Happy 2009!

My friend, Andy, just posted this on her blog (see last paragraph). Andy is super creative and very stylish, so I couldn't resist commenting. All the while, I had one terrorizing thought going through my mind......[insert music from JAWS here]......I'm going to have to post on my blog!!

So as scary as it was, I posted a comment on her blog - because seriously, who wouldn't love a first edition Andy Hutchings [insert item here] -- no pressure Andy, I'm not expecting an amazing (and what I imagine to be time consuming) piece of art -- any bauble, trinket or knickknack will do. The one reassuring thought that I had in the back of my mind was: I am by no means a frequent blogger, so I'll be surprised if I still have five readers!

Here goes!

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me!

My choice.

For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It'll be done this year.
4. You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be photography or an article on properly cleaning your face before a masque. I may sew or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your own blog and offer the same deal to 5 of your own lucky blog readers. So, the first 5 people to leave a comment telling me they are in win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

Cappadoccia.

I know it's been quite a while since I've posted. I thought about continuing my posts on our trip to Turkey, but it seemed like so much time had passed. I hadn't really talked about the trip much for a couple of months until last night. I went to dinner with a good friend at Mazza and as I was telling her about the trip and eating the Middle Eastern food it made me realize what a great experience it was. That being said, I decided (for my sake) I would finish chronicling our trip so that I'll remember details that will fade over time (some of them have already).

After the hotel owner picked us up from our hike through Love Valley, he dropped us in Goreme (a crazy backpacker town) and we walked the street until J successfully spied a restaurant, Mercan, at the top of a hill. The restaurant was open air and had three levels. The host took us to the roof where there were about five tables and we were seated during a beautiful sunset (see the picture of J above). The setting was unlike anything we had ever experienced. We were looking through the menu when we heard the Muezzin perform the Azan for the first time. It was surreal to hear this with the mosque (and minaret) and the cave dwellings in the back ground as the sun set. It is probably the most vivid moment of the trip in my memory. The night only got better as the authentic Turkish food served at Mercan was the best we had. We had hummus, shepard salad and pitas (pictured above) followed by a lamb stew cooked in pottery and another dish with bismati rice. The waiter broke the terracotta pot that the lamb stew was in and pieces crashed to the floor, I think he was quite proud that we ordered the dish and the other diners watched this display. We followed this amazing feast up with some of the best baklava with ice cream I've eaten (doesn't it look DELISH?!). As the weather cooled during the evening one of the servers brought pashminas up for the diners. If any of you make the trek to Cappadoccia, I definitely recommend dining at Mercan.

Love Valley (and other fairy chimneys)

J and I aren't "outdoorsy" people. That being said, I'm not quite sure how we decided it was a good idea to be dropped in the middle of Central Turkey by a man we had barely met (and his brother and two other men) with a vague map of the area in Turkish to go for a two hour hike. Chalk it up to us wanting to experience the environment I guess. We walked along a dirt road for about 20 minutes before seeing a "sign" leading us into Love Valley. We descended down a steep hill and hiked on the floor of the Valley for a couple hours. It was a bit eerie, as we only came in contact with about five people (and one fox) during the entire hike. Conspiracy theories of kidnappings and terrorists were running through our minds. This area of Turkey was used in the first Star Wars (unfortunately I'm not a fan), sometime in the beginning of the film I understand (i think the sand peeps...). Like the rest of Cappadoccia, the rock had caves carved into them and we could see windows and doors as we walked along. There was only one cause for concern when our map was not co-operating with us and we were a bit lost as the sun was setting. Luckily we followed a sand road (not dirt) and made our way out. The cave hotel owner taught us how to dial his number and we called him as we made our way out of the valley where he picked us up. I'm glad we did it, but about 45 minutes into the hike I was thinking, "Yeah, we're definitely beach and city vacationers...."

