Turkey - 16

When the taxi driver let us at the train station in Veliko Tarnovo, he got his fare and his tip was all the coins we had left with us. The train was another old one but was ok. Even though there were 6 beds on the cabin, it was just the 4 of us which made the whole trip nicer. This time I got a nice surprise at the border. It was the second time that my Brazilian passport was better to be used then the Canadian one. When I applied for my visa to Syria, I found out that it would cost me 142 Canadian Dollars. Then, I asked how much it would cost me on my Brazilian passport and I found out it would be only 37 Canadian Dollars. The second surprise was on this trip. Richard, Sarah and Brendan had to pay 15 Euros with their English and Australian passports. When I was going to pay the entry visa, the guy told me that for Canadians it is 45 Euros! So, I asked him, how much it would cost if I entered with my Brazilian Passport. He said that I wouldn’t have to pay anything! Bingo! I just saved almost 4 days accommodation in Istambul!
Sarah and Brendan had been to Istambul before and they already had a reservation to a hostel. So, Richard and I just followed them through the streets of the city until we got to the hostel. While we walked to the hostel, I felt like a child on Christmas day. As if I still couldn't believe that gift was real! I kept walking with the others and looking at every direction and there was just a single frase going through my mind: “Oh my God! I am in Istambul!”, “Oh my God! I am in Istambul!” It felt totally incredible to be in Turkey!
The hostel is just two blocks from the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. Probably the two most well known sites in Istambul. Just to be in the city felt almost enough, as if I wouldn’t really need to go anywhere in particular to feel that I had discovered the city. Being so close to two mosques, I could hear the call for a prayer that the Imans announce many times a day. The people on the streets, the colours, the food, the smells, all the views almost always framed by the minarets of the mosques. Everything is so amazing! I was sharing a room with Richard and 4 other guys. In the beginning it was the 2 of us, 3 Americans and an Austrian guy. The Austrian guy reminded me of something I heard a few times in Vienna. Some Austrians don't like to say that they speak German. They prefer to say they speak Austrian-German to make the difference between the German in Germany and Austria. It was funny because many times I also say I speak Brazilian Portuguese to differenciate from Portugal.
The day I arrived I went to the Blue Mosque. Unfortunately they close almost half of the mosque just for the muslims praying there. Still, it is totally magical to be there. I have a muslim co-worker who’s a wonderful person. I wish I could trade my place with her for a day. Just so she could be here. I can just imagine how it would be so special for her. I had to take a picture even of the carpet where people pray to send to her.
At night, I went to the main centre of the city called Taksim Square and went walking on a boulevard called Istiklal. I couldn’t believe the amount of people! If Beograd felt busy at nights, it wasn’t anything in comparison to Istambul! So nice to see so many happy faces in the crowd! Friends chatting, families walking together, the bars getting very busy, etc. I had gotten the address of a club that was supposed to be a good one to start the evening and it was actually easy to find it. I got in and it was just great! A small café or bar full! There was a Turkish guy singing all the songs and walking to all small rooms of the bar. One of the rooms was being used as a small dance floor and the other 3 rooms had tables and chairs. Lovely place and wonderful Turkish music! While I was there, a Russian guy that lives in New York started to talk to me. Nice guy and we decided to check out the clubs together. The first one was so loud, we couldn’t stand it. The second one was pretty empty. Finally the third one was just great! Lots of great music and it was packed. Everybody was dancing to the sound of many Turkish songs.I love to see this kind of brotherhood, of a cultural identity. The club had a very good ventilation system but the smoke inside is dreadful! I had no idea I could turn on my "oblivion bottom" to this extreme! So, I just danced away with Tom, the Russian guy and the other hundreds of people. When the place got too hot, there was some this little breath of cold air and some white things dropping us like confetti. It was something like ice flakes! Quite cool!
