Never uneventful

I don't think that I have every managed to take a trip by public transportation anywhere in Africa and have it be uneventful. It doesn't seem to matter where I am or what form of transportation I take: bush taxi, bus, train, bike (wait, is that public transportation?)...This held true last week when I was in Morocco too. Of the three forms of public transportation we took not a one seemed ordinary.

The day we arrived we flew into Casablanca but decided to go directly to Marrakesh by train. The trip started out easy enough. I was actually pleased at how easy it was to get to the trains and buy tickets. My french was still good enough to cause no problems in that way. Then we had to transfer...and after the expected 2 hour wait, the train was another hour late. Ok, so that wasn't really a big deal. However I was not expecting the train to be quite so...stuffed...shall I say. Standing room only. What I really mean is that I got pushed into a hallway, did a face plant against the wall and required 15 minutes to figure out how to get both feet on the ground so that I had a chance of not falling over (except we were so packed I didn't have space to fall either). Then came the man who insisted on getting the food cart through the packed area, which resulted in me balancing back on one foot while somehow suspending myself over the baggage. No! Don't touch that arm...it's the only thing that is keeping me upright! Thankfully we did arrive just fine in Marrakesh, and we even got to sit down for the last hour of the four hour trip. Which worked out just fine until our taxi dumped us on the street and said he couldn't take us any farther. Too bad we didn't have any idea where we were, or where our hotel was! Thankfully the men there seemed to be willing to do just about anything for a bit of money so I finally bargained one down to a reasonable price (??) to take us to the hotel. After winding down narrow alleys and through dark passageways I was beginning to wonder if we'd ever arrive, if he actually knew where we were going, or if we were going to get even more lost. Seeing the hotel had never felt better!

I guess I'd be a bit incorrect to say that the second trip was eventful. It was more what happened just before and just after, which felt like part of the trip. We arrived at the bus station thinking that we were a good 20 minutes early, only to find that as soon as we boarded the bus it pulled away. Phew! Close call. Then when we arrived in Essaouira we discovered that the entire town had lost its electricity. Now you might think, big deal. You're in Africa. Unfortunately our hotel entrance was in the middle of a very dark alley. The sort where you can't see anything, much less the door. Thank goodness again for the people. Someone turned us around, and pointed to a specific spot in the darkness, and what do you know - there was a glimmer of candle light just there. Hurrah. Now if only they had sent us to find our room with a candle. Ended up making do with the flash of a camera until I could dig out my headlamp (never leave home without it).

The most unexpected moment occurred during the six hour bus trip from Essaouira to Casablanca. When we were about half way there (roughly 120 km from both of the marked towns on the map) we were going through a small town whose name started with a Z (but couldn't be found in the guidebook). Suddenly there was a bit of clunk sound. The type that sounded like some of the luggage below falling over, or even perhaps out of the bus. Sadly it wasn't that easy. No, it turns out we had just hit a horse! I still can't figure out how that happened. But I did figure that we were in for a long pause. Sure enough all of the men piled out of the bus, and pretty soon there was a fairly large group of people clustered around the bus. Some of them seemed quite upset. A bit of a relief when someone returned to the bus to say that the horse was alive! That definitely made things a bit easier. Frankly I was surprised when the bus filled up again and we were moving on in just 20 minutes. Of course we did stop again about 2 minutes down the road at the gendarmerie, where 3 people went back off the bus (the driver included) to file a report (I suspect). Ten minutes later we were finally off for good. Only a 30 minute delay!

As I sad traveling in Africa is never uneventful. But it does provide some of the best stories I have from my time there. Morocco was no exception.

Ways to keep occupied on a car trip

I find that taking public transportation can be both a lovely way to see some of a new country and also one of the more monotonous parts of a trip. To keep myself from nodding off and accidentally landing on my neighbor I decided that I'd use the trip back from the Israel border to try to learn what the Arabic numbers look like. This was only doable because many of the license plates have the plate number written in both forms (I get so confused trying to figure out what to call each type of number as technically the US uses Arabic numbers and Arabic uses ??? Hindi ???). By then end of my hour and a half drive I was pleased to be able to say that I knew the symbols for all the numbers except for 4 and 6 (which Nathan quickly filled in for me). Now I just need to learn to count to ten out loud so that I can add another counting language to my repertoire.

For pronunciation
For writing the numbers

A new food

While in Jordan I've been introduced to a new food that I've discovered I quite like (thanks Nathan!). It's called labneh. I had to go online to find out exactly what it is since the only ingredient listed on the package is cow's milk. Basically labneh is an extremely soft cheese (about half way between yogurt and cream cheese). It's light, fresh and a bit mild. I found directions on how you could make it, but I'd be much happier if I could actually find it in Turkey or the US. I highly recommend you try it if you ever get the chance!

