Turkiye Part Two - Ankara to Cappadocia

 Astounding/Awesome/Majestic/Beautiful - These are just a few words to try to describe Cappadocia and the Goreme Valley.  The one thing I regret about visiting this amazing site is that I want to spend a much longer time there.  There are so many hiking trails and valleys with hundreds literally of these incredible fairy chimneys - some of which are still inhabited.  We visited one that is/was a church hewn out of rock with frescoes from the days when this church/rock was most likely Greek Orthodox.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  

Our first stop after leaving Istanbul was at the Mausoleum of Mustafa Ataturk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey and still beloved by almost everyone in the country.  When does that happen?  The day we visited a group of veterans showed up to pay their respects to their admired leader.  

After visiting the mausoleum, we spent a night in Ankara before heading off to Cappadocia with a brief stop at Lake Tuz, a large salt lake which sometimes takes on a pinkish hue due to minerals.

Me at Lake Tuz

View from my hotel room in Ankara

                               

Then we arrived in Cappadocia.  It was everything I had expected and more.  I'll let the photos speak but I will add that the wine from this region is really, really good! 

 

This balloon went right over my head!

Happy person!

 

A new city over an abandoned? one

 Lastly we visited the underground city of Kaymakli thought to have been built in the Hitite era (almost 2000 years BC!).  I can't imagine living underground and having to stoop to walk through passageways but they had it figured out.  Researchers still aren't sure how they cooked without smoking everything up, nor do they understand how they dealt with waste.  So interesting!  We were able to go down 4 stories but there were 4 more below us that are still being excavated!

They had a room to make wine!

One of the narrow passageways.

 Within a few days I hope to do the final installment on Turkiye which will include all the archeological sites.  A lot to digest!

Turkiye - Much More Than I Expected - Part One - Istanbul

 My trip to Turkiye (Turkey) began because of my fascination with the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia and the desire to see and experience them is why I initially booked a trip to this surprisingly beautiful country.  If someone had asked me to describe the country, I would have said that I believed it to be mostly dry, arid land.  I was very wrong.  I was initially surprised by the sheer size of Istanbul.  It is huge with a population of over 18,000,000 currently and rising.  As you would expect with that number of people, there is traffic but their infrastructure is excellent both in the cities and the countryside with public transport, great roads and highways and beautiful bridges. 

The second surprise for me was the amount of agriculture in this country.  They have orchards filled with peaches, cherries, hazel nuts, olives, figs and citrus and seem to grow everything from cotton to squash and more. There are miles and miles of rich and fertile farmland - an unexpected surprise for me!

Istanbul - As I mentioned a city of enormous size both in population and land and separated by the Bosphorus River.  The history of Istanbul, formerly Constantinople is so vast and complex having been attacked by many and conquered by some.  I realize I need to divide this blog into sections because there is so much about Istanbul!  Believe it or not, I am posting only a few of the sites in this amazing city.

Landing in Istanbul

The Grand Bazaar

Dried Eggplants and Peppers for Sale

The Galata Tower

Another view

 

Yummy!

 

 

 

Suleymaniye Mosque seen from the Bosphorus River

     

 

There is so much history with many of these photos.  I'll be brief...The Galata Tower was built during the Byzantine era and destroyed by the crusaders. It has been destroyed and rebuilt several times.  The Suleymaniye Mosque was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in the 1500's and was built by a famous Turkish architect named Sinan. 

A Whirling Dervish

A Mosque on the Bosphorus

This and below are inside the Suleymaniye Mosque - just stunning!

The Hagia Sophia - Greek Orthodox, Christian, destroyed several times and now a mosque but frescoes of Jesus, Mary and the seraphim inside are being restored.

The Cistern Basilica originally used for water storage - What a beautiful place!

A statue of Medusa in the Cistern Basilica

Part of the ancient wall

A partially restored fresco from the Hagia Sophia

An ancient aqueduct

The gates to an Asian inspired palace on the outskirts of the city

A Solar Eclipse and a Southwest Road Trip

I am aware that I just finished part two of Ecuador but, due to time constraints and a strong desire to witness the "Great Eclipse", I packed my car and headed on an indirect route to Texas with stops along the way.  I am not what I'd refer to as a 'camper' but travel, sleep and in bad weather eat in my SUV.  It works for me!

