Travels with The Rayman

Flying to Istanbul was our only must-do for today and our flight was from Izmir (1 hour way) at 8 p.m. First thing this morning the Rayman inquired at the front desk about a late check out. They had no earthly idea what that was and so the answer was no. So, we languished in our room until noon, asked them to hold our bags and went out into the heat to find food, make a phone call and kill about 5 hours. No easy task when you’re done, kaput, ready to leave.

Found a phone, arranged passage to the airport by private car so it was door to door and looked for food. We asked a merchant in the heavy tourist area where a good Turkish meal could be had. She asked a man stationed outside her shop to show us and led us down an alley for 2 blocks and that’s where we ate. In an alley of a street. On stools outside the tiny establishment. While we were eating, Ray’s stool gave way and he almost hit the deck. Rayman mentioned that the stool felt wobbbly when he first sat down. He was right. The owner and his mother who did the cooking were very concerned. We had a good laugh about it and they relaxed.
Here is the place we had lunch. See the stool? That’s the type of stool that the Rayman was sitting on that gave way. The woman with her back to us owns the next store front. Many proprietors and workers sit outside if there is no business. She was selling a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Notice the blond hair. Turks don’t have blond hair. Notice the motorbikes. They were everywhere. Notice how they park any which way…typical.

It was so hot and we had so much time we decided we should go to a movie. The man in the restaurant said we should catch a bus that went to the Kapi shopping center so that is exactly what we did. The shopping center had what looked like a Turkish Target. There were a few other shops but it was pretty sad by our standards. We had to walk through security x-ray machines to enter. At this point, we were in the burbs and almost no one spoke english. It took us about 10 minutes to figure out that we needed to return to city center. None of the movie times would work. So we hopped another shuttle and rode back in but not without incident. Our driver was approaching a bus stop, a young woman at the back of the bus was just getting up to disembark when a car backed out from somewhere…causing the driver of our vehicle to slam on the breaks. The young woman was catapulted toward the front with the violence of the stop. Luckily she was young and was able to stop the forward motion without injury. Had it been us…well, does smashed bug have any meaning to you? Also, I was sitting exactly here the car would have hit the van. I’m not sure a sheet of paper would have fallen through the gap. It was that close.

They dropped us further from our intended stop because it was the end of the route so in the heat of the day we made our way through the streets until we found a coffee shop/cafe with air conditioning and we flopped down after ordering an iced mocha coffee and water. There I proceeded to secure our seats for our flight to NYC in the comfort of cool air…however, using an iPhone for this type of activity is a real pain…birthdays, nationalities, reservation numbers, expiration dates, passport numbers, frequent flier numbers…it went on and on…my mocha was calling and I was trying to get it done without losing a connection. Success was achieved. We loitered as long as we could and then headed up to the hill to the hotel. Rayman suggested we cross the street and look in the clothing stores to cool off. We selected the last one in a row of shops because it had beautiful windows…we opened the door and a woman ran out from the bowels of the building to tell us the store was closed. “What time do you open?’, we inquired. “We won’t open again.”. see said. Turned out they were going out of business TODAY. So out the door and into the heat to finish our trek to the hotel. The hotel wouldn’t sell us water. So we dipped our feet in the swimming pool to cool down and then sat in the lobby until our driver arrived 30 minutes before our time was booked and off we went.

Turkey, between Kusadasi and Izmir (a city of 3.5 million) is really interesting. It’s like driving throughout the Salinas valley but not as pretty. There are crops everywhere. Hot houses. Which reminds me. The Turks peel their tomatoes, a very french touch. But I digress. Orchards. Fertile ground, I presume. Large mountains on one side. The coast on the other…but a miles away perhaps. We didn’t see any of this when we arrived at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. So looking around was fun. Here is a vista.

 
So, here we are and away we go to Istanbul…to a Holiday Inn which hopefully will have a pool, shampoo, hand towels, faster internet service. We had no shampoo in our room at the Marina Inn. We couldn’t use the pool after 7 p.m. The innkeepers are not use to our tastes. On the plus side, the internet was free, the hotel had elevators. Mold in bath was free as well. Susie would have been upset…we just got philosophical and put up with it because moving again looked like work. Plus we had an ocean view and if we complained, the ocean view might disappear.