Karak Castle

One of the things I love about exploring sites in non-Western countries is the utter freedom you have to explore. Sure there might be a fence around some portion of the place, but just as often a guardian will lead you through a hole encouraging you to explore (just as happened with us at the "closed" Lot's Cave). Karak Castle, south of Amman in Jordan was another one of those places. We were free to follow all the small dark stone staircases we found, occasionally arriving into a lower cavern often lit with only a few small holes of sunlight. No where was off limits. Sure, there was an area with some barbed wire around it, but then another path just led right around that (makes one think that they weren't so serious about the barbed wire). We scrambled up onto the keep, climbing until we were on the very top - literally looking down over a hundred feet to the city below - and could enjoy the distant view of the Dead Sea (or the Died Sea as a few signs proclaimed). Having such freedom to explore really makes you feel like you are discovering a site. That even though it has been excavated and cleaned up there is still enough of a sense of adventure to allow you to make some sort of claim of the spot. After all, as the pristine snow we tramped through revealed, no one else had been there, at least not that day. I can definitely say that I saw (or experienced?) Karak Castle, and all the side rooms, dungeons and tunnels it contained.

Differences

The more I travel, the more I seem to be surprised by the little things. When I'm in a new country the big new sights are things that I expect, are in fact a good portion of why I chose to go to that place. But it always seems to be the little things that make an impression on me and stick in my mind. I'm currently sitting in a friend's apartment in Amman, Jordan and except for the snow, things are pretty much how I remember from my brief trip here last year...except for this one thing that I seem to keep noticing. In the dead of winter there is a truck that rolls around the streets of Amman playing music that reminds me of an ice cream truck in the US. What??? Surely not. Why would people be going out to buy ice cream when there is at least an inch of snow on the ground (snow that they normally don't see)? Well it turns out that the truck is announcing its presence for those who want to buy gas. It cruises the streets waiting for patrons interested in changing their gas canisters. While it seems a bit of an odd way to deal with it, I have heard it often enough to think that a house wouldn't be too long without gas if they were waiting. And it does seem a bit more welcome in the middle of winter then ice cream would be.

A White Jerusalem

No matter what I tried, it seems I was doomed to fail in my efforts to outrun the snow. I left Amman this week partly because I just couldn't handle the idea of snow on my vacation. Only looking out the door this morning I see a pretty heavy snow falling in Jerusalem. Go figure. I guess it will make for pretty pictures, and ones you wouldn't be able to get very often. Now I'm just going to have to work a little bit harder at convincing myself that I am going to stay out all day to explore the old city.

Desert Castles

Desert Castle
Originally uploaded by pollhup

Each of the desert castles east of Amman in Jordan has its own unique characteristic to make it worth seeing. Yesterday Nathan took me out for the day to explore three of these castles - Qala'at Al-Azraq, Qusayr Amra and Qasr al-kharana. I have to say that the first was by far the most fun to explore. One of the joys of traveling outside of the "Western world" is that you are not as limited in where you can go within a particular location. The rule seems to be just don't be stupid enough to get yourself hurt or into trouble. I must admit that Al-Azraq provided plenty of places where I could have easily fallen to the ground, but luckily the gods of balance were with me yesterday. Al-Azraq is an old castle that is built entirely of black basalt. And I mean entirely - roof included. I'm often amazed at the constructions earlier period could complete. Natural stone arches supporting a fully stone ceiling. Oftentimes it appeared that the ceiling stones could just to come dropping down at any moment, but I guess that there enduring placement is proof enough that they are well wedged in. The highlights of this fort? The basalt door at the main entrance. Each side constructed from a single stone, they had rudimentary hinges comprised of an extra protrusion on the top and bottom which fit perfectly into shallow bowls and on which the door could swing. I found myself surprised that I could move such a heavy door with a single hand (of course the more modern addition of grease probably helped a bit). What a piece of work! More fun though, were the staircases on thin air. Seriously. I felt like I was walking up to the sky with very little support. The ingenious construction involved long pieces of stone anchored into the construction of the wall, jutting out over the ground. Each step separate from the others, and often a bit of a long reach, the reassurance of the wall to grasp was an appreciated presence. But clambering up them did make me wonder if perhaps this is what a stairway to heaven would look like. In any case, the desert castles of Jordan are well worth a day trip to see.

I'm a travelling fool

I found this neat widget as I was wasting time today and trying to figure out where I wanted to go during my two week break that is coming up soon (Morocco maybe?). It makes me feel like I haven't been to that many places after all.