When I left the club, there wasn't public transportation anymore around 4 AM. A couple on the club told me that there were some mini vans that worked through the night and I had to walk just a block. Another fun experience! Many mini vans were stopping for passengers but no one spoke English. While I said "Blue Mosque" nobody understood until I realized that I should be saying "Sultan Ahmet". The first driver said no but the passengers inside argued with him and then, they all told me to get in. My guess was that the mini van wasn't going there but was passing close to it. So, there I was, inside a mini van blasting some turkish music, surrounded by 9 other guys that didnt' speak any English, laughing away, chatting to each other and coming from who knows were. I was in the middle of the van just marvelled by my surroundings. The van stopped and they kept talking to me in Turkish and pointing to the direction I should go. When I was going to pay, the older man beside me pushed my wallet away and paid for my fare. I said "Tesekur" (thank you) and he said: welcome to Istambul! Then, I walked the rest of the way to the hostel since I recognized where I was. In fact, to say that I walked to the hostel doesn't seem appropriate. I should say that I flew on the magic carpet that kept levitating my feelings since I arrived in Istambul!
The following day, I met Tom again for dinner and then went back to the same club. It was so full that after one hour I couldn't deal with it anymore! When I came out I found the most torrential rain, just like a tropical heavy rain. I decided to at least run to a bar near by and found this alley full of awnings open and huge umbrellas that kind of protected the customers from the rain. It didn't protect the customers totally and it was just like a mist was falling under the umbrellas. There was a great and charismatic singer and two musicians playing lovelly songs. I asked for a beer and sat down relieved to be away from the crowd from the club. The customers sang along and one of the women went on top of one of the tables to dance. Her friends went wild clapping around her and it went on like this for many songs. The last worry they seemed to have was the heavy rain falling. There I was, with my beer watching this amazing culture. All that heavy, heavy rain, just made it more special somehow. I felt like the happiest fly on the wall watching one more night in Istambul!
Sunday was one of the heaviest days I remember ever seeing. I spent the whole day on the covered rooftop bar of the hostel and since they have food, I had lunch and dinner there too. I took the day to read a bit, check the internet, downloaded some pictures, chatted with other travellers and didn't dare going out. I had already gotten all drenched the night before.
On Monday, Sarah and Brendan came back from Cappadocia after 3 days and they were totally in love with it. Their pictures were so nice that I made up my mind about spending some time there after Istambul. My days in Istambul were quite lazy in a way. I guess the city is so big that I knew I couldn't see everything in a week, so I just walked a lot, saw a few places, etc. If there was a city that I really felt I will come back to, it was Istambul. I took the ferry with Richard across the Bosphorous to go to the Asian side of Istambul, went to the Galata Tower, etc. From the tower, we had a beautiful view of the city and the harbour. The food was also amazing! So many different things to try, kebabs, meat pancaques, fish sandwiches on the harbour and so many other things! In almost every corner you can also get a glass of freshly squeezed pomegranate juice or orange juice and so many others!
Since arriving in Istambul I started to look for a Lonely Planet book for the Middle East since I didn't want to carry one from Canada. It was a difficult task and I was feeling really insecure about going to Syria without one. I didn't have a guide for Turkey either but in Istambul I was fine since other travellers around had a guide. I needed my own to plan my next moves, decide where to go next, etc. Without the guide, I was feeling really insecure. Finally I got it! It was such a relief! Thank God! The one I got, included Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Israel.
David Franklin, who put me in touch with Siggi in Iceland, also put me in touch with a Turkish "person" called Zeynep. We exchanged a few emails and than arranged to meet for dinner. It was a funny encounter! For some reason, I thought Zeynep was a man and she thought I would be much older. Mind you, she couldn't believe I am 44. It is nice actually, I guess they don't expect to see many backpackers my age and most people seem to be shocked by my age. It is a nice compliment. I do feel as if I was 25! LOL!
Zeynep was another jewel on this trip! An amazing host for the evening and extremelly generous. A fun girl, very smart and I had a great evening! First we had a beer in one of the popular places in Istiklal Caddesi, one of the main boulevards in downtown. Then, we went to a very nice restaurant for dinner and I had one of the best meals I've had in this trip! Grilled chicken that came with a dish of lentils, spinach and cheese that tasted a little bit like feta cheese. Totally fantastic! Then, Zeynep saved the best for last! She took me to the top of a hotel in the centre of Istambul where we drank Raki, a national liquor that tastes like anis a bit, while seeing the most spetacular view. Down there, the lights of Istambul, with its lights, the beautiful harbour with it's bridges and boats passing by, the buzz of a big city with it's traffic moving everywhere. It all, surrounded by the lit minarets and silhuets of many and many mosques watching over Istambul.
