Talking Turkey Türkiye
This is a story extracted from notes of my trip through Turkey
I had been staying for a week or so in Olympos, which is right down the bottom of Turkey on the coast.
Olympos is known for being the home of the Olympic €˜eternal flame ™ which the visitor can go and see (and try and put out by standing on, if one wants to be a silly bugger and has been drinking.) the flames come licking up out of the rocks. These days the fire is a bit feeble, but in the old days, the flames used to be intense enough that ships used them to navigate at night.
It's also known for a community of travellers living in tree houses.
It was time to find a new horizon, so a group of us decided to head off to see the people who lived in caves out in Goreme.
Antalya was a stop off point on our way to Goreme. We had arrived in a minibus from the camping site, and the next bus didn't €™t leave until the evening, so we decided to spend the day seeing sites of interest outside the town.
We negotiated with a taxi driver to hire him and his cab for a day, to visit some ruins up in the mountains, and then down to some archaeologically important caves.
The ruins were our first stop. After a long drive up into the mountains we found a hilltop covered with spectacular Roman ruins poking up through the trees. There was a huge theatre built into the side of a hill with the most amazing views out into the mountains. The locals hold concerts up there in the summer that must be amazing.
Next stop was a cave where Neanderthals, Greeks, Romans, and any number of others had lived. It was cool and dark, and was packed with ambiance.
After the caves we thought that we were heading back to Antalya, but unexpectedly the taxi pulls into a farm. The taxi driver had made us an offer we couldn't refuse. We were to have lunch with his family.
'Oh, great'€™ I think as we slowly emerge from the car, €˜we're suddenly in an opening scene of a slasher film.
We faced a simple, farm house, and appearing at the door to greet us was the taxi driver's wife.
She was the spitting image of Andi McDowell, and though the meal was simple, and there was more then enough to sate our appetites I wasn't thrilled at the shotgun tactics. Is there such a phrase being held hospitality's hostage?
We were also a little dubious about quenching our thirst at the pump in the middle of a field. Bottled water is a requirement in Turkey.
Finally after an hour of stilted small talk, it was made known that we should hand over the folding stuff.
Turkey is a place where there are lots of interlocking deals and obligations.
We were to tip€™ the driver for kidnapping us.
Eventually we were back on our way to the Otogar (bus station) where we retrieved our gear, and boarded a bus out of Antalya.
I had been staying for a week or so in Olympos, which is right down the bottom of Turkey on the coast.
Olympos is known for being the home of the Olympic €˜eternal flame ™ which the visitor can go and see (and try and put out by standing on, if one wants to be a silly bugger and has been drinking.) the flames come licking up out of the rocks. These days the fire is a bit feeble, but in the old days, the flames used to be intense enough that ships used them to navigate at night.
It's also known for a community of travellers living in tree houses.
It was time to find a new horizon, so a group of us decided to head off to see the people who lived in caves out in Goreme.
Antalya was a stop off point on our way to Goreme. We had arrived in a minibus from the camping site, and the next bus didn't €™t leave until the evening, so we decided to spend the day seeing sites of interest outside the town.
We negotiated with a taxi driver to hire him and his cab for a day, to visit some ruins up in the mountains, and then down to some archaeologically important caves.
The ruins were our first stop. After a long drive up into the mountains we found a hilltop covered with spectacular Roman ruins poking up through the trees. There was a huge theatre built into the side of a hill with the most amazing views out into the mountains. The locals hold concerts up there in the summer that must be amazing.
Next stop was a cave where Neanderthals, Greeks, Romans, and any number of others had lived. It was cool and dark, and was packed with ambiance.
After the caves we thought that we were heading back to Antalya, but unexpectedly the taxi pulls into a farm. The taxi driver had made us an offer we couldn't refuse. We were to have lunch with his family.
'Oh, great'€™ I think as we slowly emerge from the car, €˜we're suddenly in an opening scene of a slasher film.
We faced a simple, farm house, and appearing at the door to greet us was the taxi driver's wife.
She was the spitting image of Andi McDowell, and though the meal was simple, and there was more then enough to sate our appetites I wasn't thrilled at the shotgun tactics. Is there such a phrase being held hospitality's hostage?
We were also a little dubious about quenching our thirst at the pump in the middle of a field. Bottled water is a requirement in Turkey.
Finally after an hour of stilted small talk, it was made known that we should hand over the folding stuff.
Turkey is a place where there are lots of interlocking deals and obligations.
We were to tip€™ the driver for kidnapping us.
Eventually we were back on our way to the Otogar (bus station) where we retrieved our gear, and boarded a bus out of Antalya.
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