a roasted chicken and a salad. I couldn't eat it all. The cost was US$3.50.

Now, as the evening ends I've just had a later conversation with Mustafa. He has arranged for my seat reservation on a bus leaving tomorrow. He has invited me to return--especially in a July--for horseback riding (earlier he mentioned planned purchase of a couple of Arabians). He hinted at perhaps some mountain climbing. We'll see if I can keep it going. I suggested he
Google for some pictures of the Hood River Valley.

Well, wasn't that a surprise! And this after only my first two days on the road.

I've decided to skip Tarsus, and go directly to Antakya, or what formerly has been called Antioch. If looking on the map, it is to be found near the coast just north of the Syrian border. And that's it for today.