Day 22...right?

These travel days are truly the more obnoxious parts of our trips. They just take forever. Why does Turkey have to be such a big country? In reality it’s not as big as I’m making it seem. Turkey is slightly larger than the state of Texas. So compared to USA its not that huge, but compared to Luxembourg it’s gianormous!

We’re completing our circle around the western part of the country. Again, we can’t touch the eastern half because of security issues, like Iraq to the southeast, Syria to the Southwest, Kurds in the East, Armenia to the East and Russia slightly to the Northeast. So after leaving Urgup Goreme and our Ottoman house, we then made the four hour journey to Konya. Of course, we got up at the crack of dawn and left the hotel at 9 am, so why on God’s green earth did we arrive at our next hotel (the nicest that we’ve stayed in by far) ten hours later??? Because of the numerous stops that we made along the way. Yep. How do you make a long trip longer? Stop frequently.

I have to say though that these stops were actually enjoyable. After being on the bus for a hour and a half we stopped at the Ilhara Valley. This is Turkey’s Grand Canyon and a popular tourist stop for hikers. I’ve never been hiking. I climbed Mount Moses once in Egypt at 2am, but nothing after that. Why hike? It’s ridiculous. I hate nature. I mean sure it was beautiful, the stream that lead to the great river (and made such an annoying sound. I felt like I had to pee every time I heard it), the trees, the birds, the cliffs, the whole scenery….and then the bugs, the snakes, the spiders, gross, gross, gross. Dust, dirt, and rocks. Blah! Where’s the enjoyment. Look people, I don’t mind bugs in their natural habitat. In fact, I enjoy them there. I don’t like it when they invade my habitat, and by that I mean my house or current dwelling. Do that, and I’m afraid Mr. Spider is going to die, one way or another. Therefore, I’ve come to the simple conclusion that since they cannot live in my space, or not for very long that is, then I can’t live in there’s. So it gives them every right to want to kill me. Anyways, it was nice. I climbed the rocks, splashed in the water, sucked in the stinky fresh air and then had some lunch.

We drove for another 2 hours and stopped again to take some pictures of two famous volcanoes in Turkey before heading on our way again. So far on this trip I’ve taken my picture with Volcanoes, Canyons, Earthquake and flood devastated regions. For a person who’s not into nature…I’ve seen a lot of her face around.

We then continued to the largest camel caravan in Turkey. Camel Caravans, if I didn’t explain earlier, were used greatly on the Silk Road during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Ottoman periods. The caravans brought spices, silk, and any other goods from Asia to Europe on camels, and since Turkey sits in the middle of that route, it only made sense that there would be multiple stops along the way. People driving these herds would stop to eat, sleep or catch up on gossip before continuing on their way. Primitive pit stops.

We finally arrived in Konya, a Southern city in Turkey, which really isn’t far from Egypt and my daddy, but I’ll be there around this time next week. It is very different from any of the other cities we’ve been to in that Konya is the most conservative city in Turkey. I expect every woman will be covered and most Muslim men don’t wear shorts as its considered disrespectful. No alcohol in this city either. It’s dry. My kind of city. So we’ve come here to study the religious side of Turkey a little more and hopefully tomorrow we’ll get a chance to look at some of Turkey’s famous religious leaders and poets and visit a few more mosques. Its official. Only one more week in Turkey. Can you believe 4 weeks have gone by? Ewww…