My first stop was Joshua Tree where I spent 3 amazing days hiking, driving the park road and enjoying the beauty of the rock formations and joshua trees.  What a unique and beautiful place.  My next stop was Tucson where I stayed at a state park.  I was only there one night so got in one hike before I headed off to Davis Mountain State Park near Fort Davis, Texas.  There were some great hiking opportunities there as well as some really nice people - a large percentage of those I  met being there for the eclipse.  My original plan was to camp there for 4 nights, get up super early and head south toward Uvalde/Bracketville but upon thinking about it and on the advice of a friend, I left after 3 nights not wanting to take the chance of missing the eclipse due to oversleeping or traffic or???  Well, a cool thing about Texas is that you can pull over at any rest stop, picnic area or even a pullout on the side of the road for 24 hours!  That turned out perfectly for me.  I was about halfway between Bracketville and Uvalde when I saw a few RV's and some cars at a picnic area and quickly pulled over and parked in back of a small RV.  Perfect!  I met two amazing women and the 3 of us hung out that night and watched the eclipse the next day.  It was just remarkable and what luck to meet such great people with whom I could experience this rare celestial event!  I will share photos below of the eclipse but the part that was so amazing and eerie is how dark it actually got with what appeared to be a peach/pink colored rim on the horizon in all directions.  Other than that, it got very dark, the birds stopped chirping and other than peoples' ooohs and aaahs, it was silent.  Incredible!

So onward . . . I left Texas immediately after hugging my new friends and drove to New Mexico staying in a hotel one night in Carlsbad.  It had been a long day of driving and, while the weather held for the eclipse, it started raining off and on after.  So, needing a shower and being tired, I stayed at an okay hotel in Carlsbad before heading off toward Colorado to visit friends, stopping in Roswell because you just have to if you're going through it, don't you? 

At this point I should mention that google maps is great for road trips ....... except when it isn't!  I had planned to find a disbursed (free) camping spot in the Santa Fe National Forest but that was too ambiguous for Cookie (my map girl) and I became totally lost.  I had suspected as much when I drove down a road (Route 3?) and didn't see one other car for 40 miles!  Luckily, there was a funny little state park (Villanueva state park on the Pecos River) with a beautiful campsite away from all other campers and a great hike as well!  Sometimes things just work out!

So then I spent 3 nights in Mancos visiting with my dear friends, going for walks and bike rides, going into town and hiking at Canyon of the Ancients and eating some of the most delicious home-made bread and jams, having home-made chai tea in the mornings and eating delicious dinners! I left feeling satiated, with my body and soul nourished!

I spent one night in a campground outside of Winslow Arizona and had breakfast at La Posada Hotel, a gorgeous building designed by architect Mary Coulter and well known for the many celebrities who have stayed there with their photos hanging outside of the rooms they inhabited.  I'm not sure why people would choose to stay in Winslow but it is on the famous Route 66.  Anyway, after a delicious breakfast, I posed with Jackson Brown on a corner in Winslow Arizona!  Very cool!

After a stop at the largest meteor crater in the US (it was very big!) I spent one night at a disbursed camping site near Valley of Fire State Park.  This place has unfortunately been discovered due its proximity to Las Vegas.  I'm happy I started early, did a couple hikes and left when the purple tour buses began arriving filled with people clamoring over the beautiful rocks~  I ended up at another of my favorite places - Death Valley before arriving home to discover waist-high weeds and grass which has kept me busy since my return!  I love the Southwest and don't think I will ever tire of the unusual rock formations, the colors, the canyons, the mountains...ALL OF IT!  

But first of all, the main attraction.........................

Photos I took of the eclipse

And during....

Joshua Tree

My Campsite

Split Rock

And a person who didn't run fast enough to beat the timer

Skull Rock

Catalina SP, Tucson

Vermillion Flycatcher

Davis Mountains SP, Fort Davis Texas including a sunset, photos from a hike, wildflowers, pronghorns and my campsite (75).

           

Roswell Below (as if you couldn't guess)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

creepy!

New Mexico- my campsite and a hike

Mancos, Colorado and visit with friends including hike to canyon of the ancients and a great horned owl nesting - What a great visit!

Ruins

More ruins

This is outside of Durango

A nesting great horned owl

Me & Jackson Browne standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona

A balancing rock, some flowers and petroglyphs

Valley of Fire SP, Nevada

 

 

Wildflowers in Death Valley