Turkey

Turkey Reflections: BIBLICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Turkey is an amazing country, abundant with significant sights and people. Some of the highlights on our trip are world famous: Cappadocia with great pillars of tuff, Ephesus a once thriving metropolis, and Istanbul, once known as Constantinople in A.D. 330 dominated eastern Europe for a thousand years and was formerly the center of the Byzantine Empire. All of these places also have a great biblical history. St. Paul traveled through Turkey and wrote the book of Ephesians about his time in Ephesus. There was also the notorious riot of Demetrius, the Silversmith, in the Great Theatre in Ephesus. When St. Paul began spreading Christianity around, the silversmiths in the area who made Artemis (a god the Ephesians believed in) figures started to get angry because their business was declining. Demetrius rallied his fellow artisans and others in the community and went to the Great Theatre where they accused St. Paul of some injustice. When St. Paul heard that many people were gathering at the theatre, he was ready to give the sermon of his life but his followers and other community leaders advised him not to go. St. Paul soon thereafter left Ephesus. It is ironic that all this Christian religion was spread through Turkey yet nowadays the country is 99% Sunni Muslim.

Ferries: Turkey to Samos, Greece; Samos to Naxos:

Day 277; 4-14-06:

We had to get up real early to get a taxi from Selcuk to the port where we would go to Samos, Greece. The ferry took a total of about an hour, just a short ride compared to the next ferry. In the main port a Samos we were struck by the famed blue and whitewashed walls of Greece. At four in the afternoon we boarded a ferry to Naxos, scheduled to arrived at half-past midnight. That night the sea was stormy and Paul threw up three times from sea sickness. Finally we came into port at Naxos and boarded into a windstorm almost pushed a man into the turbulent sea. We made a late night decision to get a hotel and immediately crashed.

Efes (Ephesus):

Days 274-276; 4-11/13-06:

Similar to Fethiye we arrived in the afternoon and quickly got ushered into Jimmy’s Place which turned out to be a good deal. We walked around the town Selcuk, the base for travelers going to Ephesus, to get a feel for the town. Stopping at St. John’s Church, where St. John preached when he was alive, we realized that there was a fee so we didn’t enter. Passing an ancient aqueduct we walked into the center of town to get some dinner. The next day we took our time because people had said there are less tour buses in the afternoon, thus less people. After a slow breakfast we went down to the front desk to hop on the free transport to Ephesus. We enter from the lower entrance and walked through the evergreen-lined path to the beginning. To the left was Harbour Street, one of the main lanes in ancient Ephesus. Shops line the road on Harbour and tons of villagers shopped here during the day. When Ephesus was at it’s prime some 250,000 lived here. Over to the right was the Great Theatre, and it truly was great. Half of the grandstands were marked off with fences for further excavation but the part that was accessible was still amazing. I walked up to the top and was astounded by the height. It was probably was as big as MacArthur Court, quite a feet for the Romans. I continued down the lane and passed through a Roman arch, a perfect example of the key-stone format the Romans used. We carried onto the Library of Celous, which is for the main part intact; also diagrams show how the Romans built their stone buildings. The other plaques were written in German for the majority of the tourists. The Library was based at a corner so we continued up to the left. We pass the men’s latrines, the only one left, and covering the walls was a bench that had holes in it about a foot apart. Some 50 men could cramp into the lavatory. We carried on walking to the temple to Hercules and past into a big courtyard. On the perimeter was the small theatre though none the less an impressive sight to see. Unfortunately we finished Ephesus so we walked back to our hotel in Selcuk. Once again we took our time through breakfast and then started out late to Mary’s House. Mary’s House is where Mary lived for the last part of her life with St. John. Unfortunately there isn’t much left from that time and everything has been reconstructed except the base. However it was very cool to see Mary’s House. There was also a spring that Mary had used, by now they had tapped it though. The entrance to the house, which is now a church, was built afterwards the actual reconstruction. The only remains of the real house is the base, the rest of the house was just rubble when explorers found it. During World War I the house, then used as a church, was abandoned and when the villagers came back to the house to find the statue of Mary without hands. Nobody knows what happened.

