Roman Ruins @ Ephesus

We landed in Fethiye and bused it over to Selcuk. After being on a rocky sailboat for the past 4 days our sea legs had matured and our land legs were completely gone. It was a really strange feeling, but when you’ll be standing there talking to someone or just walking down the street and all of a sudden you stutter step in one direction as if you were about to fall over. It was quite entertaining and took a good two days before walking on land felt normal.



We ended up checking out the ruins the following day. On the trek to Ephesus we found some outdoor exercise equipment. For some reason this pink contraption below was particularly entertaining. I think Jess had to literally pull us off that machine. The Roman ruins were impressive, but after seeing so much of it on our blues cruise we were not in a state of awe that we should have been. I think there is only so much Roman ruin sightseeing a person can tolerate before getting bored of them. None the less Ephesus was impressive and the amount of preserved and reconstructed architecture is amazing.



In Selcuk I met a fellow American from LA. Jennifer had just done the Blues Cruise as well. She had also just regained her walking abilities. Americans backpackers are rare breed after the summer months because most of them go back to school. At this point, the Americans I do meet are the more hardcore long term travel backpackers. Jennifer has just spent her summer working Greece and will be trying to get a job in Turkey.

Blues Cruise!

This morning we all woke up early to start our 4 day 3 night sailboat cruise along the Adriatic. Our destination is Epheusus. The Blues Cruise was by far one of the coolest experiences. Our boat is crewed by a captain and two crewmates. Their English is not the best but mostly everything is brokenly communicated.



The cruise was a lot of relaxing on deck, catching some rays, exploring lagoons via snorkeling, checking out hippy settlements along beaches, checking out islands along the way and jumping from any rock that has a deep though landing area. We even found a narrow area of water to stand in. Here is a pic of me and Casey once we swam out to that shallow island.



There was one in particular jump that was really scary that even Casey, who is usually up for anything, backed out of. One of the older brits commented that a rock near where we were anchored was a good jumping point. Looking at the height we thought he was joking. But sure enough he got in the water and started swimming towards the island.





I followed but when I got up to the top and almost backed out. Looking down the side of this cliff, which took an inordinate amount of barefoot climbing to get up to, every ounce of sense told me not to jump. I froze for a second and then thought “well when’s the next time I’ll be Turkey?” with that in mind I took a big leap to make sure I cleared the outward part of the cliff and shouted out what Casey called a “death moan”. Here’s a snap of it. It was much less impressive when the 60 year old brit came jumped in after me.



We even visited a Greek island to check out some ruins. Who would have thought I’d still get to cross Greece off my list while visiting Turkey. We explored the entire island and found a pack of goats. There were five of them on this tiny island, quite strange. Up at the top Casey gave us a quick lesson on some yoga poses.





During the evenings we slept out on the desk under the stars. The night is pitch black and only small tiny lights from distant boats can be seen. Looking up the entire sky is lit up with starts. It reminds me of going to the country sides of Kansas away from the city’s light pollution, but on the ocean, the sky is so much more expansive. It’s an incredible feeling laying there and seeing how encompassing the blanket of stars is; almost like looking through a fisheye lens.





I never really got sea sick with exception to one night. We usually dined in the back of the boat under a tent like area. In the middle is a light dangling down laminating over the entire dining area. That night the ocean was particularly choppy and the cove that we ducked into was not as well protected. The entire meal consisted of a rocking motion going back and forth and back and forth. That motion was exponentially amplified by the swaying light which made the shadows all around us sway even more. After dinner I rushed to the front of the boat along the layout area. It was dark and just laying flat and watching the stars made me feel instantly better.

I'm gonna climb that mountain

It is really chill scenes hear in Olympos. The entire setup is relaxing. There are elevated seating area platforms with pillows all around. It is really easy to lounge around all day. With a full service restaurant and service to your seat it was really easy to waste away entire days just relaxing. The second day of our stay Matt, Ennes, Casey and I decided to go conquer one of the peaks that overlook the Olympos road and ocean. And conquer we did, with exception for Matt who probably has more sense than the other three that continued.