OMG. The shortest flight known to man (about 40 minutes in the air and 30 minutes cruising the Istanbul airport) ended when I was closing up shop (putting my computer away for landing) and noticed the smell of vomit. Yes indeed. The little girl sitting directly in front of me threw up on the side of the fuselage. Remember, you can’t make this stuff up.

We retrieved our bag and looked for our driver. He was tall and skinny and very nice. For reasons that are entirely unclear to us, we had to wait and wait for the car to pick us up. Then we drove and drove and drove. We had personally booked the hotel, Holiday Inn – Airport Hotel. It was miles and miles away from the airport…and the Rayman started getting concerned when we left the freeway and ended up on dark deserted streets. A song was on the radio and I adroitly suggested it sounded like the theme to the Godfather. Nervous snickering ensued. The longer this drive took the more we laughed…albeit with fear and trepidation. But, alas, the Turks did not disappoint. We arrived at our destination intact. And here we are drinking a glass of red wine, eating chocolate that we’ve hauled all over the country. The entire time we have been gone, this is the first chocolate in Turkey. Opps. We had mocha coffees today so it is the second time in two weeks. A record of sorts for moi.

While sitting in the coffee cafe house sipping those mochas it occurred to us that if someone wanted to make a lot of money, they would start a Water Mister company. Go to all the hot spots and install misters. They do not have them here. They don’t have them in Greece (Samos anyway). They didn’t have them in AU or NZ although they might have…we were there in winter. They probably don’t have them in Africa. These people need misters. It could change their lives for the better. Did I mention it is really, really hot? Good grief. We really live in a sweet spot.

Beep, beep. We’ll really miss the beeps. Actually, Rayman won’t but I will. Their driving is unique. They turn 1 lane into 2. Two into 3. The lines in the roads don’t mean anything. Well, maybe they mean “straddle”. And they beep all the time to warn people…”Here I come, watch out.” Rayman really noticed it to the point of mentioning it constantly. It just became background noise to me and I filtered it out….like my wind chime at home. I can tune that out too.

But one more thing. We were informed that Beau has bonded to Nancy in a way that is really upsetting. She is spoiling him and he has fallen in love. This prompted an email to Beau to tell him that she would leave him in the end and we would soon be home to spoil him with walks and a new house. He’s fickle but he’s still young…so hopefully he’ll remember who we are and be glad to see us when we return…I know we’ll be glad to see him!!

Yesterday we boarded a ferry for Samos, a Greek island about 1 1/2 hours away from Kudashi, where we are staying.

So, we deduced that sitting up top was too sunny and hot so we installed ourselves inside the ferry for the voyage. Our seat selection positioned us to watch the drama at the bathroom door. The W.C. was located directed across from the concession so the man that sold the tea and water also took care of the W.C. Ugh. Anyway, the people who boarded must have all waited to expel breakfast until they boarded because quite a queue formed around the W.C. door. The W.C. was marked for women but that meant nothing. Men were happy to be in line. And each person took longer than the last to vacate the W.C. so the natives got restless. Finally a man reappeared from the W.C. and then no one could enter. Banging on the door ensued until the man behind the concession bar interceded with a key in hand and opened the door. Apparently there was quite a mess. A few desperate people entered and then turned around and left while shaking their head. A big burly man appear and went in and fixed the toilet then the concession man hosed the thing down before going back to tea brewing. It was a scream. From that point on the concession man monitored the usage by keeping the key and making people ask for entry.

Samos was beautiful. We had a few hours to kill so we roamed the streets until lunch time and then we found a lovely garden cafe that was really hopping. Once seated we noticed that there were a lot of Greek Orthodox priests in attendance under the big tent. Then I noticed a woman approach one of the priests and she kissed his ring. Then the priest at the end of the table whose ring got kissed stood up and all the people under the tent stood up. He must have been the grand pooh pa because he was carrying an elaborate stick and because, well, they all stood up for his departure. Looked like Congress when the President enters the chamber. People clambered to talk to him. Before he stood up he was seated with anyone and everyone who was a big deal in the military…generals/admirals and the like. As tourists, we had hit pay dirt. VIP table is the one on the left.

