I've been driving for about an hour from the Kayseri airport straight into the heart of Cappadocia when the scenery shifts from standard-issue, rolling-hill farmland into something straight out of Middle Earth. High cliffs and bizarre rock spires suddenly spring up around me in a landscape that looks like it was co-designed on a dare by Salvador Dali, Frank Herbert, and Dr. Seuss - after they dropped acid and followed up with a three-day drunk.
"Wow!" I say out loud, like a five year old let loose at Disney World. As there is no one in the car to hear me, I seem compelled to keep saying it again and again. Wow.
I stop the car on the side of the road. "Look!" I say out loud to no one, pointing up the side of a cliff. "A cave!"
But I have been in Cappadocia for less than an hour, and right now I know none of this. I have located a cave! And I'll be damned if I'm passing up a chance to climb inside of it.
It's still winter and tourists are scarce; there are no other cars in sight. A cold misty rain is falling and the ground is slick. I'm not dressed for hiking or rock climbing. But I leave my car on the side of the road, hiking across the field and climbing over the rocks.
The rocks at this particular site are cone shaped, like the hoods of Grand Wizards at a Ku Klux Klan meeting. As I weave my way between the bizarre formations toward the cave, I would not be surprised by an appearance by the Star Wars' Sand People.
At first the cave looks impossible to reach, carved high into the cliff. But I spot a side entrance, accessible by a vertical climb that only looks quasi-dangerous. Yes, the shoes are all wrong; yes, the rocks are wet; yes, there is a quite a bit of scraping and sliding. But I make it up the side of the cliff, crawl through a short tunnel, and emerge into area that was once somebody's living room.
A flat rock sits in front the of the mouth of the cave, overlooking the valley below, like a giant bean bag chair in front of the biggest of big screen TVs. In the ceiling of the cave is an opening to another level, with more tunnels between more rooms like Habitrails for your pet hamster.
On the wall of the main room someone at some point in the past two thousand or so years has carved a symbol. It could be some long forgotten religious designation; it could be the Tree of Life.
Hell, for all I know it's the family crest of the Flintstones.
I don't know what it is, but I take a picture of it anyway, because I find it amazing that such a thing exists. This won't be the last time that happens.
* * *
I have lived in Turkey for nearly a year and a half now, but it's time to go. My residence permit is nearly expired, and I have an unquenchable desire for certain things that Turkey can't give me. Namely edible Mexican food and affordable Irish whiskey.
As I'm leaving in less than two weeks, this trip to Cappadocia will serve as my Turkish farewell tour: one last chance to see the countryside, drink rakı, smoke nargile and mangle the language before heading home.
As I literally may never get the chance again, I'm planning to make the most of it.
* * *
The list of things I will wake up for at 4:30 in the morning, however, is a short one. The only ones I can readily think of involve my bed being on fire.
But if you want to go ballooning in Cappadocia, there is exactly one time slot available: sometime before dawn. I'm told this has to do with the lack of wind, but I'm not buying it. I think the Turks just secretly enjoy torturing tourists by getting them out of bed before the chickens wake up. They arrive at my hotel at 5 a.m. to take me to the balloon ride. Given the ridiculous hour, the high cost of the ticket, and the fact that I'm being shoved into a van, I feel a little like the target of a kidnapping. Fortunately there doesn't appear to be any duct tape involved.
Not yet anyway.
The van drops me and a small group of sleepy, disoriented tourists at the offices of Voyager Balloons, joining what looks like a few hundred other sleepy, disoriented tourists. From what I can tell, other than me the only tourists willing to be rousted out of bed for a pre-dawn balloon ride are four and half foot tall Japanese women, and a few of their compliant husbands.
Voyager Balloons is serving breakfast, which consists of some hard rolls, a little cheese, and a few slices of unidentifiable, pink-colored meat. Even if the meat wasn't frightening, my stomach isn't awake yet; I opt for a cup of tea.
I notice one of the Japanese women has brought her own supply of ramen noodles to Turkey, apparently in case of just this kind of food emergency. She distributes the Cup o' Noodles to her friends, who receive the gift like manna from heaven.