The rocks were hard and held up under weight unlike the sandstone material we were use to climbing in Cappadocia. These rocks however were jaggedly sharp from the wear which on one hand created really good foot and hand grips, but on the other hand cut the crap out of your hands and boots. The climbing was challenging and fun. We ended up accidentally going down the wrong cliff and had to come down a rock quarry looking valley. I was glad I wore my boots this time around as we were pretty much rock surfing down the side of the mountain. With each step a good chuck of rock would slide down with us, enjoyable at first, it got really old. The trek up and down took the better part of a day but the view at the top was well worth it.



The rest of afternoon was spent on the beach relaxing, until someone decided it was a good idea to have a rock skipping contest. The beach here is like the one at Nice, France. Full of water polished round rocks. I think Casey, Ennes and I spent a lot more time than I would like to admit trying to see who could get more skips in a row. I think Ennes won with 13 or something like that.

Monsoon in Olympos!

Casey, Jess, and I arrive at the Olympos bus station early in the morning to what seemed like monsoon season. I’ve yet to experience an actual monsoon, but I would imagine it to be quite similar to the rain that was falling at that instance. We were soaked from our 15feet dash from the bus to the shelter of the station. Another bus took us down the mountain top towards the tree house hostels.



Olympos is small. It is pretty much one dirt/gravel road that leads to the beach and in between is a protected Roman ruins area. On one side of the road is the base of mountain and on the other side are various treehouse hostels. There are orange and pomegranate trees planted in rows in these hostels. The road is muddy from the rain and the bus creates deep grooves into the mud, hopefully that draws a clear pictures of what we had to walk through.



We arrived to breakfast at Byron’s, the hostel we’re staying at. The breakfast is probably the best free breakfast I’ve had all year since I started traveling in April. You get a freshly cooked omelet with peppers, onions, etc, unlimited watermelon, and fruit, bread with honey, jam, and butter, unlimited coffee and tea. I was impressed. Furthermore we saw two more familiar faces, Ennes and Matt.

Goodbye Cappadocia!

Today we finished the guided tour. The day started off visiting some of Cappadocia’s famous rock formations and then a rock village that made me feel like I was in an episode of the Flintstones. Next stop was a plate shop where a store showed off its plate making and painting talents.



Afterwards we visited a portion of Cappadocia that was protected, meaning there is an extra entrance fee required. This area has some of the most preserved Christian cave paintings. The colors are still brilliantly bright. These caves were all amazing and full of tourists that didn’t know how to turn their flashes off.



During the evening we visited my favorite restaurant for their cappuccino and milk shakes. It was an awesome last meal and the service from the family’s kids was awesome. That night we waited at the local bus station for an overnight bus to Antalya and then for a layover to Olympos. I almost got in a fight with a fat Turkish guy because he would not let me recline my chair. Initially, I was trying to be polite when he protested my lean back move. However at around 10-11pm when everyone had their seats reclined, I again reclined my chair and he protested in Turkish. I ignored him at first, but then he hit the back of my seat, I stood up and at that point I was ready to fight. And with another half Chinese half Irish guy next to me that had my back, I was prepared to take those odds. In the end he backed down and I got some sleep.

The Best Idea Ever: Night Climbing on Sandstone

That night Casey and I still had energy left over and we decided to do some night exploring. It started out as a joke that we would do some exploring and climbing at night, but then after thinking about it for a while it actually sounded like a scary/fun idea. So we are both armed with a flash light and hike towards the first set of valleys.



