Thanks to our very efficient and helpful agent Soner and his partner, our motorbike is legal and insured and ready to be ridden as soon as we can figure out how to get it off the flybridge without bashing the side of our boat, knocking down the marina trellis along the dock, or breaking anyone’s body parts (which almost happened loading it in Malaysia.)  That’s a project for tomorrow.  A customs official came to the marina this afternoon and asked Randal to go on the flybridge and read the serial number from the motorbike and the license plate number.  That was it.  We have been cleaning the sand and grit from inside and outside the boat and it’s looking pretty clean.  But there are lots of boats on the hard doing sanding and painting and repairs and their debris flies onto all of the boats nearby so the grit is back in not time.  So it goes.

Yesterday Linda and I hiked part way up the mountain behind the marina.  I want to go as far as it goes but that could be a long hike requiring lunch and snacks so we’ll have to plan it.  Alternatively, Randal and I will take the motorbike and see where the road goes and how far we get before it’s more path than road.

In town Saturday I bought a new hat.  Not at B hat, but the Sox have won every game since so I’m not changing hats or adding a “pretend B.”  And our Sox pennant went up the mast yesterday in a new place too and it’s staying too.  If they start to lose again, I have no answers.

I was looking for dish detergent in the marine store and saw lots of candidates but wasn’t sure what anything was with no English on the label and no pictures of dishes on the bottle.  Luckily a woman came along who could read Turkish and told me that what I picked was actually dish soap.  Sunlight was a brand I’d bought before but there had always been English ‘subtitles” or a picture of dishes in a strainer.  I did manage to get the Mango Language program available on the Roanoke County Library website to work and started to try to learn some Turkish.  It’s mostly conversation and what I really need is vocabulary.  I can find written lists but hearing it as you do on Mango is so much better.  I think at this point I know how to say please, thank you, hello, good morning, soup and bread.  I can read other words too for tomato or cheese and doner and kebap.  Thankfully most Turks know some English or we can point and hold out a handful of change and let the Thursday market vendor pick what is needed.  Many vendors will give you a sample to taste.  We tasted and bought cheese from the cheese stall and tasted and bought what tastes like fig/date/prune spread from another shop, but we tasted sausage from the poor, beleaguered sausage lady in Tansas and didn’t like it so didn’t buy any and then to boot I knocked in on the floor.  Life in Turkey!

Here is the final installment from our early travels around western Turkey.  The top of the calcium climb in Pamukkale got you to the ruins of Hierapolis.Walking around Hierapolis was wonderful and we wished we’d brought a picnic lunch so we could have eaten on the hillside or in the big theater. It was just such a beautiful day. The ruins couldn’t match Ephesus but that didn’t matter, the setting was spectacular. And the walk up and down on the calcium hillside was great fun. Unfortunately we went on Monday when the museum in the old Roman bath was closed. We didn’t know, but with the BBC Everest about to arrive in Marmaris we didn’t feel as if we could stay an extra day and we would have had to pay the 20 TL x 2 entrance fee again.

Hierapolis

“Founded around 190 BC by Eumenes II, king of Pergamum, Hierapolis was a cure center that prospered under the Romans and even more under the Byzantines, when it gained a large Jewish community and an early Christian congregation. Sadly, recurrent earthquakes regularly brought disaster and after a major tremor in 1334 the city was abandoned.” Lonely Planet Turkey

By the time we’d climbed the carbonate hill and walked around a bit, it was time for lunch. We saw one of the small stands selling food and drink. In Male, our previous stop, alcohol wasn’t sold or if it was; it cost a fortune. So here it was odd to see, being sold at a national park, 3 kinds of beer including Miller, wine, vodka, whiskey, and raki a Turkish alcoholic drink. We decided to wait for the next stand and kept walking towards the northern gate to see the Necropol Area and the Tombs.

Here are just some random photos taken at Hierapolis. Mostly I just walked around, glanced at the signs, and soaked up the sun and the lovely views. At that point my goal was food and not knowledge as we headed towards the large cafeteria in the center of the complex.

I believe this is a burial chamber.

Michael walking through the Hierapolis latrine.

Stones left on an old grave.

There was just something about this French woman in her blue hat and blue dress and I took several shots of her. Linda pretended to pose so I could sneak a photo of her from the front. The blue lady was with what I took to be her family made up of husband and wife and child. She had trekked up the calcium hills and around Hierapolis and just kept going.

The large theater with special seating for the rulers and their guests. The riff raff sat up in the nosebleed section. The lonely planet mentions a large Jewish community in Hierapolis. We saw no signs of that. Hopefully they weren’t all eaten by lions in the arena.

There was a thermal swimming pool in the middle of the cafeteria. We saw lots of people using it and also walking around the ruins in tiny swim suits and bad sunburns. It had never occurred to Randal and me to bring bathing suits to springtime Turkey where we needed sweaters and long pants. But it was quite warm and many tourists come from countries with climates much colder than Turkey’s.

Michael pretending to be Samson.