After about a half hour we are herded back into the vans to be shuttled to the balloon launch site. It's light enough now that as we drive up we can see the balloons, lying on their sides like partially inflated beached whales. Baskets about the size of a Volkswagen bus are tied to each one. The Japanese ladies jump out of the van and begin snapping pictures.
We are directed to our designated bus baskets and beached whale balloons. Each basket is divided into four compartments (plus room for a pilot, I'm relieved to see), and each compartment holds up to five people. My assigned basket compartment-mates are a young Japanese couple, now assigned by his company to live in India; and Adam and Dana from Orlando, Florida - perhaps the only other non-Japanese participants on the balloon tour.
"So, India," I say to my Japanese basket mate, Yoshi, to make conversation as we wait for the balloon to inflate. "That must be interesting."
"No!" he answers. "India is a terrible place! The electricity goes off in the middle of the day! The food is too spicy!" His wife, who seems to understand little else, nods emphatically at the India bad-mouthing.
"We leave India every chance we get," Yoshi continues as we climb into the basket. "This is why we are now in Turkey."
I think of telling Yoshi of the times the electricity in my Istanbul apartment has gone off in the middle of the day, but think better of it. The food is not spicy in Turkey, so I guess he kind of has a point.
The balloon pilot is explaining our "landing position" instructions to Adam, Dana, me, and the 17 Japanese people the basket. The instruction are in English. I'm wondering if "crouch down and grab the rope handles" possibly can't be translated.
The sun now is up and we stand waiting in our giant basket. Suddenly and without further instructions, I find myself floating in the air.
* * *
Maybe one of the biggest surprises living as an ex pat in Turkey was how ordinary and unoriginal this decision turned out to be. There are literally tens of thousands of (mostly European) foreigners living in the country, and you run into them everywhere: Germans, Russians, Italians, Brits, and more Americans than you might think.
For the most part, I and the rest of the yabancı do our best to blend in. But there are notable examples of the contrary.
Last fall a German acquaintance was nice enough to offer to let me stay at her currently-empty apartment for a week in a town in southwest Turkey called Didim. She had bought the apartment as "an investment," she told me, but 11 months out of the year she was elsewhere and the place sat empty.
As I could see on a map that the town was located on the Aegean Coast, it sounded too good to be true. I set off in a bus to Didim, with thoughts of - who knows? - maybe I'll move there.
It was too good to be true. Didim turned out to be far and away my least favorite place in all of Turkey. Perhaps the entire world.
Imagine Corpus Christi, Texas but not even a nice part of Corpus Christi, Texas. Like North Beach without a beach. Or an ocean.
The sea, in fact, is miles away. Didim itself is inland, consisting of long, flat, treeless, shadeless, desolate stretches of land and an endless number of cookie-cutter, concrete apartment/condo developments. Many developments sit half finished, investors apparently taking their money and moving it somewhere less depressing. Abandoned complexes are spread throughout town, separated by empty, weed-filled lots. The actual Turks in this city seem to be in hiding, replaced by a
population of loud, pasty, overweight, non-Turkish-speaking, middle-class British people, who apparently are so desperate for sunshine that they will soak it up wherever they can, no matter how god forsaken.
This doesn't feel like I am in Turkey. It feels like I am trapped in somewhere between "The Benny Hill Show," and one of Dante's Seven Circles of Hell.
Back in Cappadocia the ex pats are not nearly as conspicuous, but I still have no trouble stumbling right over them. In the little town of Göreme I walk down the hill from my cave hotel straight toward an establishment called "Fat Boys," politically incorrect down to its fat boy logo, which appears to be a white-washed version of Fat Albert from The Cosby Kids.
Inside a group of men banter in English around a pool table. One of the men is large enough that I incorrectly assume he must be the bar's namesake. In two of the four corners of the room there are couches and chairs grouped together like the faux living rooms of a furniture store.