Get Your Own Map

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In just two days

In just two days I'll be in Italy! And I feel like now that the school week has finally ended I am at last getting excited. New places to explore. A switch to churches from mosques. A language that may at least sound somewhat familiar. Beautiful scenery. A much needed change. Tuscany here I come.

Not all bad

Realizing that my early post made it seem like my long weekend didn't go well I felt I'd be remiss if I didn't admit that it wasn't all bad. I had an experience which was probably my most authentic Turkish night out while in Bursa. After wandering around the area by our hotel Saturday night D and I couldn't find anywhere that looked like it would be good for hanging out, getting a drink or two and just relaxing. So we headed back to our hotel to ask the man at the front desk if he could give us a recommendation. He did better than that. He asked us to wait a few minutes and then came out with a friend and proceeded to take us along on his Saturday night out. This is typical of the warmth of the Turkish people. We ended up at a live music lounge with him and about 5 of his friend (included one other desk clerk from the hotel - the third was still at the hotel on duty). We listened to 3 or 4 performers, got a sense of excitement when a "famous singer from Istanbul" (their words - I still don't know who she was) was spotted and brought up to the stage for two songs, bounced up and down to peppy Turkish music when they pulled me to my feet...Really, just felt like I was getting an authentic experience as the room was filled with Turks, and in fact I'm not sure there were any other foreigners in the place. A pleasant evening that was everything we were looking for - and a much better end to our brief sojourn then expected. (Those are our hosts - Erkan and Alessandro - in the picture)

A series of unfortunate events

A series of unfortunate events. That's exactly what our trip this weekend seemed to be. Not that anything went seriously wrong, just that things didn't seem to go quite right. And really, all I'm talking about is the transportation. I expected there to be issues - Seker Bayram is one of the big holidays in Turkey (the end of Ramadan) but it wasn't too bad in terms of crowding until we were making our way home on Sunday. But the story starts early Friday morning. We got up and out before 7 in the hope that we would make it to Pendik in time for the 8:15 ferry. After waiting over 45 minutes for a minibus in front of the school we weren't holding our breath anymore. So imagine our surprise when we got to the ferry terminal and could still see the ferry. Rush, hurry....run on out....oh - the ferry just pulled away. So close, and yet so far. At least there's no real schedule for the rest of our transportation. So we waited for an hour and a half for the next ferry, at least there was no way we could be late for it! The only part of trip that worked out exactly as it should have was the bus ride from the ferry in Yalova to Bursa. No problems there. Arrive in Bursa, easily find the bus that our book said we should take into the area our hotel is in. Things are looking up, until we ride the bus directly past where we were supposed to get off. No signs made it apparent that indeed this was it. Eventually we made it back to our hotel, just a bit later then it could have been. Afterwards we chose to walk a bit more - seemed safer...or not...definitely took the long round about route. It was a bit of a trying day.

Day two: hopefully this will be better. Or not. We went up to Uludag mountain, fairly pleasant and a lovely view of the autumn leaves. Only there isn't really any way down. We start walking, get on a minibus which takes us where we are *supposed* to be able to get a minibus back to Bursa. Not so much an option. Instead we end up heading back up the mountain to the town we just walked down from. Tried to get a hotel to call a taxi for us, seemed to be a miscommunication (not so surprising with my bad Turkish), finally the doorman took care of us and we had a minibus entirely to ourselves back down. Thinking we had learned our lesson we took a dolmush back to our hotel area...better then walking in the rain. Only we end up in the rain anyways since it didn't go quite where we were expecting and dropped us a 30 minute walk from our hotel in the pouring rain. Completely soaked upon return (and we even tried to do the smart thing that time!). That is it for today!

Sunday we had to get back to campus, and while nothing really went wrong (unless you count our bus in Bursa just stopping on the side of the road for 20 minutes for no apparent reason - the driver just thumbed the wheel several times, waited, did it again, and then unexpectedly got back in and drove the bus off again. Still don't understand that one) it was just a long trip. The way there took us 4-5 hours, coming back was more like 9. Lots of traffic, a 3 hour wait for a ferry since the other ones had already sold out, a long wait in the cold for the minibus back to campus.