Cave Hotel in Cappadoccia

We arrived in Cappadoccia after our very early flight from Fethiye and boarded the Turkish Airlines shuttle bus to the Neveshir city center, as directed by the owner of the hotel.(It might be worthwhile mentioning here that Fethiye was tourist friendly and we hadn’t yet learned how to dial Turkish numbers on our cell). The shuttle dropped us in the middle of the “city center” which to me was a very busy street with three lanes of traffic in each direction. (Also noteworthy, we are not backpackers. Before this trip I had romantic ideas about what it would have been like had J and I packed up and went to Europe for a month in our early twenties. All of those visions have been set right and I now realize that I would not have enjoyed that nomadic, hippy-esqe holiday. I’ll take flying between cities (Istanbul connections and all) over over-night buses and communal hostel toilets any day. They do say older and wiser, right?)

Back to the story, we get out of the shuttle and the driver unloads our three roller-board suitcases (Yes, I said three – See note on backpacking above). The driver can see that we are clearly out of place so he finds a gentleman that speaks a little English and from the conversation we gather that we should call our hotel and tell them we are in front of the old hospital. The English speaker continues on and J and I are left standing very conspicuously on the busy street.

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These were our options:
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Option 1 – find and walk to the real city center, because clearly this is not it

Option 2 – figure out how to dial Turkey numbers on our cell and call the owner of the hotel who instructed us to take the shuttle to the city center where he would pick us up

Option 3 – hail a cab and tell him where we’re going (although we aren’t sure if we have the

address)

Option 4 – Email the owner our location and hope that he is at his computer to field our email
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We chose option 4 while continuing to work on option 2. After a good 45 minutes the owner pulled up and we were on our way to the Cave Hotel. (Note: we still couldn’t dial Turkish numbers)
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The Cave Hotel is a very old structure that was used as a family home until five years ago when the owner bought it and renovated it to be a hotel. Most of the rooms are carved into stone and operate as cave rooms. The rooms need no air conditioning as they stay cool and constant year round. It was an interesting experience and the place had a very real and local feel to it as the owner and other locals would sit and chat in the open air garden/courtyard just outside our room.

Fethiye & the Tomb of Amyntas

On our last day in Fethiye/Calis Beach J and I jumped aboard a dolomus (the driver was very excited to have us and had us sit up front with him) to head into downtown Fethiye so we could make the climb up to the Tomb of Amyntas. The Tomb of Amyntas is an Ionic temple facade carved into a sheer rock face in 350 B.C. The dolomus driver stopped right at the intersection that had the hill we had to climb even though it wasn't a stop for the bus. The people here have been very hospitable and go out of their way to help us. It has been surprising that many of them can't place our accents and because we speak English they ask if we're from England or New Zealand and sometimes Australia or today Ireland. We've told them America all but once (more on that later). We crossed the intersection and hiked up a very steep hill to the tomb. We weren't expecting the amazing view we had of Fethiye as we climbed up to the cliff. It was really magnificent to see. The tomb was impressive and it is still hard for me to comprehend how old it really is. It was unfortunate to see graffiti on it. Grave robbers broke into the tomb a few hundred years ago and one of the doors was missing/pushed open, but there was no way we were going in to check it out. After the tomb we went back to the beach and had dinner at a great restaurant called Harem. Later that night, at 2:30 a.m. we checked out of the hotel and drove an hour to the airport where we boarded a 4:50 a.m. flight via Istanbul to Neveshir, the airport near Cappadocia (note to future travel partners, you may not want me to plan the itinerary what seems like a good idea in the comfort of my home isn't always what it is cracked up to be!). Details of Cappadocia (or Kapadokya as the Turks say) coming soon...

Çaliþ Beach

Çaliþ Beach (pronounced "Chalish") was wonderful. It reminded us some of the Caribbean and some of Hawaii. The temperature was hot, the water was refreshing and the beach consisted of small, dark, smooth pebbles.

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The boat tour we took was fun, but it was strange not to be able to communicate with most of the other people. We were picked up in a dolomus from our hotel and it was already quite full. There were five families traveling together (we think they were related, but still aren't sure) and they made it a point to look after us. They were very kind and offered us anything they had (e.g., cigarettes, pretzels, corn on the cob, peaches, grapes). Only one of the men spoke English and it was quite minimal. He and his family are in the picture below. The two girls, Phyliss and Selin, were intrigued that we were "Westerners" and spoke English. They hung on every word we said, copied many of the things I did, practiced the few English phrases they knew and learned new words from us.

