Go take a flying leap

I did.

Got back from Ephesus and Pamukkale, where I saw some fabulous ruins, an incredible calcified mountain with thermal springs. After that, I decided to take a flying leap off a cliff.

At the ruins of Hieropolis, in Pamukkale (where the calcifications are; “Pamukkale” means “cotton castle,” and it’s so named because the calcification is so white that it looks like snow or sand, but it’s really calcium-rich hot springs), I saw some paragliders high over the mountain. At first, I thought they were para-sailing, but realized that, other than the spectacular thermal baths, there wasn’t enough water to have a rowboat, let alone parasailing. They were coming off the mountain, not the water.

BC bathrooms

Didn’t really give it a second thought – other than “someday!” – until later, when my traveling companion said she’d mentioned it to our tour guide and he said it could be arranged after the Pamukkale tour ended, as we’d have free time before the airport.

Backing up, TC and I had knocked off the weekend for a two-day exploration of Ephesus (destination of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians) and Pamakkule, the cotton castle and ancient ruins. After an unholy early morning that involved 2:30 alarms, a pickup for the airport, which at the crack of 3:45 a.m. was a half hour late, a before 6 a.m. flight and hustling between an airport pickup and a couple of tour directors by 8:30, we explored Ephesus, which was phenomenal.

Ephesus encompasses a wide area. It was, after all, a city of 250,000. There’s an upper and a lower city with two marketplaces – where Paul sold his tents. At the time, it was a beach town and I could see people camping on the beach. Except now, the beach is about 8 kilometers away whereas Ephesus had been a port with a walkway from the docks to the amphitheater. It must have been quite a site to get off the ship and walk toward the city with the crowd – the thing seated 25,000 – right in view.

Ephesus library

The library is the highlight, of which the façade is the only thing that’s been rebuilt. There is an underground tunnel from the library directly to the brothel, so men could tell their wives they’d be at the library and then go get a hands-on anatomy class.

The panel with Nike was fascinating. I knew the shoe company had ripped off the goddess’ name, but hadn’t realized the swoosh had been lifted, too. If you look just below the right hand, you can see that the robe thing is flowing, and it’s in the shape of the shoe’s swoosh. The hand is pointed down at the curve in what we know as the swoosh. (Further evidence that nothing is original.)

One unexpected turn was the men’s bathroom. The centuries BC bathrooms were nicer than some I’ve seen in my travels! Made of marble, there were essentially 45 seats – holes in the marble, all sided-by-side. Underneath, there would have been running water to wash away everything right into the Aegean Sea. And during the winter, when marble was cold, apparently the wealthy pottie users would dispatch their slaves to go take a seat to warm it up.

It seemed a little close for comfort, but hey, what do I know? I stay out of men’s restrooms if possible. But even now, we have urinals, so we haven’t exactly evolved from the B.C. bathrooms. No reading material, though.

Parmukkale, "cotton castle" calcification

The amphitheater was pretty incredible, and, like I said, it must have been a sight to see upon docking. We saw where the gladiators would have entered, and where the doomed – many times Christians – would have entered to meet their fate.

Cruel entertainment, for sure. This was during Roman Empire times, but somehow, based on recent events, I don’t think the thirst for blood has been quenched.

We also saw the site of Artemis, the site of an ancient wonder of the world. There’s only one column left standing – Romans re-used parts of it in other buildings after earthquakes and such – but man, it’s an impressive sight.

The following day, we hit Heirpolis, a city that’s almost completely unexcavated ruins. They’re in the process of digging things up, but it was really this huge area of columns and stones, with some buildings being re-created behind the city walls, which were also being put back together again. The amphitheater and church there were impressive, and the medieval castle, which overlooked the calcified mountain, was incredible.

Those were right next to the thermal baths, including the pool that Cleopatra bathed in as Marc Antony’s wife. The pools were simply amazing. I’ve got one photo here, but if you Google “cotton castle” some utterly fabulous photos will appear.

Hieropolis

We waded up and down the baths, which were mostly warm and toasty. It looked just like white sand or ice, so it was always a surprise to step and have it not only be warm but firm as well. The view was basically a small mountaintop, so it overlooked a valley. And over the valley there were people paragliding here and there.

After lunch and a mandatory sales pitch for minerals, we were rather unceremoniously dumped off a hotel, a holding spot until an airport pickup three hours later. Before Octavius the Guide left, I asked about the possibility of paragliding, and wondered if the hotel operator would be the one to arrange it.

Octavius picked up the phone and started talking to someone on the other end, then he asked two guys who’d been in our small group if they’d want to go, too. He said it would be cheaper if more of us went. (TC had no interest).

The guys, both Malaysian health professionals and one of whom worked in Saudi, said OK, but then the guide pretty much left. I had no idea where it stood, and I went up to find a bathroom to brush my teeth. When I came back down, I heard TC say, “Oh, there she is.”

