POOR MANS ORIENT EXPRESS: GOREME TO BODROM

OCT 10-15

The experts say that you have 30 seconds nowadays to get someone's attention and only 2 minutes to keep it. Glad I write these for me and not for you. If you make it to the end you are not the norm.

We left Goreme in the rain and that is pretty much the way it stayed all day. Hours across the plains and wheat fields. Instead of touring, we decided, as long as it was raining we would make as much distance as we could. Lunch was at a truck stop where we got a little introduction as to what lie ahead. All prices were in Euros and, to me, inflated. When I protested, they knocked 25% off the bill.

We made our way down out of the mountains to the Med watching a huge black cloud over the water perform a great lightning show. Soon we were part of the show. Around 5 we turned left off the main highway toward the Med to look for a hotel, with hopes of seeing the water. It was not to be. As far as the eye could see, either direction, was all inclusive resorts blocking the water. We settled for a very cheap hotel way off the water down a side street. It was almost clean, it was cheap, and it served it's purpose.

There was a street market right out the window in the morning that afforded me the opportunity to take a picture that I had missed earlier in the trip.

This, my friends, is a radish.

The whole beach is like this oversized tacky santa.

After getting away from the Antalya area, we got back into more of what the Med should be. Rocky mountains all the way down to the water with little former fishing villages in the coves. They are now tourist spots, but nothing like what we came through (think Myrtle Beach)..

Touching the Med.

We are also back in our element of being able to roam freely in the area and see what we see. Here is some of what we saw.

We came upon 100's of bee hives with "shepherds" that lived in the fields with them. My sister in law is a bee keeper so I thought I would get some pictures for her.

These guys had a nice house instead of a plastic lean-to.

A damn bee bit me in the ear!!!

Shepherds and tourist talk. When we drove up Mom was on the phone and we could understand the word "tourist". I imagine she was saying :"here are some more of those damn tourists."

Shepherd's camp complete with sattelite

These guys were grinding a seed of some type and we could not get a grasp of what it was. The end product looks somewhat like flour. The seed or whatever it is, is dried in these sheds. We do know that the end product is animal feed.

While standing there we found out we were on the Lycia trail (St. Nicholas was reported to have walked it). It's a hiking trail of over 311 miles and this gentleman had a pensione right here and wanted to be sure I knew all about it. He showed me tattered brochures and old worn out papers with his name and info in various languages on it. He was almost as bad as a used carpet salesman.

This fine lady was sorting chaff from her bulghur. Just like they did 1000's of years ago, she would lift a bowl and pour it out and let the wind take the lighter chaff away while she talked on her cell phone. She would not let us leave without accepting a gift of some. These people are so kind.

While talking to this lady and her husband, this gentleman came up and joined the conversation. Some time during this discussion I guess I offered him a ride because when we got ready to go he climbed in. The whole way he was chatting up a storm and I thought he just wanted a lift to the next town. Then we came up on some hikers and he motioned for us to stop and he got out. Maybe these were hikers he was looking for and he too had a pensione on the St. Nicholas trail. Yep, Santa walked here. The hikers had no idea who he was and were not looking for a pensione. "Well, he's yours now" I said and drove off into the hills.

The views here are around Kas. A lot like you see in travel brochures. We looked for a hotel in town and though we could find decent hotels with decent prices we decided to ride out on the peninsula and see what was there. Here we found the Meis'otel with a stunning room and view at a stunning price. I bargained them down and got them to throw in a plate of fresh fruit and a small bottle of wine. Then the rains hit. All 5 of those windows that offered us such a stunning view, leaked. I don't mean a little dribble here and a drop there. I mean water flowing across the floor leaks! We moved everything to higher ground and called the Coast Guard. We got a large pile of towels and put them under every window. The rain only came in when there was a driving rain and we only had a couple of those over night and then the sky turned clear. Thank goodness as I really liked this room.

This is Kas and the peninsula that we stayed on.

Meis'otel

I finally had to go to town for breakfast. Yogurt, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese and olives everyday was getting old.

This is one of new many favorite spots in the world.

I am writing this, at the moment, from a marble white patio facing east looking across the water to the mainland and the mountains. The skies are a dark blue and a light breeze blowing carrying the chirping birds on their way. The mountains are dark but behind them are the early golden rays of the sun shining up to the heavens that become brighter and wider as that blazing orange ball of a sun awakes and rise over the peaks on it's way to another day of work. The beginning of the last stage of our Turkey adventure.