This Woman Was Here

The Turkish breakfasts have been a lavish affair at every hotel we have stayed in. It generally includes a salad bar,

a yogurt bar with fresh and dried fruits, honey and jams,

Meats and cheeses,

a hot buffet with potatoes, several vegetable choices, soup, sausage (that looks like Vienna sausage) sometimes gozleme (village bread), quiche, or scrambled eggs.

This morning, also an egg station.

And of course a bread bar with sweet as well as savory choices.

Today we drive 3.5 hours heading east through main industrial area where sugar beets are grown and processed into sugar in huge factories.

Serder explains how different Slavic languages are from English. The English sentence structure of ‘I am going to school’ would be ‘school going to I am.’ The negative goes at end: ‘school going to I am not.’ For a restaurant, instead of saying closed it would say ‘open not.’

Our first stop is a Caravanserai (caravan hotel) built in 1278 AD. It is typical Seljuk architecture, with the entrance heavily decorated and the rest of the walls plain.

The Seljuk government built these caravan hotels every 30 miles, one day’s journey apart, and guaranteed the safety of traders along the route, so if your cargo was stolen, you were reimbursed. It was the first travel insurance. Traders were allowed to stay up to three days for free. Caravans arrived before dusk, the gates were closed, and guards patrolled the walls.

Summer quarters (this area is very hot in summer, 100 degrees) were open air. Platforms separated a bottom floor for animals and a top floor for people.

Winter quarters were inside, with the same platforms. The vaulted ceilings are black from the smoke of coal fires used to keep warm. Openings in the ceiling provided some natural light.

Service areas line one side of the Caravanserai. There would be restaurants, carpenters, metal workers, doctors, everything one might need while on caravan.

A square pavilion in the middle of the courtyard provided a place for prayer.

The walls were built of limestone but the inlaid decorations on the entrance are of dark and light marble.

The shop outside the Caravanserai did a booming business in tea (always served in and short glasses) and Turkish goods.

I fell in love with cushions made from old kilims (asking 30Tl each or $10), and being the sucker for a bargain that I am, I fell for the buy ten and get four free. I looked desperately for Ellie, but not finding her, I decided to go for it anyway. The kilims are all between 40 and 50 years old and are gorgeous. After I had picked out my fourteen pillows, I had to think how I was going to get them home. No way they were going into my bag, not with everything else I have bought, so I bought a carry on bag for another 60Tl (down from 90Tl), or close to $25. I like the bag anyway, so I get to bring home a new bag and old kilims.

Next, we visited a primary school.

Gate 1 built a lunchroom and bathrooms for this school, and they supports a different school each year. The kids were very friendly, taking us by the hand and leading us into the classrooms, wanting to show off their English, basically, “What is your name?” My name is..” and the name of colors.

I was given a snowman. They wanted us to take their pictures and then show them the pictures. One little girl, who had no trouble working my iphone, took my phone and scrolled back quickly through the photos to see where we had been. She took several pictures.

Ellie sat down and drew a portrait of one young girl, and drew a fascinated crowd. When she finished, everyone applauded.

The portrait went up on the bulletin board as we were leaving.

We pass three more Caravanserai on our way to Cappadocia.

I’m fascinated by the walled courtyards attached to many houses, many with outbuildings with wattle roofs.

The They grow apricots, almonds, and grapes in this region, but the grapes are grown close to the ground.

Seder tells us that 60 degree temperature swing is not unusual, and as we arrive in Nevishir, it starts to snow.

We begin to see the tufa rock formations that were carved into rooms by early Christians to escape persecution. Tufa is limestone with pumice and obsidian. It is a well-insulated stone, cool in summer and warm in winter. We begin to see layers of color in the exposed rock faces. The white color is tufa, the yellow is from sulfur, the red is iron oxide, and the black is from obsidian. The Red Valley that runs through this area is the Turkish Grand Canyon.

Our next stop is the state carpet weaving factory.

According to our host, they have the largest collection of carpets in the world, over 1700. We are ushered into the weaving room where five girls are working on carpets.

Our guide shows us a picture of the oldest known carpet, discovered in a frozen Siberian tomb from 5^th century BC. Carpets were traditionally woven out of wool, but silk came to Anatolia in 15^th century.

They ushered us into another room to demonstrate how silk is harvested from the silk worm cocoons. First the cocoons must be soaked in boiling water to soften them,

and then a brush is used to catch the fibers and gather them together. There is over a mile of silk thread in a cocoon.

After that we are ushered into the carpet showing room where we take seats on benches and are offered anything from apple tea, Turkish coffee, wine, beer, or ouzo.

Then the rolling out of the carpets begins. We are shown wool carpets, cotton carpets (very like silk) and silk carpets.

Then anyone interested in a carpet can talk to one of the many representatives willing to punch numbers into his calculator to tell you how much money he can save you. Boy, was I glad I bought my kilims earlier. I got away cheap. On our way out, we spotted this collection of old hope chests.

Our hotel is a few miles down the road from the carpet factory in Urgup.

We are barely in the hotel for an hour when it is time to go see the whirling dervishes. It is held in a Caravenserai from 1239.

For the dervishes, whirling is a form of meditation and communing with god.  It was a remarkablle thing to watch. There were four musicians, playing double drum, flute, an instrument like a lyre, and a flat many stringed instrument. One man sang a lilting chant very much like a call to prayer and then five dervishes and one leader performed a ceremony in which they bowed to one another and to god before they began to whirl. We were not allowed to take pictures during the ceremony but after they finished, they came out and whirled for a few minutes so that we could take pictures.

Afterwards we were served a warm clove, cinnamon, cherry drink in the courtyard beneath a full moon.

Dinner was underway when we got back to the hotel. There are more exotic tastes than I can begin to try.