Fethiye:                                                                                                                                                                     Days 273; 4-8/10-06:

Once again a short along the Mediterranean Sea brought us to the town of Fethiye. It took us a long time to finally find a hotel but eventually found a room at V-Go’s. We found a market and got bread for lunch. For the remainder of the day we stayed at the hotel and did some work. The next day we started off with a late breakfast and then walked into town to catch a dolmac to Kaya Village. There is the famed Ghost Town where, about 250 years ago, a settlement had started. The old Town is bigger then the town now, by a lot. We walked through the village’s homes and churches as we crossed through the village. The whole village looked like a giant theatre that you can see in Greece and Italy. I climbed up a hill to an old army barracks where a Turkey flag flies overhead. From the top I could see grandma sitting in a parapet on the lower church. After the Ghost Town we planned to go see the famous beach, Oldeniz, but the dolmac fare was too much to go for just a couple hours. We just decided to go back to our hotel and then go the Oldeniz for the whole day tomorrow. Once again we got a late start after breakfast and walked into town to hop on a dolmac going into Ghost Town. From Ghost Town we started the 8km walk into Oldeniz and the planned to catch a dolmac back to Fethiye after a day at the beach. For the first kilometer we hiked up into the hills above the Ghost Town. Then we dropped down through the rocks and pine forests for about 5.5km until continuing the last 1.5km walking along the bay until we got to the Oldeniz spit. Oldeniz was a rock beach, but that doesn’t mean very big rocks. Most were about the same size as your thumb nail, probably smaller actually. We all had a great time swimming and soaking in the glorious sun. Towards the end of our beach time about ten Para-gliders jumped from somewhere in the mountain range and soared above the clouds. I immediately ran over and got to see the last two land in the sand. Eventually I decided I wanted to try paragliding sometime. Just as the sun started to set the dolmac arrived and we took off for Fethiye. That night we made preparations to get a bus to Selcuk the next day.

Demre:                                                                                                                                                                   Days 273; 4-7/8-06:                                                                                                                                          After a short ride from the Antalya bus station we arrived in Demre. Picking up our packs we walked over to St. Nicholas (Santa Claus) Church. Here is where St. Nick was born and preached during his life. Also…HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Today was my dad’s birthday and, although there wasn’t as much celebration as we would have liked, we got some things for him to find; like a treasure hunt. At the Church we ran into someone who owned a pension outside of Demre town. Before sunset we went to the beach and celebrated my dad’s birthday by having dinner there. The next day the owner took us to the bus station and we headed off to Fethiye.

Antalya:                                                                                                                                                               Days 269-273; 4-2/6-06:                                                                                                                                 From Goreme we took the overnight bus to Antalya, arriving on the morning of April, 2. Met by a friend of friend, Zenep, at the otogar we hitched a ride to her home. As I walked into the house through the door the kitchen branched off to the left and a hallway, arriving in my parent’s room, bathroom, and Zenep’s room, off to the right. Continuing strait I arrived in the living room where Paul and I slept on two couches that fold into beds. As soon as we arrived we left again, taking the dolmac to the center of town and then walking to a church, Paul’s Place. The mass was in Turkish so we left halfway through and then walk to the waterfront. Overlooking the Aegean Sea I could make out the port down to the right where lots of ships docked after the day of fishing. Afterwards we went back to Zenep’s home for dinner.

CAPPADOCIA: Valley of the Fairy Chimneys                                                                                                 Day 268; 4-1-06:                                                                                                                                                       Today we had decided to go on the long 5km walk to the Valley of the Fairy Chimneys and then later in the evening take a bus down to Aksaray. Lonely Planet described the fairy chimneys well: “Over eons of geological time, wind, water, and sand erosion wore away portions of the tuff, carving it into elaborate, unearthly shapes. Boulders of hard stone, caught in the tuff and then exposed by erosion, protected it from further erosion from below. The result was a column or cone of tuff with a boulder perched on top, whimsically called a peribaca, or ‘fairy chimney. Entire valleys are filled with these formations, many of them amusingly phallic in appearance.” If you do not understand or wish to remind yourself of the meaning of “phallic”, please consult the nearest Webster’s at your own public library. After a longer-than-needed hike we arrived in the valley opposite the Fairy Chimneys. We climbed up the tuff pillars and reached the top, the divider between the two valleys. As I looked out I could see bunches of pillars with windows and doors carved into the rock faces. We climbed down into the valley and explored the passageways and dwellings, and rock climbing to a few second story windows where the stairs had given way.