After a whole week in Istambul, I took a 12 hour bus ride to Goreme, in the middle of Cappadocia. That's when I found out that there are no toilettes on all buses in Turkey! Mind you, they do stop every couple of hours. The stops are very nice and similar to the nice ones we find in Brazil. There's a clean toilet, a nice restaurant with good food, some stands to buy souvenirs, etc. Very nice! I chatted a lot with a nice American couple that was backpacking through Europe and Turkey after his retirement. There was also an Israeli couple behind me but I didn't talk much with them on the bus.
When the bus arrived in Goreme, we were all fascinated by the most strange, lunar and fascinating landscape! I thought the American couple was getting off too and just when I was outside with my backpack and the bus was leaving, that I realized that they were going on! I waved at them inside the bus but it felt so unfinished! Not to properly say bye! The bus left and I looked around. It was really like if we had just arrived in Bedrock, the city where the Flinstones live in the cartoon! I found out later that there is a hostel and a bar in town called Flinstones! It couldn't be more appropriate! Goreme is surrounded by valleys of a softer kind of rock that have been suffering the actions of the wind, rain, etc and the landscape is incredible! Many mushroom and cone shapped huge rocks in the valley in Goreme and surroundings. Because the kind of rock is softer, people started to carve on them until they had rooms inside the rocks. What you get now, is many houses that are almost entirelly built inside the rocks. Rooms that a man made caves! I had booked a hostel from Istambul based on the information that Sarah and Brendan gave me and the hostel emailed me telling me that they would come and pick me up at the bus station. I called from the information office for free and in 5 minutes there was a nice guy to pick me up. The hostel is on top of the hill and my room was a six bedroom inside one of the caves! Really cool!
After I got my things in the room and decided to go on a hike with some japanese people that were at the hostel. Cool people! Actually most people in the hostel were japanese anyway. We went on a very nice hike of an area called Rose Valley. The sunset wasn't an amazing one but just the hike through that landscape was just beyond words! The movie Star Wars was also partly filmed around Goreme because of it's lunar landscape. After we came back to the hostel, I went to the very top of the hill to have a look at the city in the valley bellow me. What an interesting place! I started to laugh looking down at the city with it's mushroom and cone shapped houses with windows with lights turned on inside. I felt as if any moment I would see the whole Flinstones gang passing by (with Dino of course!) or Fred screaming: Viiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!
The japanese are the kind that wake up early in the morning, do everything and by 8 or 9 they are ready to bed. So, I went downhill to explore the city on my own and decided to check the Flinstones bar. On my way there, the Israeli couple saw me and invited me to join them. A lovelly couple that was travelling together to celebrate 3 years together. We had a great time and they were so important for me! I guess I had some prejudisms against Israel after they bombed Lebanon, which I thought was so awful! Through them, I was able to at least realize it is time to "revaluate my prejudisms". We had such a honest conversation! It was really good for me! This trip is definetelly becoming like a history of mankind for me in the most wonderful way!
