Wild Turkey

I'm back. Actually the wireless connection at the hotel in Ugrup (Cappadocia region, central Turkey) was fine - but we were out late at a mystical Islamic liturgical dance and did not get in until early midnight. It's been two long days of traveling and we've seen many fine things.

Where to begin? The quick narrative is that we left Ankara early on Sunday and rode in our bus for about three hours. We've visited Urgrup and Goreme in Cappadocia (the high, sunny yet very cool and windswept central are of Turkey), and have just now arrived in Konja (south central Turkey).

To keep things quick - there are really two central themes to the last two days: strange geology and unorthodox Islamic cults.

The geological stuff is easier to explain. Cappadocia lies between three volcanos which, over the years, have filled the area with all kinds of different mineral and rocks and volcanic ash. This and the winds have created a seemingly otherworldy landscape of uneven erosion. The result is these towering columns of eroded ash topped with harder rock "hats", and also cliff faces of easily carved rock. I gather the stone - tufa - can be easily dug out with shovels but when exposed to air dries and solidifies.

Anyway - this means that Cappadocians - since the earliest of times and most notably since the early Byzantines - have been carving houses, churches and tunnels into these cliffs. We visited Goreme where there is an old Byzantine monastery (now abandoned) dating from the early Byzantine era. There you see all kinds of rooms and even large painted churches carved into the cliff face. In the afternoon, we visited an example of a cave village - where people (again early Byzantine Greeks - probably around the 6th - 9th centuries) dug straight down under their villages. These caves were were really village defense systems. During the rise of Islamic power after the 600s, army after army pounded back and forth through Cappadocia, and villages found they could simply retreat into these excavated tunnels that go straight DOWN DOWN DOWN - something like 13 or 14 levels.

So - it has been two days of these amazing landscapes and dwellings and tunnels. The vertical caves are not a tourist attraction for the claustrophobes. I am generally ok with closed spaces, but I felt it was close crouching and climbing down through winding staircases , 60, 70,80 90 meters underground. Mercifully, it would open out into small room now and again. (Note - Turkey has a very different sense of tort law; all over the place you see all kinds of sidewalks and features of tourist places that would never be accepted in the states - broken stairs on sidewalks, walks along high walls with no railings, random holes - it keeps your wits active).

Now - the various cults and traditions of unorthodox Islam is a bit harder to understand. We tend to hear about only mainstream and very orthodox versions of Islam (mainstream Sunni and Shiite), but Turkey offers a host of diferent cults and traditions. It must have something to do with the fact that the Anatolian peninsula has always been exposed to a wide array of different religious traditions. So you run into all these very open, ecumenical versions of Islam - sort of the Unitarians of that tradition, only rather than this being a recent thing, these sects go way back. We visited and explored the home of one of these communities yesteday, then in the evening we went to a 12th c. Caravanseray outside of Urgrup to see the the spinning dance (whirling Dervish) of another mystical Islamic tradition.

That dance last night was very beautiful. I was actually expecting some sort of touristic thing dished out for the tour bus, but we saw something much better than that. The old Caravanseray had been beautifully restored, so we walked into this immense 12th c. courtyard at 9:30 last night (beautiful moon). The dance took place in the vaulted area (covered) behind the courtyard. It was a small theater, and the ceremony took about 45 minutes - a series of songs and chants that leads into the spinning dance. Afterwards we were able to go to a small room off the open courtyard to drink tea and speak with one of the Dervishes about the dance. It was a beautiful dance, strange and wonderful music, all in an extraordinary setting.

Interesting point: the fact that Ataturk banned these communities has an interesting double edge to it. These variant Islam traditions, along with others such as the Alevi's have always had tense relationships with the mainstream traditions here. There's even been various massacres and pogroms over the years. It is interesting to see that worship and practice of these sects continues - but now it exists under a kind of state protection administered by the bureau of culture and tourism. So, strangely enough Ataturk's ban has actually functioned as a kind of preservation and protection. This seems almost to be a general rule about Turkey: things tend to be the inversion of what you would expect.

Busy days but lots to see. The hotel in Ugrup was nice - I wish I could have parked there another day or two. We did some walking and shopping around town - put carpet bargaining skills to the test.

Even the bus rides have been good. It's nice to be able to sit for some time in air conditioned comfort and watch the landscape roll by. They also do a nice job of stopping every hour or so at some interesting site (today we stopped at a town known for its pottery as well as some of the places I mentioned above). So, it's nice to have your life run by professionals for a bit.

I am really looking forward to tomorrow because we are taking an afternoon trip to Catal Huyuk - the site of that original city I wrote about a few days ago. Also, the past few days we have had an architectural historian in tow with our tour - it's been great. It will be a long day though - and it ends with a midnight arrival (by plane) back to Istanbul. No chance for blogging tomorrow.


Most Remarkable Thing:

Hmmm...these past two days the harder thing has been to lay hold on something normal. Between looking at Byzantine churches carved into cliffs or crawling down curving stairways a hundred and more feet down..

Pictures:

This is a nice shot of a little roadside stop near Urgrup - and you can get a glimpse of some of the Cappadocian landscape around there.