CAPPADOCIA: Derenkuyu/Pidgin Valley

CAPPADOCIA: Goreme

Days 265-266; 3-29/30-06:

On the way to Cappadocia we learned that there was going to be a total eclipse in the region. As soon as we touched Goreme soil we scurried off to find a decent pension. We purchased Eclipse Shades and dashed up to the plateau of the Goreme region just as part of the sun had vanished. When we got to the top we looked out over the valley and were awestruck by what we saw. Everywhere we looked there were cone-shaped pillars of tuff, like pumice, standing 15-20 meters above the ground. Some of them had been dug out and converted into homes in the rock. We turned our attention to the sun once more, shades plastered to our face. Just as the sun began to disappear behind the moon everything got eerily dark and cold. Finally we could take off our glasses and look directly at the sun, now nothing more than a band off light encircling a dark moon. It started to get gradually lighter and we peeled our eyes away from the sun as not to get blinded. Through the cheering and clapping we made our way into the valley of tuff pillars to get a better look at them. Finally we arrived back at Paradise Pension and then went for dinner down the street. The following day we walked up the hill and visited the Goreme Open Air Museum. Inside the museum are tons of dwellings and churches cut into the cone-shaped tuff pillars. We entered and veered off to the left to visit a small house halfway up a cone of tuff and then a church adjacent to it. Walking down a ridge we entered a grave room, a couple of them still with bones in them. Carrying on up some steps we arrived at one of the biggest attractions in the Open Air Museum. It was a small church built in a crucifix format with depictions of the bible painted on the ceiling and walls. We continued on after our allotted five minutes expired to the Dark Church. Only mom and grandma went in because it costs extra to get in. Carrying on, we went into about 15 more dwellings before finally settling down for lunch under a cherry tree. After the bread and cheese we went on, even though we were almost through with the entire museum. I tried to climb up a chimney but in the end it was too steep. Finally finished we started to walk back down to town, but the family of four decided to go explore the nearby tuff cones next-door. We maneuvered through various hill-side dwellings before finally dropping down into Sword Valley. The valley was like a village, with a main road flowing through the center of town, houses and churches lined the streets. Following the main road almost out of Sword Valley we pasted through a Petra-like passage with high walls lining each side of the four foot path. We backtracked all the way out of the valley and then took the main road home.

Istanbul:

Days 261-264; 3-25/28-06:

We arrived in Istanbul, Turkey after a long lay-over in Dubai airport from the long Nairobi-Dubai flight. Although it was freezing cold and really dark outside, it seemed like Turkey was going to be a very nice place. We were not wrong. The next day we woke up to the fresh bread and cheese downstairs at the restaurant. We decided to go across town to a church there and maybe try to look in some mosques that way. When we had walked across the bridge, jumped aboard the tunel we had finally arrived at the church. It was closed. We started to walk back down when we saw a quaint side café, mainly for locals. We stopped there and I got a piece of bread like a folded pizza with potatoes inside (1.5 feet by 6 in.) for .75 Turkish Lira (50 cents). The rest got football shaped pizzas. Deciding to walk down to the Grand Bazaar we climbed back down into the Sultanamet area, only to find that the Bazaar was closed. We finally walked all the way to our hotel but before stopped at the Blue Mosque. Instead of the usual four minarets there were six on the Blue Mosque, equal to Mecca. When the Moslem ruler found out about this he was angry with the sultan who built the Blue Mosque. The sultan lent the ruler his builder who then built the seventh minaret at Mecca. Inside the Mosque is similar to the Taj Mahal, but not very much alike. The inside is very colorful with three ostrich eggs to keep away the spiders who don’t like the smell of the eggs. The next day we were trying to reach Cappadocia (pronounced Kappa-dok-ya) but instead of a early bus, we were scheduled to go on a night but that evening. My mom planned out a day of adventure for us, grandma wanted to get caught up with travelogue in Africa. We took a taxi over to Taxsim in the hope of reaching San Antonio in time for a Turkish mass. Arriving just as it started we were befuddled by the strange language taking us through the Stations of the Cross. Leaving five minutes later into the busy mall-like street we carried on a bit past the church to some ancient embassies that were supposed to be exciting. At the Embajada de Espana we were turned down at the metal gates. A few steps later found us speaking into the intercom at the Italian ambassador’s home. Conversing in Spanish to the gate keeper we gathered that the grounds were off limits. Finally we had hiked back to Taxsim and entered a market to get lunch. We picked up some bread, cheese and olives for lunch and headed for the park. Carrying on a bit we strolled past the Ritz-Carlton Istanbul and the Dolmabace palace and clock tower. Since it was late in the day we decided to catch a ferry back to Sultanamet. The ferry was a great bargain: 1 lira per person to get back to Sultanamet.