The second day in Goreme, I decided to take a guided tour for the whole day to visit some places outside the town. It was a very inexpensive tour that also included lunch. First we went to an underground city. They are tunnels built by the locals hundreds and hundreds of years ago and were used for the whole population to hide from enemies and wars. They are supposed to be miles and miles of underground tunnels that go about 8 floors bellow ground. I wasn't very sure if I would be able to do this part of the tour. Sarah and Brendan told me and showed me some pictures where in some parts you have to duck or it is so narrow that you cannot fit two people beside each other. I always knew that I have a mild claustrofobia but since I "passed the test" going to the salt mines in Krakow, I decided to give it a try. Bad mistake! I made sure I was the last one of our group to go down. This way, I made sure there was some extra space between me and them and nobody behind me. We went down about two floors and I could feel I was getting a bit nervous but I could still control it. We got to one of the caves and while our guide was explaining things, another group came over and started to wait on the cave beside us and then I saw another group coming from the floor bellow. Just like a bunch of ants inside an ant hill. Something inside me just turned! I started to panic realizing that I could not leave that space fast, that even if I tried I couldn't because there were other people in front of me! One of the ugliest feelings I felt until now! I was sweating and shaking and felt suffocating. Just awful! Our group was already going down, so I just asked the guide waiting for us to vacate the cave if she could wait just one minute for me to calm down. She asked me if I wanted to go up and I said yes. She even offered to help me as she saw my panic. As soon as she said it was easy to leave and pointed to a direction I just left. To help my panic, as I walkd up, I remembered our guide telling us to stick to the group because the caves are so huge that people have gotten lost inside them! Thankfully I found my way out and sat on a bench near by, shaking still and trying to dry my sweat and almost crying in happiness to see the sun and feel the fresh air again! While I sat at the bench, I realized I wasn't the only one. I saw many tourists coming out of the caves shaking, sweating or with the most glorious face when they saw day light again. It is exactly like inside a huge anthill. I guess I was really panicking more than the other because few people came to me later to find out if I was alright.
The rest of the tour was lovelly! I went for a hike in a beautiful valley and walked for a while beside a river surrounded by big rock cliffs and by trees loosing their leaves because the autumm was also arriving in Turkey. The trees covered with yellow leafs made the whole place look more beautiful! Then, for lunch, we sat on tables on top of a 8 feet wide island in the river surrounded by a Turkish landscape that could definetelly be in Canada as well. At the end of the tour, we went to a monastery that was also carved inside the rocks. Huge place of many, many storeys, carved on a very slopped hill. So, it looked like this huge cone full of holes like a swiss cheese and each hole was a window!
On my last day in Cappadocia, I met Lior and Joel on the streets and found out that they had gotten engaged. The story about how everything happened was really touching! Joel found out that he couldn't buy roses in Goreme. He waited until Lior took a nap in the afternoon and took a cab to another city near by to buy roses for her. On the morning that I saw them, they had just gotten engaged. Joel called Lior around 5:45 AM and told her that the alarm was going to ring in 15 minutes, she had to get up and follow the roses. Then, he left the room and walked up the hill leaving a trail of roses on the way. When he got to the top of the hill (just above my hostel, where I had seen the sunset), he put a cloth on the ground and brought all the gadgets to make tea for them. She came 15 minutes behind him and according to her, went up hill balling her eyes out. When she got to the top of the hill, there were a few other tourists there who wanted to watch the sunrise as well. Joel told them to give him some space for something really special he was doing. When Lior came over, carrying the roses, Joel asked her to marry him.
They were such a great couple! In Istambul I had seem some ceramic bows that I really liked but there was no way I would carry it all the way to South Africa! Since I found the same kind in Goreme, I bought one for them for their engagement. I can't have it in Toronto but I am happy to know that I got a bow for a house in Israel full of love.
That last day in Cappadocia was a very social one! I had breakfast at the hostel sharing a table with a retired couple from Sweden. They had sold their house in Stockholm and bought a 30 feet sailing boat and had been living on the ocean around Europe for 2 and half years. Just the two of them! Very nice couple in their early 60's. I spent some time chatting with an Iranian guy that is a refugee and is living in Turkey awaiting for the ok from the UN to tell him which country is accepting his request for asilum. Very nice guy! If he comes to Canada, I hope to meet him there. After walking for a while, I met the American couple from the bus from Istambul. It was so nice to see them again! Kim and Reggie were semi retired and just travelling for a few months around Turkey. The tree of us were very glad to meet to have a beer together and then, have a real goodbye before we went our separate ways. Then, at night, just before I boarded another bus to Antakya, at the border with Syria, I had dinner with Lior and joel. They were going to Istambul, the swedish couple going to a city called Konya and the American couple to Antalia. The Iranian guy stayed there, keeping working on a turkish stand, stuck in a country that is just a long stop before he can start his life somewhere else.