The streets of Konya were crowded and tough to drive around on. The market places were busy and filled with so many different herbs, fruits, and fish. There were endless streets with shops with everything from prayer rugs to #3 wash tubs. It was lively, safe and fun to shop around. Gold was everywhere, too. They just left the fish out, no ice...
On one of the middle weekends Jeff took a tour with a few other people to the amazing area of Cappadocia. This place is amazing. In the Hatti and Hittite era (1500 BC or so), the people figured out that you could dig into the volcanic ground easily to create constant temperature storage. Later, the Christians would flourish in Anatolia (Turkey). Remember the books of the New Testament--Ephesians, Galatians? They were letters written by Paul of Taursus, who began his missionary journneys in Antioch. Well, ALL of the cities are in Turkey. Consider yourself schooled. Anyway, apparently Christianity wasn't cool at the time, so the Christians had to dig even deeper into the volcanic ground to hide. So far over 30 cities have been found, housing over 25,000 people. The city Jeff visited went more than 800' underground. It had sewage into underground rivers, 2000 lb doors, kitchens, wineries, churches...amazing.
Jeff saw this stone guarding the door and decided to roll it out the way:
There, not so tough...now who want's to put it back, please?
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and more wine. Welcome to the winery. By the way, that constant temperature is about 55 degrees...chilly all year round.
The tour guide took us to Göreme next. An amazing Christian Univerisity and city built inside these spiky mountains. From the valley below you could not see the thriving city inside the mountains. 36 churches, 1 monestary and 1 nunnery. Over time the walls have eroded and you can now see the rooms from outside--cover blown. This was an active community up until the 1930's!
This is the monestary below. Rumor has it that it is connected by tunnels to the nunnery, but I saw no evidence. Celibacy was not part of the Church back then, so it doesn't matter. Back then it was baby making time, as the Christians were a bigtime minority and needed growth.
No this is not a urinal. It is a dining room table next to one of the chapels. They carved a groove to leave a bench around a table. The gentlemen you see there is Magnus Williams. He is our Intel Officer and officially as of 2 weeks ago the strongest man in Europe. He appears to be hoping for food on the table. (yes, that is a regular sized person behind him).
Sorry the next one is a little blurry but it is the alter in one of many churches in Göreme.
After hours of rock climbing the tour guide took the crew to a cave restaurant. The table and benches there are also carved out of the rock. They served a huge meal. First was a lentil soup, followed by a big clay pot sealed and baked in the ground, filled with potatoes, onions, garlic, eggplant, tomatoes, lamb and spices, followed up by rice pudding. SO GOOD. They also had a local wine which was great, so Jeff brought home a bottle. Table for 10:
Back to climbing! Man they'd never let you do this in America. Some of the shafts were 10 - 20 feet high, with hand holds worn into the walls. Some (not ones I went in) were as deep as 200 feet deep--no thanks. We went up one of these "Fairy Chimneys," created from a hard top layer with a softer lower layer. Naturally, people hollowed them out and made homes in them. The rocks keep you cool in the day and relatively warm, with a fire, at night.
A view from outside, with a collapsed wall, letting you see the living room.
A bigger picture view of the chimneys.
No trip to Turkey would be complete without rug shopping. If Jeff had the money, he'd have bought one of each style. Notice this woman placing strings of thread one at a time. Above her head is a picture showing a blow-up of the detail she is creating. To complete this rug will take 12 to 14 months working all day, every day.
We finished the trip with an amazing rug-throwing extravaganza. The owner of the store served tea (In Turkey "Cay" and is pronounced tch-eye or chi) and booze if you wanted it. Then they "threw" or rolled out hundreds of rugs from dozens of styles and countries. It was fun and although Jeff was FORBIDDEN to buy a rug, he managed to bargain a $2700 Hereke down to $1200 by saying he didn't want any rug or his wife would leave him. Still he didn't buy the rug. 2 days later he bought himself a Huglu Over and Under shotgun as a consolation!
All in all a great trip. Jeff was the PROJO (project officer) for the whole thing, safely getting over 200 people there and back and supporting Turkey's excercise Anatolian Eagle. It was a long, dificult task, but interspersed with some great culture, history and leisure.
1 comment:
wow! those cities are awesome - what a really cool experience to be able to go through them! That's for the educational lesson! :-)
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