Go Go Göreme!: Goodbye Goreme!

I finished up at the restaurant last Friday, and for the past week or so I’ve been doing a little farewell tour of Turkey, traveling around for a bit before heading home in a few days. Four of the past seven days were spent on a sailboat cruising the Mediterranean from Olympos to Fethiye, which I’m using to account for my total lack of communications for the past while.

Hm…thanks to the hard work of Ali at heritage travel (the agency owned by Mehmet…the same guy who owns the hotel, and the restaurant, and a carpet shop, and apparently half of Goreme) my tour has been pretty bam bam bam, full of overnight buses and scheduled itineraries, so I’m afraid my blog is going to devolve at this point into a sort of list of the various cities I’ve been to and tourists attractions I’ve visited. Just fair warning…

The first item on my itinerary was the Blue Cruise. There were ten of us on the boat, and though my fellow travelers came in four separate groups, TO A ONE they were Australians currently living in London, which is apparently a very popular thing to do if you want to spend a year or five making massive amounts of money in a corporate job (Aussie’s are apparently known for their work ethic and can get hired anywhere) and traveling around Europe. They kept having conversations like, “Oh, you did Croatia, too? Yeah, I went last year…it was great, though I preferred Slovenia and Albania. If you’ve already done Sicily and Malta, I would definitely go there next.” Adding to the confusion was the fact that six of the eight were freckled, energetic blond girls, all of whom changed bathing suits EVERY DAY of the cruise. You’ll excuse me for not keeping their names straight. The cruise was four days, during which we stopped at a couple sleepy, colorful beach towns and anchored in various scenic spots for a chance to swim in water literally the color of blue salt water taffy. We dropped anchor at night in secluded bays, usually hidden from any city lights, and slept on the deck under the stars.

(The town of Kas, one of the stops on the cruise)

(Walking around, I ran into these ladies in their garden. Can you tell that those are grape vines their sitting under? They're busy making stuffed vine leaves. The woman on the left gave me one to try, and while the rice inside was still raw, I have to say it rivaled the version we served at the restaurant.)

(We docked for a while next to Gemiler Island, a tiny little speck in the sea that's home to a bunch of Greek ruins from the days when the sea level was much lower--many of the old buildings are now underwater, but the water is clear enough that you can still make them out. I swam over and climbed among all the ruins to the church at the top...slow going in my bare feet and bathing suit, but definitely worth it.)

(Everyone slept out on the deck.)

The boat landed in Fethiye, where I spent one additional life. Fethiye is your pretty standard adorable small town, though I think I had my best dinner in Turkey so far there. The boat’s crewmembers were in town until the next morning before setting sail to do the whole cruise in reverse; for dinner, I went with a couple of them to the fish market in the old city, where we hand chose an entire kilo of red snapper and a few small octopuses for dinner. We then brought our selection to a restaurant also in the market, which for 5 lira fried them up and served them to us along with salad, yogurt sauce, and lavas (this great bread that comes to the table hot and filled with steam like a giant bread balloon). Delicious! Actually, I think the captain must go to this place a lot, since everyone there seemed to know him. The three musician’s wandering from table to table were especially attentive. It seems that there is a strong tradition of musical appreciation in Turkey; everyone at the table sang lustily along, and clapped with even greater enthusiasm when the deckhand’s girlfriend (a resident of Fethiye) got up to do a little impromptu belly dancing.

(Walking around Fethiye. Yup, just your typical Turkish street...some cars, some flowers, and 5th century B.C. Lycian tombs carved into the hillside.)

(At the fish restaurant, one of the musicians was singing and fiddling at the SAME TIME...he's a talented man)

(Esge gets up to do a little dancing)

After Fethiye, it was on to Selcuk, a city about 3km from the Aegean and VERY historical. I spent all day on a tour of the Roman ruins at Ephesus. Actually, the tour ended a little early, so instead of going straight back to my hotel I asked the driver to drop me off near the 14th century mosque that just happens to be on the edge of town, and did a little afternoon wandering. Now I’m on the rooftaop terrace of the hotel, waiting for 9:00 to roll around, when I’ll take the overnight bus to Istanbul. Onward, onward!