Turkey Round 7 (Lake Eğirdir, Cappadocia/Kapadokya)

A bit of driving and we arrived the prior night at Lake Eğirdir, and I had not appreciated the size or beauty of this lake until we sat for breakfast on a small dock. Everything was very quaint and quiet. Again I wish I had my people photographing cojones because the sweet little old couple who took this boat away would melt your heart.

Waiting on a typical Turkish breakfast was actually one of the best memories I have of the trip, we were doing absolutely nothing but chatting and watching the lake together. 

The roses in this region were also to die for. Simple and perfectly...um....rosey. (There really is no better word for it.)

Ok, testament to how chicken I am to photograph strangers....isn't she just pinch her cheeks adorable, and yes I'm referring to the woman sitting on the curb a thousand yards away in the below picture. I even used the massive tree surrounded by roses to the side as an excuse to take the photo in my own head, knowing I really just wanted one of her.

The drive back off the peninsula was also relaxing waves crashed up near each side of the road. The peninsula was only wide enough for roses and road at most points.

The drive to our next destination was also amazing. The diversity of landscape, fields, mountains, lakes, villages and scare crows.

I'm pretty sure whomever took the photos for the Windows desktop images did so in Turkey. Little lone trees and snow capped mountains behind rolling fields reminded both of us of the original Microsoft Windows icons.

Next stop Cappadocia/ Kapadokya. Winding little roads in a historically rich region of some of the most interesting dwellings you could ask for. Crafted by Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone themselves. I'm sure that's historically accurate ;)

And look the Flintstones had solar power!

Our little hotel of cave rooms was so charming an unique. More roses at teh front office, and spread throughout. 

The overlook showed some of the mix of the city between the historic cave dwellings and the new construction. But as the why there was a wagon on an adjacent roof I can only imagine it washed up in the last huge flood and was caught there by those perfectly placed boards. Yes, that is the only logical explanation for it's existence.

We went exploring around and found some wonderful cave dwellings from multiple different time periods. The one below obviously newer than some was still amazing and was being excavated while we were there.

I guess people smart enough to carve their own homes out of pure rock walls shouldn't surprise me with there efficient 'fertilizer retrieval' technique of carving hundreds of tiny bird houses in a cliff.

The landscape continued to vary drastically everywhere you looked. 

I swear they call them fairy chimneys. Though there has been a lot of humming an hawwing over their actual likeness on facebook. This small set was down below the first group of cave homes we visited.

Another look over the historic and more modern mix of the town.

Most of the cave homes in this area had been deemed unsafe. I personally can't imagine carving multilevel homes in rocks and not worrying constantly about them falling in on me, but I am the girl who will never trust a bridge. (Secondary to a new rash of nightmares I also may never trust an elevator, but that's a story for another day.)

We explored and explored at a few different sites. My Love would not demonstrate how to use the well carved ceiling stair/ladder contraption we found and my initial lack of insight (blonde moment) lead me to wonder if the simply jumped and grabbed on to begin ascending. Heck, they carved entire homes out of stone they had to be tough little cookies. The thought of a long gone wooden ladder having existed didn't cross my mind until later. Much later. Honestly until just now.

Look Ancient cave dog! I called her Bertha. My Love doesn't know I secretly name all the animals we come across. If I can't take them all home with me I may as well give them names. 

No- I am not wearing proper climbing attire.

No- I am not wearing proper climbing shoes.

No- I thought about neither o those until I was much too far up this fairy chimney for comfort.

Yes- Both my shoes have fallen off at this point.

Yes- I realized that wasn't good.

Yes- I kept climbing, I was so close..

And obviously My Love wasn't too concerned because he apparently had tiem to turn around from "spotting" me to take a few pics.

Yes- I fell, and by fell I mean had large chunks of flesh ripped from my body by the coarse pumice like sandstone cliff before Love was able to stop me near the bottom and keep me from also busting my head open.

No- Neither My Love nor myself realized the extent of my injuries at the moment of this immediate post fall photo. 

Yes- Adrenaline is a wonderful thing.

Yes- We then began finding bloody patches on my wrists, elbows and feet. Along with a very large degloving injury to my foot that began pouring blood into my cute new thankfully black leather sandals. 

One of probably my first 100 Turkish words was Eczane (Pharmacy).  I washed my wounds thoroughly, bandaged myself up with lots of antibiotic ointment and prayed the now unmasked horrendous pain would settle a bit after a night's rest and my hand delivered bedside dinner with lots of hugs and kisses from the best caregiver ever.

No- I won't ever do it again. I knew better the first time, but lesson learned.

Turkey Round 6 (Ephesus, Pamukkale)

I promise some day I will catch up on all of these. One of the unfortunate things about giving myself a step by step process is it gives me convenient places to pause.  Or fortunate because life is a little busier right now than usual! Between Fellowship applications, around the world romance, residency , call and that pesky thing most people call life on the side I am trying to prioritize and much to my dismay blogging about photos can't hold much weight.    On to the fun.  A recap of the sixth (full day) of Turkish adventures with My Love. 