 

 
After splitting a Greek salad and some tea, we found a museum and spent quite some time viewing all kinds of artifacts from before Christ. This little town on this island of about 35,000 people had a really great archeological museum that they had not figured out how to cool. It was very hot inside, especially upstairs. This required a cold beer so we installed ourselves in a cafe near the water and drank. Then we roamed some more and then we had ice cream. Then we went back to the dock, boarded the ferry and returned to Turkey. The Rayman was glad he did it because he proclaimed he wouldn’t fight me if I ever wanted to do a Greek island someday. He approved.

 

 
On the way back to the hotel, we managed to get gouged by a taxi driver who wanted to take us to the airport tomorrow. Fat chance. We tried to take a dip in the pool but the pool was closed for the day…it was about 7:30 p.m. Funny rules. And then we cleaned up and went out to dinner at the same cafe we had eaten the previous two nights. We were family. Everyone in the place ran up to greet us and shake our hands…could we have been gouged there too? Probably but what the hey. It was delicious. Skewed calamari grilled again. We were addicted. We concluded our dinner close to 11 p.m. Here is the Rayman in Greece.
Greek habitat.
Octopus drying in a wire cage. Didn’t smell.

 

Huge radish in my salad above, calamari below.

 
And here we are. Our last day in Turkey. Our plane doesn’t leave Izmir until 8 p.m. and we have not idea how to fill the day schlepping luggage around. Decided to negotiate with the front desk for a late check out. We have to get a ride to airport (1 hour away). And then away we go to Istanbul. We actually tried to rent a car…too expensive because of drop off fees. We’re hopeless at squabbling so we keep paying too much and the same would be true for the ride back to the airport. But pay we must if we want to get back to istanbul for our flight to NYC on Sunday.

So this is the time where reflection becomes necessary. As with every trip we learn something. Here’s what we have learned.

1. Never do business with a travel company that is not U.S. based. Suffice it to say…OneNation travel will be receiving a long letter.

2. Be the first one off the ferry. The line for customs is likely in the sun and it takes FOREVER to get through. The 1%ers don’t put up with this. The plebes do.

3. If you don’t haggle, you’ll be sorry. We’ve been sorry too much.

4. Bed bug bites don’t necessarily itch.

5. Actually, avoid tours. Too structured, the guides are hard to understand because of accents and they cost more.

6. Avoid selling your house and then going on vacation.

7. Avoid destinations that get hot in the summer in the summer.

Things we observed include the following.

Turks drive with their horns. Tooting, tooting, tooting all the time. That’s because they drive to just almost kill pedestrians or hit other cars. It’s their blood sport.

Turks litter everywhere they go. Plastic bottles can be found everywhere on the streets along wit cigarette butts. They love to smoke. They smoke cigarettes, cigar, hukahs. They smoke indoors, outdoors. They smoke constantly. Boy, do they smoke.

Turks don’t care for Greece. Greece was playing German in the semi-finals soccer and we asked our waiter who he was rooting for and he replied, “Germany”. Oh, and the lady, Mrs. Merkel was on hand for the game. When we asked why, he replied, “I don’t like Greece.” Later Rayman reminded me that Greece after WWI took over Turkey…that didn’t go so well and the Turks revolted and got their country back and I guess relations have been rocky ever since.

The Turks don’t go overboard with safety. Trails without railings abound. Jumping off bridges allowed. They don’t stop motorists and give tickets as far as we could tell. And their building codes leave something to be desired.

Turks are often multi-lingual. We even heard one young hustler at a market speaking Japanese. They are industrious and hard working. They seem to all get along. If there is a lot of homelessness, we didn’t see it. The Turkish people are friendly and approachable and helpful.