At each of the stops J and I would jump off the boat and swim around for a while. At the first stop we instinctively swam toward the beach and got to a depth where we could stand on the bottom of the sea. The surface was rocky and hard and after the water had settled from us paddling J looked down and there were black sea urchins all over the rocks. We both picked up our feet and swam away from the shallower end quickly. At the other stops we stayed out in the sea and treaded water. It was amazing how salty and dense the water was. We could tread with our arms only and stay above the surface. Floating on my back required no effort at all. The last stop on the boat tour was Red Island, which had mud baths. We jumped off the boat and swam to the shore where we had a quick walk to a few holes in the ground filled with mud (needless to say it was not what J & I were expecting). All but one were fairly dried up, but the English speaking father jumped into the fuller one (about two feet deep) and started lathering up. After some hesitation the girls, J and I sat along the rim and started caking mud on our arms and legs. Soon enough the hole was full of people all covered in mud. We didn't have our camera, so once we had cleaned off and were on the boat I took a picture of some people on shore to give you an idea of what we looked like. It ended up being a fun experience and is definitely something I'll never forget.

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J's favorite part of the mud bath involved a young English boy. He was about 10 years old, donned a black Speedo and Crocs and was a bit of a dough boy with creamy white skin. He was pushed into the mud bath (not sure by who) and flailed around for a bit before getting his legs and climbing out of the hole. He was saying something about his shoes and a few minutes later yelled in a very frustrated voice, "DOES ANYONE UNDERSTAND ENGLISH???!!?" I said yes, and then he proceeded to ask me to find his shoes at the bottom of the hole. While it wasn't deep, there was no way I was submerging myself into the mud to find his shoes. Lucky for him another Brit showed up (also in a black Speedo, however this one was on an older, fit body) who jumped into the hole and immediately fell, which made all the Turks laugh. He was not happy and you could nearly see the steam coming out of his ears. He found the Crocs, saved the day and left us to our mud.

We made it!

After over 30 hours spent on planes, buses and in airports we arrived in Turkey. We flew from Istanbul to Dalaman yesterday and once we were officially in Turkey I wasn't surprised that everyone didn't speak English, but I was surprised that I wanted to speak Spanish; unfortunately, I don't think that would help. J on the other hand thinks everybody speaks English and wonders why they look at him weird.

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Our first stop is Fethiye, or more specifically Calis (we didn't know this until the bus driver dropped us off in a roundabout intersection around 10pm last night - lucky for us, there was a very nice man who also got off the bus in this intersection and helped us catch the dolomus (mini bus) which dropped us off about 200 meters from our hotel). Our first hotel choice was a success (http://www.hoteldeltafethiye.com/), thank you Trip Advisor. We're situated between the beach (photos of that to come soon) and a marketplace (the pictures above are from our hotel room balcony) with lots of restaurants and shops. We were a little jet lagged (9 hour time difference) this morning (actually until 2pm local time) so we spent most of the day on the beach. Tomorrow we have scheduled a 12 island boat trip and are excited to see more of the area.

Happy 30th J!

I don't believe 30 has ever looked better!

One week!

Turkey is a week away and I think we finally have our itinerary set (planning ahead is so overrated). We just have to hear back from one more hotel and then book our flights between cities. We'll be visiting Istanbul, Fethiye, Cappadocia, Cesme and Selcuk/Esphesus. I can't wait!

lions and tigers and BEARS!! OH MY!

For those of you curious about J's weekend activities, here goes. He went to a remote cabin somewhere in central Utah with a couple of friends. The trip involved leaving food for bears amid hundreds and hundreds of pine trees and then scurrying up tree stands to watch them come and feast. I recommended he purchase life insurance before the trip, but he didn't take me seriously. Apparently, life-threatening behavior only has to stop once offspring are involved. I also pointed out the obvious, bears can climb trees. He wasn't worried about this minor detail as the three of them apparently had an arsenal that could fight off more than a hungry bear. Unfortunately for him, no bears showed up for dinner and he came home sans sighting. What will be next?