The moon is out and we are able to seem most of the areas by moonlight. We picked out a smaller non-life threatening rock and start to climb. We take turns holding the light and climbing. Some of the areas are in the shadows and it is hard to see the holds. Another problem is while climbing up sand flakes off and a lot of times lands in your eye. By the time we both get to the top of the structure we realize that it is actually a lot taller than our initial impressions. Furthermore we see a few lights on the bottom near were started and we can vaguely hear what sounds like voices. Then a light flickers on and big flashlight appears shining up towards our direction. It moves around searing for a target. Casey and I both duck into some cover. It turned out we were climbing on top of someone’s house. The commotion and falling rock/debris woke them up. It must have been scary hearing two large men climbing on top of your house. Thus we decided to climb down and around the backside of the rock.



We continued to climbing up and around the main valley next to the road. The sandstone is white and it should be easy to see two figure climbing, but I guess no is looking or cares. The trail up to the base of the valley is really sanding and it’s a struggle to get stable non-sinking footing while trying to climb up. After what going about half way up we seen a large cone shaped building with lots of windows and doors. It was a really spooky and eerie looking structure. For some reason this environment reminded of the time Faheem thought it was a good idea to waste his free movie tickets to go see “The Cave” and I was waiting for one of scary looking underground creatures to climb out of one of the many windows on all fours while sticking to the walls. The good thing about this rock is that there is a narrow “U” shaft on one side where we can kind of Jet-Li your way up. Jet-Li is now a verb; Casey and I use it to describe when you have to put each foot on the opposite sides to slowly push your way up. So we each take turns Jet-Li-ing up this spooking looking rock.



At the top half the room is washed away from the weather exposes a really good panorama view of Cappadocia. The wall is cross-sectioned and on the other side is another room with a better view. So we have to bear hug that cross section of the wall, one foot on each floor of each room. It was stupid and scary move but the view was well worth it. Even when you consider that we I went over the wall, it crumbled and fell all the way to the bottom. Luckily with my cat like reflects I had already fallen forward and into the room I was trying to get to.

Our last campaign ended in defeat or I guess what some would call self preservation. We had ventured all the way up the valley to its peak. We were overlooking the entire rockscape. To one side was probably a 10foot decline (that was too steep to stop yourself on) before it dropped another good 40 to 50 feet straight down and on the other-side was just a straight down drop of 50-60 feet. Both sides fell into complete darkness and we couldn’t see the bottom. But at the top was stretch of narrow peak that if you were able to run across without falling to either side, you would get all the way up to the top of the valley. The peak felt pretty sandy and like a lot of the houses would probably have crumpled under our weight. Plus we had been on the top of the valley earlier that previous day and it would have take ages to get back because you wouldn’t have been able to descent the same way back down. After thinking about it doing short test footings for about half an hour we decided to call it a night. Besides we had already stayed up way passed the 1am call the Turkish police time that we agreed on with Jess.



On the way down we stop by the grape vineyard and got some fresh grapes. They were amazingly sweet and really annoying because the rest of our walk back our hands were sticky.

Cappadocia: Let's go climbing

I started to get a little restless and wanted to explore more Turkey. Coincidentally, I met two Seattleites, Casey and Jessica that were also about to depart Istanbul and check out more of what Turkey had to offer. We ended up booking the same itinerary through the travel agency next to our hostel through a guy named Vulcan.



We jumped on an overnight bus to Cappadocia. The buses here in Turkey have steward on board who serves free water, coffee and tea. The weird part is that they serve it in the middle of the night. During the late hours they run a loud annoying football game. The TV’s don’t get turned off until well into the morning. Even though the bus is empty we are not allowed to move seats since during stop at night they sometimes pick up more passengers. We arrive at the Cappadocia or specifically Goreme early in the morning. The first day is free for us explore.

Cappadocia is an inland part of Turkey has some old cave houses that have been in use as late as the early 90’s. These cave houses are networked by underground tunnels and are found scattered all over the valleys of Cappadocia.
This area is completely unprotected and we are free to explore over the entirety of the park unsupervised.