There's a certain sense of satisfaction in having made all these things work, but also a sens that we were definitely under a transportation curse this weekend. I just hope it doesn't last much longer!

a brief escape

Mom and I decided to take a trip up the Bosphorus today. We thought it would give us a nice break (after a month I'm starting to need a break from walking) and as you already know ferry rides are a favorite of mine. Little did I realize just how far up the Bosphorus we would go. We chugged right past the 1st bridge and the beautiful Ortakoy mosque and weren't even half way along the route when we passed the second bridge and Rumeli Hısarı. We stayed on until the end of the line...and the end of the Bosphorus. As the ferry arrived ın Anadolu Kavağı I could look over my shoulder to the Bosphorus and look ahead to the Black Sea. I had no idea we'd go that far, or that the trip would really take us out of the city. Anadolu Kavağı is just a small town - fish restaurants for the tourists on the waterfront, small winding streets of houses (with military housing???) going up the hill and a ruined castle up on the top. Just enough to fill the three hours before a ferry left. So we walked up the hill for the view from the castle, enjoying the breeze and the extensive sight of water, then took the road back down (avoiding the cemetery we'd passed through on the way up) to find lunch. After some fried and some stuffed mussels we were ready to head back to the ferry and claim a rail side seat to enjoy the trip back down the Bosphorus. A great way to spend our last full day in İstanbul.

Railroad Museum

As I sit and sort through my pictures from my trip to Selcuk with my parents I'm reminded of just how I spent my morning. After racking my brain and the Lonely Planet for something dad would enjoy we ended up at the Railroad Museum. Home to something close to 30 steam locomotives, as well as the personal pull car of Ataturk (father of modern Turkey) it's supposed to be the second largest railroad museum in the world. I believe it! If there had been many more to look at I'm not sure I could have stayed interested. Dad sure was, though. Even at the end he was bending over to look at a part and trying to figure out how things work. I guess that means I succeeded in my mission to find something he could enjoy. The guy who drove us from the hotel was a bit surprised that we could spend so much time looking around, but admitted it was nice to see people actually interested and not just walking through (although the ground were quite a beautiful setting to walk through). I have to say I can't really tell much of a difference between a 1918 locomotive and a 1956 locomotive - but at least trains hold that little kid magical quality that let me climb up in them and imagine a different life. Turns out mechanical minds can be quite entranced by steam engines!

Mary's House & Seven Sleepers

In my second trip to Selçuk in less then a month I at least have managed to see several new places including what is believed to have once been the blessed virgin Mary's house and the grotto of the seven sleepers. I have to admit that the first was a bit disappointing but mainly because there were so many people there. A carnival cruise ship was in port and by my estimation there were something close to 54 tour buses in the Ephesus region due to it. Mary's house is actually a small chapel built on top of the site revealed to be the location of her house in later life by visions of a nun in Spain (?). It would have been the quietly reflective spot I was looking for if they hadn't just herded us through the chapel. Literally. I didn't even have time to stop and say a prayer. Kind of disappointing. I imagine when there are not so many people around you might get a few seconds longer to soak in the location but not today. At least people were quiet once they got into the mountaintop spot. It is enough for me to say that if other Marian sites of pilgrimage are that way I have no desire to visit.

The seven sleepers grotto on the other hand was almost completely empty. Of course there is not a whole lot to see there (although the gözleme was quite good for lunch). Reputedly it is known as the location where seven young Christian men went into caves/tombs to avoid persecution only to rise again several hundred years later as a testament to the resurrection philosophy of Christianity. Basically all there is to see is some ruins of the church built atop where they were said to be entombed, an early Christian cemetery and possibly the tombs where they were sealed. At least we were free to discover it without hoards of people around.

Heating up in a Hamam

I was so excited that I managed to find the Cagaloglu Hamam without any wrong turns. Sometimes in the old city with the maps available that's the biggest challenge in an adventure (just ask my sister who accompanied me on an hour trek trying to find the hotel I'm staying in with my parents...it was just around the one corner we didn't manage to turn). S and I happily stepped through the doors for our new adventure. As we walked down the stairs we were met by the typical site of relaxation in a hamam - an oasis of cool marble with a fountain and short stools positioned for a view and for those drinking cay. Only all of those people were men. Once we had paid for our bath we headed down a corridor, around a corner and down some stairs to enter the women's section, well hidden from any man's eyes due to the twists we followed to arrive there. The thing that was cool was that it really is a completely female space - you don't often find those spaces in the world I know.

