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Published: November 18th 2009
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Turkey has been a country that I will truly never forget and I might want to live in someday. I love the food, the landscape, the people and the culture. I have been blown away by everything.
My first stop was in a same town called Goreme, which located in the heart of the Cappadocia Range. This is very small town based on tourism. To start with this is one of the coolest hostels that I have stayed in; our room was actually built into a cave as many business and homes are in this area. The highlights of Goreme was hot air ballooning; which was beautiful, peaceful and freezing but an amazing an experience. The pilot of the balloon had been flying for 19 years so she was able to get us with inches of the ground and then we went as high as 7,000 feet. At one point during the flight, two of the guys ran up this mountain side to give flowers to our basket as we floated by. We then finished the trip with a “Cloud 9” cocktail, which is champagne and cherry juice. I was little buzzed off this delicious drink at 9 in the
morning!
That night was the second highlight of the area. We went to an event called Turkish Night which is an evening of all you can eat, drink and dance. It was a lot of fun and everyone let their hair down and we had a good party. A few of us from the group were called up to participate in the dancing, and I learned that with enough vodka, I can do the splits. I also impressed the crowd with being able to keep up with the belly dancer. It was a very fun night!
The final cool thing about Goreme is that we went to carpet demonstration and the owner of the rug store actually owns a shop in Mercer Island, Washington! I always just thought those stores were drug fronts…
From Goreme the truck headed to Olympus which another very small town right on the Mediterranean. This town was damaged by flash flooding the week prior to our arrival. Things were still very muddy and everything that you went to buy had dry debris on it from the floods. The owners of the place that we stayed at had a car taken away by the
flooding! The cool part about this town was I was able to dip my feet in the Mediterranean for the first time. I would have gone swimming but it was so cold in town that there was no way that I believed the water would be warm enough to swim. I wish I would have brought my swim suit with me!
The next stop on my grand adventure in Turkey was another small tourist town called Olu Deniz again on the Mediterranean. This place was literally closing down for the winter when we arrived. There was no place to eat or shop. We took this boat ride around the Mediterranean and it was supposed to be a 5 hour tour that dropped us off where we started. It turned out the Capitan was done for the season and just wanted to make some money on the last passengers of the season while he sailed his boat to another city three hours away by sea. It was for sure a big surprised when we had to find our way back to the campsite; to get back really just ended up being a 30 minute taxi ride so it really wasn’t
that big deal. While we were sailing we did stop for a swim. The water was absolutely freezing in some spots and completely warm if you moved a foot or two. I made sure to ask to make sure that no one was making the water warm😊 The best part of Olu Deniz is I made such good friends with the sweetest little girl cat that I even let into my hostel for a couple of hours. She was such a cute princess!
On the road to Selcuk, which is where Ephesus is located at we stopped at this town called Pamukkale, which is famous for these hot springs with tons of calcium build up on the side of the hills. It was pretty cool to see white hills all over.
Ephesus was a very impressive ruin. This size was amazing and so many of the structure were still in really good condition; granted a lot of it has been refurbished. Making a stop there was for sure worth it. However, the highlight of Selcuk for me was my genuine fake 30th birthday! A couple of girls and I decided that Nov 5th was going to be my
genuine fake 30th birthday so that we could all celebrate it together. There were fireworks, cake, shots, wigs, hats and men cross dressing. It was a very fun night and the best part was the next day I woke up feeling good! I hope my real 30th birthday will be the same.
The truck decided to skip Troy. We have all seen so many ruins and it is rumored that all that is left of Troy is crumbled stones and you have to take a guide with you to get anything out of the experience. So instead we headed straight to Eceabat which is close to Gallipoli. Gallipoli really is not that important for America but it was really important for Turkey, Australia and New Zealand. The tour leader was very good and I learned a lot of history for WW1 which I didn’t know a lot about beforehand. The day consisted of touring battle fields, trenches and graveyards. It was a very eye opening day, I am glad to have gained the knowledge.
The next day my tour with Oasis finished in Istanbul. We all went for drinks and dancing on a Monday night. The next day was
our official last day together as a group. Simone, Becky and I started out to take care of some last minute shopping for Simone and while she was buying a water pipe, Becky and I were trying to sell scarves in a store a couple of doors down. Two hours later, three beautiful girls equaled the sale of 21 scarves!!! As we were leaving all the other vendors were trying to us to come into their store and work our magic, but we passed. This was a very sad day for me because I had to say good-bye to my dear friend Simone! I was very lucky to have met such a cool girl and the best part is now I have an excuse to go to Australia, if she stays there long enough for a visitor.
The next day I took a bus to Ankara, the capital of Turkey. My friend Gulin, whom I met in Africa on my first Oasis trip, lives there. I met her family and friends, I worked out for the first time in a year and I spent a week in house. Which I can never express to you how nice being in
a home really is!!! Her boyfriend was very cute, when we went back to Istanbul for the weekend, he had actually purchased a bed for me that he called Leah’s Bed! Gulin and everyone in her life really showed me a lot of Turkish customs and a peak into their culture. It was so hard to leave her, but and the good news is that I have gained 10 pounds in 7 days so I will able to remember her and her family and all the food for some time to come!
Now it is off to SE Asia for me…
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michele
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so fun!
looks like you had an awesome time. what kind of birds are those? are you meeting laurie now?