On the wall I see the flags of Tibet, Brazil, Australia, and - inexplicably - Minnesota. Two women sit at a table in the middle of the bar, loudly lamenting the price of gasoline with cockney accents straight out of "My Fair Lady."
I wasn't looking for the ex pats, but it looks like I found them anyway.
I'm greeted in English by a man whom I spot immediately as a local. He seems pleasantly surprised when I answer and place my order in Turkish. I later learn that this is Yılmaz Şişman, the owner of the bar along with his Australian wife, Angela. Yılmaz's name, roughly translated into English, means "Indomitable Fat."
And that's how you legitimately get to own a bar in Göreme, Turkey called Fat Boy's.
The billiard tournament continues and Eliza Doolittle and her friend are still yammering on about gas prices. But Yılmaz is friendly and lets me practice my Turkish without shame. The beer is cold, and the soccer match will be starting soon on the big-screen TV.
I decide I can live with a little English yammering in the background. I fluff up the cushions of my couch and - in Turkish, of course - order another Efes Dark from Mr. Indomitable Fat.
* * *
Day Five of the Cappadocia Farewell tour. Winter has returned and the day is grey, snowy and cold. I decide this is as good a time as any to check out some of Cappadocia's 36 famed underground cities. If nothing else, I reason, the Underground People knew how to get out of the wind.I drive to the town of Kaymaklı (inexplicably translated into English as "creamy"), where unfortunately the Japanese tour buses have arrived before me. Apparently it is Spring Break in Japan, and the underground city is filled with gaggles of young Asian women, giggling and making peace signs as they endlessly pose for pictures next to every possible underground archway.
It's like a clothed, less-drunk, Japanese version of Girls Gone Wild.
After my second underground city in Derinkuyu I've decided that I pretty much get the idea: people lived underground, and crawled through a lot of tunnels. My back hurts from bending and stooping. Here's one place I have discovered where being a tiny Asian woman has a distinct advantage over being a tall middle aged white guy. I'm cold, tired, and hungry, and - call me what you will - what I really want is a big steaming bowl of caffe latte. But seeing as the nearest Starbucks is several hundred miles away, I leave the underground city and wander into a nearby business that seems to be a combination tea house/souvenir stand.
Inside I see only two older Turkish men, and a head-scarfed woman. There is not a tourist in sight. But there is a fire in the pot-belly stove in the middle of the room, and right now "warm and dry" looks pretty good to me. I take off my coat and order a tea.
The men resume speaking in Turkish after taking a moment to look me over. One resumes his apparently ongoing complaint about the general dearth of tourists, other than the buses full of Japanese who apparently don't frequent his tea house. I interject from the neighboring table, in Turkish, that maybe it's still a little too cold. They both look up at me in surprise, as if by some miracle the child long believed to be deaf and dumb has finally spoken.
You speak Turkish? one of the men asks me. Where are you from?
I see he is a religious man, wearing a skull cap and fingering a string of prayer beads.
I'm American but I've been living in Istanbul, I tell him.
Your Turkish is very good, he says to me. I know he's just being polite but I thank him anyway. It's not nearly as good as he thinks it is as he begins pontificating in Turkish, assuming that I understand what he's saying. I'm catching maybe 40 percent of it. Maybe.
He seems happy to have someone different to talk to; maybe his wife and friend have heard it all many times before. He's telling me about the weather and the history of the underground cities and all the different people who have lived throughout the centuries in what is now Turkey: Hittites, Romans, Jews, early Christians, modern Muslims.
I'm getting a little worried as his monologue turns to religion. He is still fingering the prayer beads, the vocabulary is moving out of my range of ability. But he has a point he wants to make.
There are four great books, he tells me: the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, and one other I either can't understand or never heard of. But all of these books, he is telling me, come from the same place.
Do I know Adem and Havva? he asks me. I look at him confused, thinking maybe these are friends of his from Istanbul I might have come across. I shake my head. Adem and Havva, he repeats. From the bible.