Turkish religious women are hard to look at because it is so hot and they are so overdressed and in black. They rarely smile. The head scarf only crowd has more fun that the orthodox set but I’m thinking that is a universal truth.

So, I think I will leave it at that unless, of course, some funny thing happens on the way to the forum.

Viewing the Roman ruins in Ephesus was on our agenda today. And as all tours do, we also had surprise stops at a carpet weaving school that included a jewelry store, Mother Mary’s home according to a sick German nun who had a vision of this place and the church took her seriously for some reason I forget and then they went around Ephesus looking for a house that matched her description and they found it and pronounced it so and reconstructed it as most of it was gone and they called it Mother Mary’s house. I don’t know. Perhaps the Ephesus Chamber of Commerce was in cahoots with the church on this one because the place was jam packed with tourists of all persuasions. A museum was on the list of places to visit and also one site that had a catholic church, a mosque and a byzantine chapel, and a Roman temple to some gods. Secular took on a whole new meaning!!

We are happy to announce that no more rugs were purchased. No jewelry. Just one hat for the Rayman that is very cool.

So, I’ll just let the pictures do the talking. But before I share them I want to tell you that we were on this tour with a couple from So. Africa, a family of 3 from NZ who are sailing the oceans blue and are on their boat here and an eye surgeon and his daughter from India. A really interesting group of folks to break bread with and spend the day with. I know. I shouldn’t end the sentence with a with. But I’m too tired to rearrange the words at this point. And I know, dear reader, that you will get the point with or without a with at the end of the sentence.

With that, let me share some pictures.

A bed bug.

 
By the dock of the bay
Mother Mary’s house, reconstructed.
Sort of a catholic wailing wall, wishing wall full of notes they encourage you to hang. We didn’t.
Moi at a small coliseum.
A roman relief of Aphrodite, I think.
Rayman and statue.
Moi and the library at the end of the boulevard of ruins.
Me again, Rayman was on a tear with the camera, standing in front of what is left of the library. Really impressive.
This pictures puts the place in perspective.
The coliseum that sat about 25,000, where John spoke to the Ephesians. Sir Elton John performed here to a much larger crowd.
Loved this sign. May also apply to our new rugs.
Naturally died wool at the carpet school…drying out.
Relief at the museum.
Penis art from the ancients.
We saw thing from the 8th century B.C. Made us feel young. Rayman looking diminutive next to part of a statue.
View from the pool of our hotel. Oh, Aegean, you are beautiful.

Life is made up of ying and yang and we just had a big bite of the ying and yang sandwich.

After our tour of Cappadocia ended, the tour guide and his driver took us to the airport about an hour away. They played some violent movie where every other word was of the four letter variety on the overhead movie screen in the van. Since we had hiked and since we had late flights to content with, we wanted to sleep. Fat chance.

We had a flight back to Istanbul that left about 8 p.m. and a connecting flight to Izmir that was scheduled for 11:45 p.m. We were to arrive in Izmir at 12:50 a.m. Both flights were late and we did not arrive until almost 2 a.m. Then there was an hour long trip to our hotel in Kusadasi. We checked in at 3 a.m. Ouch. We got to our room, threw our clothes off, rinsed off the Cappadocia “fairy sand” we were covered in and crashed as we had an 8:30 pick up for a tour. I know. Crazy.

At 6:45 a.m. the Rayman woke me up when he said, “Dianna, We have bed bugs.” It took me about a nano second to roust myself out of a deep sleep and literally jump out of bed. “BED BUGS. I’m not staying here.” The Rayman agreed and after an inspection by the hotel management, we went after a shower down to the lobby to start complaining. The long and short of it is that the Rayman ended up in the front lobby registration desk having a very “direct conversation” with the OneNation the tour company on the hotel’s telephone. “No. If you would stop talking and listen to me” , he continued. As the man on the other end of the phone tried to terminate the tour by refunding us for the hotel in Istanbul two days from now and refunding us our valet service, the Rayman had a different idea. Pretty soon, any one in the lobby could hear him say, “Excuse me. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable…the first place you booked us had mold. This place has bed bugs. We want another hotel.”