While exploring the networks of rooms carved into the earth we randomly ran into some friends of Casey and Jess. It was completely random and we ended up climbing and exploring the rest of the day with them. The rock valleys are sandstone and lot of it breaks off when climbing or just walking on it. It is amazing that all this is completely open and unprotected. Some of the rooms we find still have cave paintings in them. These paintings depict Christian icons. And since this area is now mostly Muslim the faces of saints are mostly scratched out.

The only remains of the large communities of houses are usually large room with door opening and windows. A lot of the times water has carved a room in half showing us a cross section view of the room. It seems that each house has a fireplace craved into one of the walls and recent soot shows that some people have still used it for burning timber. Some of the rooms contain a series of smaller nooks in a series. These were used to nest pigeons. Their dung was harvested for the curing of leather and hides.



There are tunnels that go underground and wind around the valley sometimes jumping above ground before dipping into the shadows again. The five of us are armed with two flash lights and blindly follow one another through these narrow passages. Sometimes there will be a section where the light shines in from a collapse and sometime the corridors deadend into a collapse. The entire experience was really exciting.



The second day we end joining the first of a two day organized tour of the area. We saw a lot of what we explored the previously. One of the stop was a city that was completely underground. The chambers were really small and the ceilings low. This underground city was used by Christians to hide from the Muslims. It was almost like exploring an ant hill. Christians must have been smaller back then because none of these rooms had ceilings high enough to stand in. Your backs are arched the entire time. That gets annoying really quick.



The rooms all still have the originally chisel marks on the walls. The consistency of the strikes and random nature of the markings almost makes it look like wallpaper. All the rooms are designed and created for a sole purpose. Like the modern day house each room has a different purpose. As for bathrooms they would dig a room, use it for a while and then collapse it. So there was a constant building and rebuilding process for this underground city. The most impressive view was from the top of one of the ventilation shafts. These shafts circulate warm and cool air. As you stick you head into the shaft to view below a shift breeze of cooled air rushes up from below. I couldn’t see the bottom of the shaft.

Istanbul @ Night

The atmosphere during the day is lazy and shops are operating on a partial crew. The food stands are visited, but not at all busy. This scene is completely opposite at night. People all gather in the Sultanahmet area and the grassy areas are completely covered. Shops and tents are now all open and there is liveliness in the air. With blue and orange glows of the two giant mosques the area is teeming with excitement.





At night a group of us head out to the food stands to try some of the famously sweet Turkish desserts. Each stand is brightly lit and they are all lined up along the gardens and walk ways. People are out with their families to enjoy all the freshly made foods.

Yes Thank You - Istanbul

Istanbul turkey was quite overwhelming. It is large city and stretches quite widely. Istanbul actually has two sides, one half that is considered Asian and the other half European. Out of all the cities in Turkey, I am told that Istanbul is the most westernized and prices parallel those seen in Europe. I hopped on a bus to the Sultanahmet, which has all the famous sights of Istanbul.



I meet up with Matt and Ennes, two Australians also arriving in Istanbul and heading to Sultanahmet area. The Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia are directly across from one another. I walk in between them to get to the Antique Hostel in Istanbul. This hostel is directly to the side of the Blue Mosque and has a balcony area that overlooks water. Matt and Ennes are staying at another hostel next to mine. After checking in I meet up with Matt and Ennes to grab some Brunch.



The first day I ended up hanging out with some of the other people at my hostel. We all headed out to the new area of Istanbul to check out some local spots. There is a local gathering area setup with giant bean bags and tables. The place is filled with groups of people chilling out and smoking water pipe.



All the people that I ended up meeting the first night all left the following day. So I was left to explore Istanbul by myself. While walking around the city, I randomly ran into a person from the hostel and we both decided to go visit the two mosques. The Blue Mosque is free to enter. You must take off your shoes and enter the correct tourist entrance.