The lightbulb goes off. Adem and Havva. Adam and Eve. Got it. Adem and Havva are the parents of all us, he tells me. Arab, Turk, American. Muslim, Christian, Jew. This is why I don't understand wars, he says. We are all the same family. Why are we killing each other? Why are we killing our own family?
I smile, because I understand and agree with his point. But I don't know the answer to his question, and I tell him so.
He looks at my empty tea glass and asks me if I would like another, this one is on him. A glass of tea costs about the equivalent of 55 cents. I thank him and accept the offer, happy that I wandered off the path in this unexpected direction.
* * *
When I was back in the States in December my friend Mark bought me a knife for Christmas. To fully appreciate how absurd this is, you'd have to know me, and my friend Mark. I'm not sure what a "Knife Guy" looks like, but I'm reasonably sure he doesn't look like either one of us. Outside of the kitchen cutlery drawer, I'm not sure I ever owned one.
"I have one just like it," Mark later told me, explaining the gift. "I take it hiking, and use it to cut up apples."
See, if I'm out on a hike and I want to eat an apple, I'm probably just going to bite it with my teeth, but okay. Thanks, Mark, I said, and Merry Christmas. I threw the knife in my checked luggage and headed back to Turkey.
Upon returning to Istanbul from Cappadocia to pack up my life, I have the bright idea to put all the heavy things in one carry-on bag. This way, I tell myself, they won't me charge me for exceeding the checked baggage weight limit!
I am so, so, so smart. I mindlessly empty the "heavy things" from my office and desk drawer into the carry-on luggage.
The morning of my departure I'm feeling pretty good about myself for getting to the Istanbul airport with three heavy-ass bags, checking into British Airways while incurring only a $60 bag charge, and easily clearing passport control. The good feeling, unfortunately, lasts only until my carry-on bag goes through the x-ray at the security checkpoint.
"Sir," the female security agent says, stopping me. "Is this your bag?"
Before I originally left for Turkey, multiple smart-ass friends with even less knowledge about the country than I gave me some version of the following: "Turkey? How could you go to Turkey? Didn't you ever see Midnight Express?"
How ridiculous, I would reply. You're judging an entire country based on a 30-year-old prison movie? It would be like saying "How could you go to America; didn't you ever see Silence of the Lambs or Beach Blanket Bingo?"
Besides, I proclaimed confidently in my very first blog entry: "I have promised all concerned to avoid the issue entirely by not having heroin strapped to my body as I arrive at customs."
Good plan. It's a shame I didn't say the same thing about knives.
"You have a knife in your bag?" the security officer asks me.
"A knife? I answer, in the same tone I would if she had asked me if I had a marmot in my pants. "No! No, of course I don't have a ..." Oh crap.
She unzips the bag and paws through the desk detritus before pulling out Mark's Christmas gift, holding it out in front of me just in case I wanted to deny it again.
"Oh. That knife."
Okay quick, I say to myself: try not to look like a terrorist, try not to look like a terrorist, try not to look like a terrorist ... Dammit! Why did I grow this beard?
She unfolds the four-inch blade from the wooden handle and brandishes it toward me. It's pretty clear that Mark's apple slicer is several steps beyond the prohibited box cutter.
"Sir," she says to me, "this is a problem."
This has turned out well, I think to myself. I joke in my first blog entry about Midnight Express, and I'll get to write the last one from inside an actual Turkish prison! Now there's some irony for you.
"I'm sorry," I say to the officer. "I thought that was in my checked luggage. I had no idea ..." I wonder if I'm going to be forced to explain the Christmas gift/apple slicer story in Turkish. "Really really really sorry."
She continues to hold the knife out in front of me, now grasping it between two fingers like evidence in a murder trial. I wait for her to tell me follow her to the interrogation/beating room, and hold my breath.
"We're going to have to take this," she says finally.
I exhale. Yes please, take it! I'm sure I can find another way to eat apples in the wilderness without violating international criminal statutes.
"Thank you," I say as I pack up my crap and slink off toward my gate. I say it more than once, I'm sure.
I take this as a sign that it really is time to go home.
Hadı görüşürüz, everyone. See you again soon.
