|
Kusadasi, Turkey
August 3-13, 2001
This is our first report since
returning to Turkey after two months in Tucson. We left Tucson
on July 31 and flew to Athens via Frankfurt. Shaun and Nicole
Groen, our niece and nephew from Sioux Falls SD, are joining
us for the first two weeks of this trip. In the Athens terminal
Shaun was standing with a large sign, “ THE GRIFFITHS".
We were all very glad to see each other. We took the bus to Athens
and listened to Nic ooh and aah at all the strange sights. After
checking into the Titania, we went to the roof garden bar where
we had a cool one with an incredible view of the Parthenon and
the Acropolis. This is great way to be intro- duced to Athens.
We were there for sundown and the rising of the almost full moon,
some welcome for our guests. We then walked the streets for a
short while before finding a bite to eat and an early bedtime.
On our first full day in Athens,
we walked the town and saw the Parthenon and the Acropolis
(for more photos, visit Scott's Acropolis page). A bit of refreshment at
the base of the Acropolis and we are off on the underground for
a tour of the National Museum. This place houses some of the
finest sculptures that you could possibly want to see. There
is but one problem raising its ugly head again, the militaristic
attitude of the Greeks. They have guards in each room, that is
understandable, and they pounce upon you if you pose for a picture
with any relic and super pounce if you use a flash. One needs
to understand that the British Museum, certainly one of the world’s
foremost museums, is unconcerned about posing or flashes. They
just prohibit tripods; I can imagine that a room full of tripods
would impede traffic. The British Museum has a very long tradition,
with reason I would imagine, that flash does not harm artifacts.
Consider that many of these artifacts have spent centuries in
the sun and or salt water.
It happens that Greece is making
a lot of noise on the inter- national scene in an attempt to
recover the Elgin Marbles. These marbles are from the Parthenon
and have been in England for more than a hundred years. Greece
is trying very hard to get them back to Greece. More people can
enjoy the marbles in England and do so more fully without the
rules and regulations of the Greece Museum staff. It appears
that Greece is making a case to leave the marbles in the British
Museum.
We walked all over the center
part of town and were fortunate enough to see the changing of
the guard at the memorial to the unknown soldier. We took the
obligatory pictures
and then continued our walk. Another evening on the roof of the
Titania and then to bed as we leave for Turkey in the morning.
We four ride the bus to the airport
and get aboard a small prop driven airplane bound for Samos,
Greece. The ride is smooth but the sky is very heavily filled
with haze. We arrived at the town of Pythagoria, hometown to
Pythagorus of the theorem fame, and taxied to Vahti to await
our ferry ride to Kusadasi. It takes an hour and a half aboard
a small ferry to get to Kusadasi and clear into Turkey. We arrived
at our rooms to find they are air-conditioned, not so of all
rooms in the area.
We all had a pleasant night and
awaked to start our move to the boat. This is the first sailboat
that Nic has been on so there are a lot of questions. We spend
a couple of days cleaning, getting papers, finding the right
places to eat and enjoying ice cream before we depart on our
journey to a different port.
We sailed to Sigacek and anchored
off to avoid clearing in. This is the small village that we visited
in May. It is a charming simple village enclosed in a walled
fortress called the castle. We enjoyed a night stroll through
the castle area and returned to Traumerei for our first night
at anchor. We all slept extra well and the next morning walked
to the ruins of the ancient city of Teos. We found the theatre
and the acropolis along with the temple to Dionysius. After the
walk we lifted the anchor and sailed about 8 miles to an inlet
referred to as the “fjords of Turkey”. This is really
a stretch in that the hills have small trees and the creek is
very narrow and almost completely filled with fish enclosures
known locally as fish farms. We did have a nice swim and ate
a watermelon prior to returning to Sigacek for the night. While
in the fjords were approached by a young man in a ponga type
boat with mussels for sale. He had a gunny sack full but we only
needed a few so we traded for about 30 and had them for lunch
the next day.
The next morning we returned
to our slip in Kusadasi. The sail back to Kusadasi was a reach
with everyone taking a turn at the wheel, but mostly on autopilot.
Our activities while in Kusadasi
consist of eating, walking to town to eat and S & N spend
many hours on the
beach. We have found several good places to eat with Turkish
food on the menu. We also have found the McDonalds, Burger
King and a good Pizza Parlor. Shaun, not known for his adventures
in eating, has tried and liked so many new foods including lamb,
calamari and several new vegetables. We have walked every street
in the bazaar area
and found several items that we could not live without. There
is a city open air market every Friday and we made sure we were
in town for that event. It is quite large and very busy with
every kind of in season vegetable and fruit that one can imagine.
There are also stands, similar to the stands that sell Indian
Fry Bread, but these sell a local variety of what we might call
a soft burrito. The dough is rolled very thin and is about 16
inches in diameter. The filling can be spinach, feta cheese,
some kind of meat dish or other cheese. The filling is put on
one half and the tortilla like pastry is folded in half. The
whole thing is cooked on the top of an end of an oil drum. They
are really good, and Shaun ate two of them. We got peaches, apricots,
onions, pears, bananas, chilies and melons. We will feast on
fruit for breakfast.
In our walk about town we saw
an exhibit showing how silk is harvested. The silk worms can
create a commercial size cocoon in 3 days. A hundred or more
are put in heated water and with a broom one can swish about
the water and attach about 20 to 30 of the individual silk threads.
These threads are pulled from the twirling cocoon and joined
at a turning point where they are then wound around a drum. The
20 or so silk threads which are now one thread bundle will be
joined with other such bundles to make larger diameter threads
as needed. The small group of 25 individual threads is so strong
that they are very difficult to break with your hands.
Saturday, August 11 and the day
we go to Ephesus.
We have described it before so I will not go into detail except
to say that it seems that with each return visit you see more.
We also toured the dwelling that is reported to have been the
home of Mary,
mother of Jesus, in her last years. This presumption is supported
by several facts, and not disputed by anyone that I am aware
of. It is a beautiful site near the top of a mountain with a
view of the sea. The top of the mountain is no more that 2000
feet with many pines and other trees. We returned to Kusadasi
after brief visits to Selchuk. When we return from Ephesus there
is a group of Norwegian sailors that have arrived in a Viking
type vessel. It is about 14 meters long, 4 meters wide and
draws 1 meter. The freeboard is less than 2 feet. It really looks
like a Hager the Horrible type of a boat. They sailed/motored
from Norway through the French Canals and the Corinth Canal to
get to Turkey. They will be in Istanbul by September and plan
to return to Norway via the Danube. This will take them to Romania
through the Black Sea where they enter the Danube and go through
Romania, Croatia, Hungary, Czech Republic and Germany. There
are four to eight people on board at all times.
There are several e-mail sites
in town and the prices range from 750,000TL per hour to $4 per
hour. Some have good connections, some poor, some are fast, others
are not but only one is air-conditioned. It is also fast and
has good connections. The strange thing about this internet café
is the cost. It costs 1,000,000 TL per hour, about 75 cents per
hour, and there are 8 computers in the shop. A quick calculation
yields the fact that the owner can expect $6 per hour in income
if all machines are busy. There are two people working in the
store, it has no other business and is very nice and clean. I
suggested that he charge 2,000,000 TL per hour and still be in
line with his competition, he did not understand my reasoning
at all.
Shaun and Nicole left for Athens this morning on the ferry. They will
retrace our steps in coming to Kusadasi. We are now preparing
to set sail for points north with a northerly destination of
Istanbul.
|
