Just a reminder to you all that the route of the trip is out there in cyberspace at
http://www.geodistance.com/?id=27406
Heading Back West
I’m now at the eastern-most point of the trip, and still several days ahead of the blocked-out schedule I made last fall.
But I’m not sure yet how to invest those days. I’ll check with the pensiyone manager/owner, a delight named Dawn, about what’s a little further east, and I plan to hit the Black Sea up near Istanbul when I’m almost back there.
In the Citadel
I hit the local citadel town this AM (not very early, though, after several days of being out there very early) but it was early enough that only about half the normal gauntlet was set up.
I haven’t seen this kind of town arrangement very much since leaving the coast, but it’s certainly common enough all over the Mediterranean basin and in most of inland Europe as well.
Find the highest point of land, build a castle on it, put the town around it as you can at the bottom.
Pretty standard.
Here are a couple of views of the place and a couple from the place.
And this was interesting to me, as I got most of the way back down.
This shot, out to the near environs of the castle, shows four minarets of four different mosques,
and this one, through about the last lilacs of the year,
shows the mosque right below the main castle entrance.
That seems like a lot of separate mosques it me, and in a town that's not all that big. I'll have to learn why there's such a number of mosques in one place-- different sects, town rivalries, ???--- stay tuned.
Another Market Day (Adventure)
After the castle city, Uchisar, I stopped to shoot some roadside flowers
on the way to the next little town (another weekly market).
Oddly, here are a couple of shots from my Arizona in Turkey collection--- these sure look like they could be taken in a lot of places in the American West. . . .
The Strangest Lunch So Far
I have a very good friend who’s a quilter, so I have been e-mailing her about her possibly making me a throw for the back of a Mission love-seat I have, made from fabric from over here.
And the older Muslim women wear these really baggy trousers that look like a really voluminous skirt—with an elastic top and I mean there’s room in there for a goat or two, and then the legs that come out of the bottom are only about 6 inches long.
The fabrics that are available have the same patterns as these şalvars, (pronounced ”shalvers”) so I set out to learn about fabric and perhaps learn enough to get some.
Hoo boy.
I met this guy at his market stall selling all kind of seeds and dried beans and peas--- some for munching and some for soup--- and he orders me up some ҫay (pronounced “chai” --- tea) and we’re sitting there visiting and I’ve got the Turkish-English dictionary out and his pal has stopped by and I’m talking to him as well, and the word “fabric” comes up—the Turkish version, anyway, and he lights up and says “fabrika!” all delightedly, and says, “Come, come--- fabrika” and so I do.
And we walk a couple hundred meters and he very proudly shows me his machinery (fabrika) for making (fabricating) cement blocks, so I take his picture and he invites me to have raki with him.
Local firewater.
Not too interested in that--- the little (admittedly pretty cheap) wine I’ve had here is pretty bad, although there are lots of new vineyards going in, they don’t seem to know what to do with it.
The person who becomes the Charles Shaw (the Chuck of Three-buck Chuck) of Turkey will make a bundle.
Trust me on this one.
It was way too early in the day for me (about 2:00 by now) so I said “DEE ah BET” which is my out for this (and other unwanted) offerings, so they get the sense that it’s the Diabetes and not my boorishness that’s precluding accepting their gift of food or firewater
So he says, “yoh GURT” and opens a big jug of this yogurt/water slurry (half-way between our standard plain yoghurt and milk) in his fridge (it’s about a 1973 Kelvinator) and pours me out a cup. I follow him to his little office (think of a 1950’s junk-yard with a little travel trailer office parked back in the corner. Like that. Perhaps a little rattier.
And a big TV, which has one of the ubiquitous Turkish standard-character soap operas on it. They are on a lot in the evening, and I think there are different ones on different channels, but to me, just like the soap operas at home, at some level, they are all the same.
And I’m saying, “goo ZELL” (good) and really enjoying the yoghurt drink, and he grabs the remote and hits another channel and all of a sudden the Hustler channel is on and these people are getting along very well (you can take this one to the bank), and getting along very well in just about all the ways you can get along, and seem, from the sound track, although there isn’t much dialogue, to be really enjoying each other at a very level of personal satisfaction.
Well, they finished, for the time being, and I got the hell out of Dodge, and went to look for material, not fabrika.
And, of course, found some great faces and subjects as well.
A Concoction For You
And I’m shooting this guy’s spices and he calls to me, and starts grabbing little pieces of flower buds and dried leaves and “eye of newt” for all I know, and putting them in a little plastic cup and adds the hot water from the top of the double chai pot he has going, and I’m now drinking this stuff.
I’d snuck some Pepto Bismo pills I always carry in my photo vest— "Don’t Leave Home Without ‘Em” after the yoghurt, for obvious reasons, but this seemed pretty safe, and offered in a much different context and it was interestingly slightly bitter and quite pleasant.
Here’s the guy in his shop.
And some kid was walking up and down in the aisles of the market selling leather cowboy hats, so here’s Uncle Achmed with his:
Evening Light
For the last few days, the weather had been lovely in the AM but we’d get thunder and lightning about 3:00 or so, and then it just might drizzle (or rain pretty hard) the rest of the day, or just be blah/overcast light.
Not last night.
So I headed back out with the nice woman from Sequim into the evening light about 5:30 to find some more rock churches
and to give you an idea of what the landscape was like.
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