Hello world!
I have been so unfaithful about writing! Sorry! So at the moment we are in Cappadocia in a small town called Goreme. We are sleeping in a cave hostel! It's so cool. I can't believe I didn't know about this place before coming to Turkey. We say pictures, and read about it i our guide books and knew we had to visit this mystical place. It's just a valley of caves where people STILL live in. Also, there are remnants of underground cities in such nearby as well. We visited one, Drinkuyu (I'm probably spelling a lot of these Turkish names wrong), which was 8 floors down complete with rooms, storage houses, stables, and even a church. It's bigger, but a lot isn't excavated or open to the public. This place seriously trips us out. We had a few days of good weather, so we did a lot of hiking and playing through the caves. It had been fantastic! There are houses carved into these rock formations...sounds like such a cool lace to live, and I can just carve my own rock climbing routes into the side of my cave-dwelling! I will put pictures up soon enough.
We are heading out to Istanbul tonight on an over-night bus. We washed our clothes two days ago when it had been sunny, but it began to rain, and we couldn't put our clothes out to dry. They have been sitting in our cave room and we will have to pack them up as is.
So that's the update of where we are where we are heading. For those interested in the last week that I haven't been writing, by all means, read on.
So when I found out about the fires in SoCal, we were i Selcuk. It's claim to fame is its promximity to the beautiful ruins of Ephesus (as in Book of Ephesians), as well as the supposed site of Mary's last years where they have built a church, and also the Church and Tomb of St. John. There is also the scantily remains of the Temple of Artemis, and a really old Mosque, all within walking distance of St John's. It was just interesting to see three buildings of three different religions all within the same vista.
Also near Selcuk (near meaning 3 hours bus ride) is Pammukale. We did a day trip there to see the calcium rock formations along the side of the hill where the ancient city of Hieropolis sits. The funny things is that we just started climbing on the snow-white looking mountains from which also flowed hotspring waterfalls, not realizing that you were't actually suppose to do that anymore. We found this out as we mounted the top, but two tourist taht were probably 10 minutes behind us got the whistle from authorities. Why they didn't see us or catch us is beyond me! Anyway, years of tourism had kind of ruined the white hills, so the powers that be are trying to get it to repair itself. Upon our ascension, we somehow found ourselves on the grounds of the Hieropolis archeological site after climbing the hill. The theatre was very amazing, and I wish I got myself recorded doing some spoken word in that theatre, or actually any of the theatre ruins we have come across on this journey. That would have been cool.
Anyway, that's more or less what we have been up to in Turkey. This Thursday is Thanksgiving in America (it is Monday as I write this), and I know it will be hard for us to not be with our families. At the moment, Rica and I are family and are taking good care of each other. Happy Early Turkey Day from Turkey everyone!
Love and blessings.