About a half an hour later I was on the computer seeing if there was a way to return to NYC earlier, a man came in and said he was there to move us to another hotel. And off we went to a much better hotel with a balcony overlooking the Aegean Sea and with a distinct absence of bedbugs… so far. Our bed clothes are in a plastic bag, the bags have been inspected for the vile creatures and we’ve spent the day trying to leave Turkey… then trying to stay in Turkey.

As of now we have negotiated two extra nights at this hotel, rescheduled our tour of Ephesus for tomorrow, and return transportation to Izmir. We decided it was harder to leave early than it is to stay. Turkish Air would not reschedule the flight back to Istanbul without talking to the tour operator who booked the flight. The tour company found us a flight but it was another “midnight express”. With only 3 1/2 hours of sleep, we just couldn’t warm up to that idea. So. There you have it.

Observations: The Rayman and I have had a chance to travel by making all our reservations on previous trips. And we had a tour where they made all the plans. We never have been lost using this tour company but the mold and bed bugs episodes have us abandoning the idea of using tour companies in future travels. It hasn’t worked out, this tour company idea.

Oh, and did you know that these late night one hour flights are filled up with crying babies? It’s a flying nursery and you cannot sleep. One mother walked the aisle with her screaming child in her arms the entire flight. Another sat still but the child wailed away for 3/4 of the flight…in the middle of the night. OMG. Really, when they pre-board, half the plane is filled up by mothers and their children. The Rayman thinks they just live by a different clock here. Whatever. It’s much different than the U.S. generally.

The big ship just blew it’s horn. There is a Viking cruise ship (upright) moored here. They are on their way out so the city will be quieter tonight when we venture out to find a place to eat. It is warm and a bit muggy. The sea is sparkling. Quite charming, really.

And the tour guide tomorrow is the same nice fellow that delivered us to our second hotel this a.m. Did I mention he isn’t hard to look at? Perhaps things are looking up.

Oh, and the water heater has been installed. I learned how to use FaceTime at midnight in the airport at Istanbul. Our realtor, Tim, taught me how to do it and we had a good conversation. Amazing. So, Beau is returning to our house with Nancy and Ginger since the house is fully functioning again. Now all we have to do is figure out where on earth we are going to live in the future…both near and far (term). I can tell you one thing. It won’t be in Turkey. We have really enjoyed 95% of this country. And our dollar would go a very long way. The food is wonderful. But, we won’t be moving here. Perhaps Morro Bay or San Luis or Avila or Paso!!! Yes, that’s more to our liking.

Before I forget, the Turks have the best tow trucks we have ever seen. They only work on cars that are parked parallel but they are amazing. They drive up to the side of car. Two L shaped arms slide down and under the offending the car. Then it lifts the car up and on to the bed of the truck. The truck driver doesn’t even have to get out of truck as far as we could see. Never seen anything like it. It would work great in San Francisco and other large cities with narrow streets.

Today was our private tour where the possibility of getting lost was vanquished. We hiked, we walked, we climbed, we stooped. And we took lots of pictures. This place really can’t be captured on a camera but I’ll bore you with my pictures just the same. Here goes. Rayman in front of our hotel waiting for the guide.

 
Another view looking up from the street in front of our hotel..there is smoke coming out of that chimney. See below.

 

These cones are eroding unless they have basalt dark tops.
Grape vines and cave houses. Many of these caves had special holes for the pigeons. The collected the pigeon poop and carried it down in large carriers on the inside of these structures and fertilized their crops.

 
Inside one of the caves, a church.
Pigeon holes!!
A wildflower.
A site that is eroding. The sandstone is falling away exposing the caves.

 
The fairy structures. See the dark basalt protecting the underneath structure. Looks like something familiar. Mushrooms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia

Check out the website above for a detailed accounting of the history of the place.

Dear readers, we are now proud owners of two Turkish carpets which we bought this p.m., our last day in Istanbul. What got into us? A good sales guy and real desire to have a couple of area rugs that we really think we will enjoy. So there you have it. Actually there is more to the story. Stay tuned.

