Turkey

Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

Yes, we are still alive and well, just can't get the hang on how to manage this blog. There always seems to something going on that takes up all of our days. I'll try to bring you up to date on our doings for the last month.

Istanbul

From February 20th to 23rd we went up to Istanbul with a group of about one hundred other yachties!! It is a fourteen hour bus ride. This time it was in the daylight and full of people we knew so it was barely tolerable. This was all sponsored by the marina here so that we could go to the boat show which was pretty good being about the size of the one in Vancouver. After a good nights sleep we were headed for the boat show. We were all fed and watered at the show and had a good time. The buses picked us up and the whole group boarded a charter dinner boat where we again were fed and watered some more. It was a beautiful evening as we went up the Bosphorus with Asia on one side and Europe on the other. To top it all off there was a full moon rising so with all the wine etc. it was very romantic. The next day Marian and I met up with Swiss friends whom we haven't seen since Portugal and Spain last winter. We spent the day walking all over the old part of the city called Sultanahmet. The highlight was the underground cisterns built by a Byzantine emperor in 527 AD. We had seen a number of other sites when we were here before Christmas. It was great to see our friends and hear of all their other travels and hope we will meet up with them again in the future. On Saturday it was back on the bus and back to Marmaris. The country side here is very beautiful with fertile plains and rugged mountains all snow capped. More on this later.

Cistern in Istanbul

The next couple of weeks we socialized, put the sails back on Kilkea, hiked up the hillsides and even managed to burn five seasons worth of 24 to watch down the road. We are ready to go but wanted to drive to Cappadocia and were waiting for the weather over that way to improve.

Hiking above Marmaris

We left here on the 10th of March driving eastward. It is 1000k to Cappadocia which is a province of the country. We overnighted in a small hotel/pension in Beysehir before driving on to Goreme. If you have some old National Geographic around you will be able to see what it is like or I guess just Google it would be easier. The town is small with hotels/pensions that are mostly build into caves!! It really is like living in Bedrock city of the Flintstones fame. We spent three nights in a suite cave with living room with fire place, a king size bed and huge bathroom with jacuzzi tub and hamam basin on heated floors. Not bad for a cave. The weather was great with clear skies and warm weather. The elevation is well above 5000 feet with snow capped mountains all around us. The area is volcanic and there are all these caves which were the homes of the ancients. Later the Christians built their churches in caves with ornate frescoes painted everywhere. To avoid persecution underground cities were built over eight stories deep and could hold thousands of people for over six months. I don't think they were ever captured. So far there are 55 of these cities discovered over an area of probably a hundred square miles. We went down one of these cities, the tunnels are narrow and low and the ceilings are hard rock!!!! not good for the head! The thing to do here is to hike and that we did. These are some of the most amazing geographic sights. You could be in Arizona canyons or those I have seen in Utah. We had some great meals and a most enjoyable time.The drive back, like the one up, took us through the most gorgeous mountains and plains. It is still very much winter up in the mountains and on Friday when we left we had some wet snow falling. We drove to Isparta and stayed at a lake side pension. This area is just like the Okanagan Valley with all the fruit trees getting ready for spring and the trees just starting to blossom. Saturday we went to Pamukkale which has calcium carbonate laden spring water that flows down the hillside creating Travertine pools that are a wondeful bluish color. On top of this cliff is the old ruined city of Hierapolis. This was a favorite place for the Romans and was used as a retreat with all of the natural hot baths. All very nice but we really are a little weary of old ruins so we pushed on and drove back to the boat.

Cave House, Goreme
Underground city

Cappadocia

Having the car for another we took Ray and Brenda and drove over the peninsula to Datca where we have been a couple of times before on the boat. Another beautiful day 20C plus. We stopped in to visit other yachties staying at Marti Marine before arriving back for dinner.We are ready to leave here now but will wait until the weekend as there is some weather arriving here with some big winds and possible rain. Ugh.

Pamukkale Travestine Pools