We were shown into our own glass and wood cabina where we were left alone to undress and wrap up on a hamam towel. After finding wooden slippers we could keep on our feet we clopped our way into the wash room. Completely marble from the middle of the wall down with a star studded (cut outs) down above the simple furnishings and smooth colors started the relaxation process. Around the exterior of the wall individual basins with separate hot and cold water taps continuously ran...and let me tell you the slightly cool water felt amazing after 30 minutes sitting there sweating. My theory - you have to sit there at least that long for your skin to be soft enough so that when the woman calls you over to be scrubbed (it feels quite decadent to have someone else scrub you down) your dead skin will just roll off. It was kind of gross to see, but I will say that afterwards my skin felt quite clean and soft. After a scrub, soap massage and getting our hair washed S and I were free to go rinse off at on of the basins again. An hour and a half after we entered we walked out of the hamam feeling refreshed and ready to enjoy the ferry ride back across the Bosphorus.

Travelling Turkey with a child

So it's a bit of revelation to find out just how different a trip with a two year old turns out to be. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled my sister and her husband brought the little one along with them, after all if they hadn't it would have been two years before I saw her again and at this age it makes a huge difference. But it has changed the way we have to travel. Goreme, in the Kapadokya region, has been a good fit. It's slower pace lets us take off and seem some cool old/natural sites and still be back in time for a nap. I've discovered where at least five playgrounds are in town (who knew they would all be pink???). We've run up and down the street leading to our hotel at least twice a day, yet I've still been able to send my sister and husband off on a hot air balloon ride. So it's been a good mix. Unfortunately just as we've figured it out it's time for us to move on. We're headed to Selcuk and Ephesus tonight, to explore a piece of Turkey I haven't yet seen. I wonder what it is that will fascinate J there (after all I think we have to put a hold on public transportation until we get back to Istanbul).

This stinks!

So I got woken up by a call around 10:30 Saturday night, my phone didn’t register the number and somehow I just knew that it was either my sister or B. Sadly I was right. B was calling to say that they missed their flight from Austin so they aren’t going to be arriving in an hour. No, instead I’ve got a whole other day to fritter away before I get to see them. That call definitely didn’t make my night! Oh well, at least they called me with enough time to change my taksi plans and before I myself had left for the airport. Now I know why I scheduled all our other flights for the middle of their trip, just in case.

Just my luck

I flew into SAW Wednesday night without to much fear. After all, the school is less then 15 minutes from the airport. We can see the planes landing from school. Shouldn’t be too hard to get back to campus, right? Well it’s just my luck; I end up with a taksi driver who is not actually a taksi driver. Well, he is since he’s driving a taksi– but only for tonight. Turns out his friend is ill so he is just filling in for the night, normally he works at a hospital. Now tell me, how can you fill in for a taksi driver if you don’t know where anything is? Turns out I don’t know how to get back to campus from the airport (surprise, surprise). So we ended up on some back dirt roads (passing a funky housing development that had a vaguely Jettson-esque space-age lighted entrance). All I can say is at least he was willing to stop and ask people for directions. Otherwise I’m not sure I would have ever seen the o so welcome sight of school. Next time can I refuse to get in the taksi if the driver doesn’t know where the school is?

Termessos

Yesterday I went to the ancient site of Termessos. While I have to say much of the ruins are exactly that, ruins, the ancient city gets props for location. An absolutely stunning site in the mountains outside of Antalya. I was just as pleased by the short hike I got as by the ruins. Although I will say it had the most stunning theater I've seen all week, and possibly all year (and I've seen quite a few theaters this year). In remarkably good condition (I don't think it's been renovated, but who knows?) it's nestled on the side of one mountain with the view to one side over a valley and in every other direction of more peaks. Stunning. And complete enough to give you a good feel for what it would have been like to sit in the theater at the original time. This one seemed so alive to me in some way that I could almost imagine the original Pisidian people filing into their seats. Nowhere I looked did I find anything which says how old the city is - only that the earliest mention is 333 BC when they fought of Alexander the Great (which clearly means they were well established by then).

Chimaera

The Chimaera ıs a fıre breathing legend, part lion, part goat, and part dragon. He was so frightening that Zeus set him on fire and buried him under Mt Etna where he continued to send out tongues of fire. The legend makes it quite clear as to why area of Mt Olympos which has naturally igniting flames (gases which re-ignite upon contact with air if you manage to get one blown out) is called Chimaera. It was really a pretty neat sight - to climb/scramble up the path of the mountain for about 30 minutes and then see these flames licking out from under the rocks...and knowing that no one had set them alight. The 20 or 30 flames were all that was cutting the deep night dark (except for my headlamp and other torches - was I glad I had it for the walk back down!). One of the things I really like about travelling is that in many of the places I go to I get reminded of just how dark the world gets when the sun goes down. Its also about going to see the random oddities that a place holds - and the best part of that is that they are often in remote locations that get you into the heart of a country. So while Chimaera may not have been quite as dramatic as I expected it definitely falls into that "cool site you should see if you have the chance category."