The experience may have been worth the price. This nice fellow we met on the street had a carpet shop on a side street near the Koptaki Palace which we were going to visit. His carpet shop was 7 stories high and was filled with old tribal head gear and a massive amount of carpets. We had done the carpet buying thing a few days earlier so we had learned quite a bit about prices and quality of rugs from that experience. But that is all we knew. We also knew what we liked so finding something that would meet our need… not too large as we don’t know where the heck we’re going to end up after the sale of our house…was important to the process. Of course, the sales guy was certain that these sizes would fit anywhere. So we ended up with a runner and a rectangular carpet…oh, here are the pictures. What do you think?

 

 

 

So, here we are up in the air on the way to Cappadocia. I’ve had a 4 hour sleep night, very little to eat and I’m sitting on a plane with lots of head scarves. The flight attendants don’t wear them. The young girls don’t wear them. The men don’t wear them…but pert near everyone else has one on.

I was able to get free wi-fi at the airport after a bit of trying. That was good. Power stations are in short supply and I only have 39% of my battery left. The flight is a short one. Only an hour. We saw some snowcapped mountains but snapping pictures of them would have required me to climb on top of the nice young man next to me and I’m afraid he might give me a karate chop to the solarplexis so I decided to let that photo op go.

Last night the family got together again and after eating, the Rayman and I went to the hotel next door to peer off their rooftop patio to see the fading sky and the lit up mosques and landmarks. Extremely exotic and hypnotic all at the same time. Here’s some pictures. Please note the airplanes in the sky.

 
The Blue Mosque at evening time.

 
Our flight was to leave at 7 a.m. We left at 10:00 a.m. Will miss half the tour of day one. This will require some letter writing and stern talk with the tour operators. Had I not checked the flight status last nite, they would have retrieved us from our apartment at 4 a.m. But because i did check at 11 p.m. last night, I called the company and got the pick up time changed from 4 a.m to 6 a.m.

The fellow is speaking over the plane system and I have no idea what he is saying even when it’s in english. His accent is way thick. Hoping it’s not something like, “Ladies and gentlemen, we just make an unexpected landing. One engine fell off.” Oh, well. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Judging from the fact that no one seems alarmed, I have just kept on blogging.

Istanbul as a reflection here, is beautiful. The mosques, churches, frescos, mosaics, cisterns…the list goes on and on are ancient and beautiful. The people are friendly and helpful. It’s a must-see place if you want to visit a secular muslim country with a rich history. As I said in one of my earlier blogs, it is a city of contradictions.

Just took a peak out the window. Looks like Bonneville Salt Flats or the Great Salt Lake below us. A large expanse of white. But I digress.

Istanbul is built on many hills around the Strait and beyond. It really reminds us of San Francisco in some fashion. Quite beautiful even with the lack of building codes. Most of the old structures have been fitted with braces as columns are leaning. The ayasofya was almost scary in that regard. Huge marble columns on one side lean like the tower of Pisa. Only they are massive support beams inside the structure. Oh, my. I would not be surprised to see them close it one day to either fix it or condemn it. But, what do I know. Just an impression I came away with by a cursory observation.

So, I’m skipping ahead to the end of the day. It’s 2136 in military time and I’m tucked in and ready for some well deserved sleep. In the past few hours this is what has happened. When we arrived at the Kayseri airport, our guide met us and he did not speak a word of english. Because our tour was late, he drove like a crazy man to get us together with the group we were to have been with. He drove in the middle of the road whenever he could. He passed with free abandon. The sights were a blur. I was too busy watching this maniac race toward the finish line. We were to hook up with the group near Cappadocia. As we screeched in to a plaza full of people, he stepped on the brake and we were there. At that point we joined the group and we were placed in the back of a van that held about 16 people. Maybe 2 seats were empty. The van was stifling hot. Much hotter than outside but in their infinite wisdom, the Mercedes people designed this particular van with the inability to open a window. OMG. It was so hot. Our own private sauna.