After a brief traffic jam of other cars and multiple tour buses we reached Ephesus and it was WORTH THE WAIT. Not sure my preemptive bathroom stop before we began wandering around was worth the line to the women's bathroom that wound around multiple levels of stairs was.

 A photo  shy cat greeted us at the closest ruins.

Along with more simply beautiful poppies. Seriously who doesn't love these. 

 At every step there were lines and lines of beautifully carved and fallen stones. Most numbered with the aforementioned interestingly non sequential numbering system.  

 Each one had it's own unique details and interesting crevasses that I actually got to experience a bit of exasperation from Love over. (A rare event.) He seemed a bit distraught that I might stop to photograph and touch each one.

 He was right I was tempted to just spend my day memorizing and cataloging each one.

 Accept this one, she creeped me out more than a bit...wasn't about to touch her. Not a big believer in haunting and such, but not pushing my luck because if anything around here was going to be haunted it was scary open mouth guy.

 I wish I had taken a bit more time to give this photo some  scale, but in my most descriptive fashion, "It's big."

 Yeah, that's me standing next to a column...

 A rare warning sign at a Turkish tourist sight, they don't put up many, but when they do they are amusingly straight forward!

 As I stood posed for more than a few moments I gave up and finally exclaimed, "What the heck are you doing?" Perfectly timed with his click of the shutter. 

 We walked and walked and as we did I noticed more and more off in the distance, you coudl spend what seems liek months just exploring here.

 Though exploring might have been a bit more fashionable if I had had one of these getups to wear while I did it.

 Notice the new GIANT sunglasses, I don't love 'em. I loved my old ones. I tend to get overly attached to things like this.  It took me years to trade in my car for a new one and after all that process all I can say about the new one is that "I miss my Celica but the Jetta has heated seats."  I have a pair of shoes that are twelve years old and the only reason I stopped wearing them in public is the giant holes in the bottom allow water and dirt in. They are irreplaceable......Rant concluded....

 This was an amazing beautifully preserved/restored place. Sorry about the blonde blocking the good stuff but she apparently forgot to just take a picture of the "library." Here you go, since I know you can't live without knowing whats behind those giant sunglasses.

 If you are ever here I highly recommend you spend a good portion of your time looking up.

 Again Look up!!

 Need I reiterate, LOOK UP!

 More than a few generations have been here and I loved all of the differing styles that brought.

 Yes ladies, he's handsome, sweet and as evidenced by this photo, a bit taller than I am.

 "Why are you going down there?"   My response, "I wanna."  Yes, I revert to childhood when there are beautiful interesting things to be explored, even if they are dank ancient tunnels.

 When I'm buried I want one of these, actually you can cremate me and I'll share.

 But how about a less tragic or violent scene on the side of mine, maybe puppies playing in a field of poppies :)

 Maybe my poppy obsession is related to my dandelion love. (Only crazies like me find dandelions from yellow to white to be amazing flowers.)

 Off to the Church of Mary which was by far the most peaceful portion of our day. Serine.

 We walked through poppy lined corridors surrounding the main rooms for a while, it was a bit cooler on the top of the hill here. And there were very few people that had ventured out this far.

 But what does it say!

 Leaving our peaceful spot left me to hold the passenger seat of the car firmly in place. Look the light at the end of the tunnel. Bridges are feats of physics designed by the lowest bidder and built by the cheapest available workers with the cheapest materials possible, and tunnels are just reverse bridges where princesses Di(e).  I being a princess am not a fan of bridges and definitely not tunnels.

 After surviving the miles of tunnels we arrived at Pamukkale, and I was elated to see DUCKS! o really, It was amazing; that is not snow. 

 This my friends makes the nerd in me smile that I get to explain it is indeed the breathtaking ramifications of a supersaturated liquid. 

 When the water, supersaturated with calcium carbonate, reaches the surface, carbon dioxide degasses from it, and calcium carbonate is deposited. And yes I was inappropriately dressed secondary to lack of suitcase.

 It makes travertine.

 It also makes amazing patterns as the water flows in differing directions, speeds and encounters different temperatures.

 Any little imperfection in the surface leads to a new bump, thread or ripple.

 I got a bit too close to one of the warm falls, and apparently it was very near body temperature because I was nearly completely soaked by the time I realized it. By nearly I mean completely.

 The transatlantic cankles had nearly resolved at this point and this gives me the opportunity to show you some of the water running over even the shallow spots.  My feet are the less hairy ones to the right.

 No food coloring here, just Mother Nature in all her glory!

 What sane woman could resist a man that checks in with his parents every day! 

 It makes me want to crack open a slab and see what's hidden in there, but then I remembered it does indeed make a sedimentary rock hard enough for counter tops. Now I'm stuck wondering what's buried in the middle of all those counter tops.

Ended the day with a huge dinner.  I chose to take advantage of the packets of Chick-fil-A Honey Mustard I had inadvertently smuggled through multiple rounds of airport security. It does a body good.  We also made a quick trip to find more sunscreen as the glare from bright white Pamukkale had helped give me a toasty red glow.