Damascus and Beyond

Okay, I just spent an hour writing the most recent blog and went to publish it and…lost the bastard. Two whole Turkish Lira down the drain. So I guess I’ll just have to repeat everything that has disappeared into the ether. Update. First full day in Goreme I took an armload of laundry down to be washed. Everything but the clothes I had to wear and my underwear which I did not want Yashar, the guy who works at the hotel, to handle. He’s an endearingly goofy guy, who is always joking and laughing about something and it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had got all “teenage boyish” and made some snickering comment about my underpants. He wants me to call him Ushaklar, which I looked up in the dictionary and which means ‘servant boy’. He said “excuse me”, but since I was a boy blondes have always been a “hobby” of mine. Coming from anybody else it might seem tacky but from Yashar it was just funny and kind of cute. He is almost childlike in some ways and it’s hard to believe he has three sons who live in a town called Nigde over an hour from here. He only gets to see them once every couple of weeks or so. That’s not unusual in Turkey. You go where you can find work. Checked out the new leather store on the edge town which seems a bit large and almost slick for Goreme but I am looking for a wallet. Didn’t find one but had a nice long visit with a guy that works there. We talked carpets, not leather and he invited me back to visit. I have not decided if I will go. Being on the edge of town it’s not like I can just stroll by casually. It would be an obvious effort and I feel a little forward going back. After the visit with the leather/carpet guy I decided to visit Bekir, an old friend from my early Turkey days. I did not see him during my last visit and wasn’t even sure if he was still running the Anatolya Pension but I walked up the hill toward his place anyway, feeling a bit apprehensive. Bekir was sleeping when I arrived, trying to recover from some stomach problems. He didn’t seem too surprised to see me and we ended up visiting for several hours. He ended up giving me a ride back to my hotel on his motorcycle. I woke up with gut cramps the next morning and didn’t want to stray too far from the hotel. Not like you can actually stray all that far in Goreme. I can’t figure out what I ate that’s causing this. My stomach hasn’t been the same since the day before I left Aleppo. Usually I have the digestive system of a goat, but I guess all bodies are subject to changes in diet, lifestyle, etc. I decided to amuse myself by doing some hand washing and reading on the terrace. The day had turned windy and cooler and the sky to the west got very dark. Eventually I got bored and hungry and decided to go for some dinner. I almost had an anxious moment when I went to retrieve some money from an ATM. Within seconds of getting my money and card back the screen went black. At that moment it started pouring and an old guy in a kebap kiosk started waving me over to shelter from the rain. I sat in his little kebap stand and drank tea with him while he offered me bits of doner kebap (chicken pieces on a spit), while we tried to communicate. I thought about the hysteria I might be experiencing if the electricity in town had gone off five seconds sooner and my money and cash card had become trapped inside the ATM machine. What lucky timing. I wonder if, when the juice got turned back on, the transaction would be completed and money and card would have appeared on the scene for some lucky passerby to enjoy? Yashar buttonholed me as I was leaving the hotel to go to the bus station that evening. He wanted to come with me and I thought why not. Gail’s bus was about an hour later than expected because of some problem with a broken gate door at the Istanbul airport. When she relayed this to me, unable to fathom why they held up the flight to Kayseri for an hour because of this, I just said “welcome to Turkey” the land of illogical thinkers. Yashar, in all his childlike naivete exclaimed that he thought “I was beautiful, but after meeting my sister he decided she was even more beautiful.” I threated to kick his ass. I wonder if there is the Turkish equivalent for the word “tact” in the dictionary. No matter’, i’ve experienced this type of thing before and chalk it up to cultural differences. Still, he tells me that I make him happy and give him power (whatever that means). He routinely plucks flowers from the hotel bushes and gives them to Gail and I with much fanfare. Yesterday he told us that any guests staying over two days can take advantage of a personal, custom designed tour free from the hotel. We decided to take a couple of hours to do that and drove here and there so Gail could get a look at the scenery. They took us to an upscale carpet showroom where they had displays and demonstrations of the carpet weaving process. Dyes, and weavers and my favorite…the silk extraction. Large bags filled with silk worm cocoons slumped against the wall and we were treated to a demo of how they get the silk off the cocoon. It’s amazing and I could have watched it all day. Difficult to explain here, but it was a highlight for me. The threads are finer than a hair and if completely unraveled they will stretch over a mile and a half from one cocoon. We were both given souvenir cocoons. They are dry and if you shake them you can hear the dead worm rattle inside. After that we had the pleasure of viewing some very fine carpets including the mouthwatering silks. I have decided that if I ever have money I will collect silk carpets like some people collect oil paintings. They are works of art that take highly skilled weavers sometimes years to complete. I did not feel guilty about buying anything because they were expensive carpets and because we had walked by a large pile which the guy had pointed out as having been sold and awaiting delivery to their new homes. Last night we booked a Turkish Night evening with our hotel. It was touristy but an okay way to spend an evening and we have yet to be asked for payment. Gail keeps wondering about this but I figure it will show up on our hotel bill when we check out. I do not think for one minute that they have forgotten, and I wouldn’t let them, and after all, this is Turkey.

Gule Gule, Anita

Tags: Travel

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