This van transported us to lunch and then to an underground network of caves. They were incredible. The ceilings were very low and I managed to knock my head on the ceiling 5 times. And it hurt. The people that lived in the region took it upon themselves to carve caves in the for protection. They hid in the caves from enemies. The stone is soft as it is sandstone. Soft unless you hit your head on it, that is. And it goes down, down, down. We only saw 1/10 of one underground city of seventeen. Here’s a link to the right so you can read about it if interested. And here’s some pictures.

 

 

Notice the tall guy in the back. These caves were, well, low-ceilinged.

 
Delighted to be there. It was very cool in temperature. Almost scary.

 
Actually, some people had a place in the tour where they could bail if it was too…well, too. And many in our group did. Rayman and I soldiered on. It was way to interesting…unbelievable to forgo.

After we emerged from the caves, the tour van stopped at a jewelry shop. That’s one of my pet peeves. I don’t like to pay a lot of money to be hustled. So, we ran through that and jumped across the road to where the real interest lay. Here’s some pictures of Pigeon Canyon so named because there were fruit trees planted in the valley and they bred pigeons for a source of fertilizer. The orchards are gone but the birds remain. We saw one white pigeon mate with another while there…no sense of modesty at all.

We then boarded the steaming hot van to travel to a castle. Here it is.

 

Some chap decided to add interest to the scene and make a little money but placing a camel at the site for picture taking purposes. That is where I took a picture of these camel toes. The castle was a “stagecoach” stop for caravans of camels and people making some sort of trek. Impressive.

 

 

 

 

 
Then the hot van delivered us to our hotel. What a dive. We were both hopping mad because we had paid a sizable sum for this tour and 1. we had missed 25% of it and 2. the van was hot 3. the bathroom had mold everywhere and the room was a dump. Oh, an aside. The call to prayer just started. It sounds really good in this land of mystery. The acoustics are great. When one mosque starts the call, the others join in one by one. It’s sort of like row, row, row your boat except the voices aren’t harmonizing and the words are all different. Still, it is very impressive.

But I digress. So, I wrote the company an email with my complaints and demands. No sooner had I sent it from the lobby of this place, the phone rang and it was for me. Negotiations ensued and we ended up in the suite of this place with not one bit of mold, a private tour all day tomorrow, and upgraded hotels for the rest of our tour. And…after suffering buyers remorse on the carpets, I received an email from the carpet sales guy who threw in another rug free gratis for our trouble because he was answering an email I sent him. I complained about his modus operandi in some many words. Well…we were both so happy at the outcomes of my letter writing campaign, that we found a restaurant and preceded to drink and eat ourselves into a state of euphoria given the surrounding views. Here’s some pictures
Our first room above.
Our second room, same cave hotel. From the outside below.
See the people up there?

 

Rayman at the gate of a cave hotel.

Cappadocia is a designated World Heritage Site. There is nothing on earth like it. Or maybe there is….I just haven’t seen it. And it is fabulous. There I go again.

So, it is time to retire in my bed of silk sheets, with the Rayman, and pleasant thoughts of this unusual land. Tomorrow is another day in our Turkish trip and it promises to be a long one culminating in late flights, rides from Izmir to Kad….and a check in at an upgraded room around 0130. That’s 1:30 a.m. I’m exhausted but so high on scenery that I’ll just soldier on with the Rayman to see what’s next here in the land of mystery.

Today after we returned from our carpet buying/Palace touring experience, Kristen burst into our apartment and said, “I really screwed up. I bought the wrong detergent. It was bleach. I’ve ruined my new dress.” OMG. Luckily for us, about the only clothes I had washed were whites and lights. Susie washed one levi shirt of the Rayman’s with their dark clothes today but it came through okay, possibly a bit lighter. So, I was really, really lucky. Not knowing the amount of detergent and because I thought it smelled, well, a little bleachish, I only used about 3 tbsp. of liquid thinking the detergent might include bleach. Many ways to have an adventure…who knew it would involve laundry detergent.

We leave at 4 a.m. tomorrow for our Cappadocia tour.