Hermits vs. Bellydancers: Battle to the Death

Cappadocia, Turkey                                    

4 May 2009

The drive down from the Black Sea made another long day, but in the recently established tradition of truck-culture, the birthday boy got the King seat—lots of legroom and faceing forward. I admit to shamelessly hustling to gain said seats (and to verify that the spouse gets the accompanying seat). David's 33^rd birthday was marked with a card beautifully made by Rachel, Louise, Le and Lindsay—with little input from me, all the better. It depicts him in a hammock (he broke them out the first hot day in Akcakoca) and reads “Welcome to Calypsoville”. In your mind, please follow with some extensive explaining on our part as to what a Jimmy Buffett is, and about three hours of it on the truck soundsystem. All the truck are now passionate fans, natch. Though it MAY have been pain and not passion they were exhibiting. Not sure.

                 

Got to yet another scenic campground in the region of Turkey called Cappadocia around 5 that night, pitched camp overlooking an immense gorge and popped off to an underground cavern/bunker called the Yemeni Restaurant for an evening of very little food and some folk dancing, which included knives and vaguely medieval costumes, portly Turks in pink satin shirts, and David belly dancing. And that's all I have to say about that.

Well, also the alcohol was free, so some of our party (cough-CorrieandRich-cough)  decanted the red wine into Coke bottles to take home. The campground also has a cave with a fireplace, so the party continued there...and descended quickly into wrestling, vomiting, and some other festive events.

And thus is David Ludwick thirty-three.

Post the happy event, we spent yesterday on a tour of the area with a local guide called Farouk, seeing the fairy chimneys and underground cities. The landscape is StarWars-esque, utterly bizarre, with towers and caves carved from the soft stone everywhere. Whole villages lived in these cliff-towns until the 1950s, including loads of Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians who were sent back to Greece after a thousand years here, in population exchanges with Turk-speaking people in Greece. The result is villages which contain ancient Orthodox chapels and newer mosques, carved from the same stone. The Greek community resulted from a bunch of saints who set themselves up in isolated caves here in the 6^th century, to debate the nature of Christ.  As you do.

               

Went also to an underground city, where I discovered that I may in fact suffer from a teensy case of claustrophobia. That is to say, I'm not moving in anytime soon. All these dark little tunnels to hunch down and crawl through. Pretty sure there was some sort of evil down there. The kind that makes everyone else pretend they liked it.

Half the group went hot-air ballooning this morning at 5am...again, not convinced that it was worth getting up at half four. We opted to sleep. There will no doubt be 9000 photos from the jaunt, of which I will choose the best and pretend they're mine.

Yesterday's glorious sunshine has hidden itself in a cave to debate the nature of Christ today, it's cool and rainy again. Went into Urgip, a pretty little town that was Greek until 50 years ago, and has lots of carpet shops (I give you good price, lady, just for you.) We collectively went to one which provided tea and pide, and in exchange Cheryl and Tim have bought a carpet. Everyone comes out happy. For second lunch, David had the local speciality, tandir—beautiful lamb stew baked in a pot with the bread baked right on top. Mmm.