The Hagia Sophia cost considerably more to enter, but there is more to see. This mosque is multi level unlike the swift walk through of the Blue Mosque. The Hagia Sophia use to be a patriarchal basilica full of mosaic artwork. When this basilica became a mosque, the tiles were plastered over and then painted over. Today the Hagia Sophia is a museum and some of the plaster has been removed to reveal the intricate mosaic tiles. The Hagia Sophia is still behind held up in the center by a huge scaffold.

London, Again

Before I leave London I visited Leah who just moved to London for school. After taking several buses I met her on the south bank near Kings Cross station. The last time I saw Leah was at my goodbye party and it’s nice to finally see a familiar face after all this time. We decided to check out the Bridge Festival on the Thames River and miraculously the weather in London was nice and sunny.



One of the nights we explored London by bus and got back pretty late. Since neither of us really knows the area that well, we got lost on the way back. Instead of getting off at the right stop we sat on the bus all the way back to Kings Cross station and ended up walking back using tall buildings as a landmark. After we finally got back to the house, her flatmates all told us, that we walked through one of rougher areas of London, who knew?



The next night we went out to a pub bar and I had to catch early morning flight at Heathrow. We headed back around 1 or 2 am and took the bus. On the bus there was a group of French guys. They were harassing everyone on the bus and one of them went and grabbed a girl. The girl was with a pretty big Russian guy and naturally an argument started. Next thing we know a drink is thrown and all the French guys start fighting this one Russian guy. It was ridiculous one of the Frenchies even jump ninja turtle kicked the Russian guy. It got to the point where the Russian guy was on the floor of the bus and the Frenchies were stomp kicking him. Finally other people on the bus stepped in and pushed and fought the group of French guys off the bus. Leah and I quickly got off at that stop and watched the entire incident from away.

Appleshaw: Proper Village Life

My next stop is London. There are many factors in this decision. To get to Turkey from Morocco one way flights cost between 800-1000 USD, while a flight from Gibraltar to London and also London to Istanbul totaled less than 300 USD. In addition, somehow my credit card information was stolen and charges started to appear from Miami, FL so my replacement card has been sent to James’ house in Appleshaw.

The Emilie Hostel in Gibraltar is perhaps the worst hostel I've stayed at in my 6months of travel through Europe. I am not at all reluctant to leave this place. In the morning Nick, Paulina and I set out on foot to the airport. They are flying to Spain and I will fly to Gatwick, London. Gibraltar’s airport is quite unique. There is a major road and pedestrian walkway that cuts right now the middle of the airstrip. So we walk across the land strip and say our goodbyes at the airport.




I landed in London early in the morning and booked a train ride from Gatwick to Central London. I bought a slow ticket since it was much cheaper than the Gatwick Express, fast train. Then I accidentally got on the Gatwick Express and didn’t realize until the train had already departed and tickets were being checked. The girl checking tickets wanted me to buy a Gatwick Express ticket, but after much bargaining she let me off with a warning.

I got to Central London and made it to Victoria Station well ahead of the departure time of my bus to Appleshaw. I end up at the same Library near Victoria Station as several months back to relax and do some reading. After taking the bus I end up arriving at James’ pretty late at night.



James wasn’t kidding when he said I would be staying at a proper village. The country side of England is cold this time of the year. Everything is green and roads are narrow. We were able to check out a proper village pub where, like cheers, everyone knows your name. Or in this case James’ name. The next day we checked out the Salisbury Cathedral.



The next day Cheri made a trip down from Leeds on her way to Whales. She stopped by for a night and we took a trip to Stone Hinge. Stone Hinge was one of the sights I missed on my original path through the UK, but now I get to see it. We got the audio tour of Stone Hinge with the tickets and from all the audio we came to the conclusion that no one really knows how the site was constructed and the physical feat of lifting such a big and heavy stone from whales to its current location is about as amazing as the Pyramids of Giza. On our way back from Stone Hinge we saw a tank.