Nike. See the swoosh?

We had no idea that it was on, but apparently so. The three of us hopped into a nondescript van that didn’t need shocks because the seats bounced up and down to cushion the ride. It was kind of surreal because we really hadn’t put any planning into doing it and just hopped in.

The van slowed down, basically a California stop, in front of a storefront and four maybe mid-30 guys hopped in. They slammed the door and we were gone. It would have been scarier except I did notice the storefront sign said “Pamukkale Hijackers.” Who’s to say what is legit in Turkey?

We wound up some tiny and bumpy roads, and at one point I saw this decrepit building with an iron gate – but no fence – on the side. I thought it was rather dilapidated, and suddenly we whipped through it – that was the front door.

The road, never nicely paved to begin with, suddenly saw a drop in quality, and then we rounded a corner and, in a cloud of dust, we were on top of the mountain.

We were really doing this.

Now, I’ve skydived and hang-glided. I dove with sharks. I lived in Jakarta. I do not have much issue with doing things that other people consider a little nuts.

I also pondered those decisions. This one, it went from thought crossing an otherwise empty head to fruition in about 20 minutes, and about 18.5 of those minutes were spent bouncing up and down in the springy, squeaky seat of a van that probably predated women’s suffrage.

Hustled out of the car, I was told to abandon my Chacos for some flimsy but closed-toed shoes that had probably seen more feet than your average bowling alley footwear, then commanded to follow a guy in a blue shirt – one of the people who’d jumped in the van.

I can’t say I caught his name, but about two minutes later, I was hooked up to him and had him briefing me on what to do. And this time, when I say brief, I mean it. There was no “OK, did you catch that?” or “Any questions?” It was “do this and then this.”

The instruction came down as the guy in the blue shirt who I was connected to was running towards a cliff. I had no choice but to run, too, and then jump. Off a cliff.

Not that I remember jumping, but it didn’t matter. I was concentrating on not losing the borrowed shoes, which had come loose during the run. I must have taken the flying leap, though, because next thing I knew I was flying, and Mr. I’m-in-His-Lap asked in my ear if I wanted to fly or land.

How do you answer that? I wanted to do both!

So we flew for awhile, going back and forth over this crevasse, where I could see a view of the whole valley – calcifications and town and all. It was pretty amazing.

I’d taken off first, and I saw one of the two Malaysian guys jump next. They headed pretty much straight down – glide down, I mean, not dropped like a rock – but we continued to go back and forth over a smaller area for a few more minutes.

When Mr. Lap asked again if I was ready to glide down, I said after the second Malaysian guy went, we’d follow them. So we did that, and the view expanded to the whole ruined area, the whole calcifications and the whole nine years. The area with ruins was much, much larger than we’d walked – I’d missed a very long road with a gate out the other direction.

The bird’s eye view gives you just an incredible perspective of how beautiful God’s handiwork is. I had such a good time, but figured at some point I had to land.

Only at that juncture did it occur to me that something could go wrong. Nothing did, but it was odd that at no point did I ever encounter any apprehension or have any thought that, gee, I could get taken up a gust and smacked into a mountain.

We were sailing over some tall pine trees and I do remember thinking that maybe we could get hung up on them, but that really doesn’t happen in gliding. You do (or Mr. Lap did) have control of the steering, and even if you don’t have any wind, there’s still air resistance, so you’re pretty good for landing somehow, so long as there’s a clearing.

And there was. We came down in a corn field, where “knee high by the Fourth of July” doesn’t mean anything. These little guys were only about a foot tall. I asked Mr. Lap how to land and he said “just stand up.” I remember thinking that was a bit nuts, but it really was that easy. Unlike the skydiving – we slid in on our butts – we just came down and stood still.

A random truck came to pick us up, then we met the other two jumpers where they’d landed. They took us back to the nondescript storefront, where we paid (seriously, they waited til after to take our money – very un-American!) and then took us back to the hotel like nothing had happened.

I can’t say it was a bucket list item because it never occurred to me to do it, but now I’ve jumped off a cliff.

Tough times in Turkey

Well, everyone knows by now that Turkey’s government faced a coup attempt and that it was, fortunately, unsuccessful. No one, however, seems to have seen it coming.

Friday evening was a bit frantic, as you can imagine.

I, of course, was sound asleep in bed when everything happened. I’d gone to dinner with a colleague at the nearby mall and had a great burger at Shake Shack. Perhaps that’s why I was having some kind of weird dream, only to be awakened around 11:30 or so by my landline, which has never rung before.

Jolted awake but still half asleep and confused, it was my supervisor calling on an emergency drill. As confused out as I was, I focused on the “drill” and wondered why the heck we were doing one when I was asleep. Then I figured out it must be real, so I got up, logged on and sent what I hoped were preemptive emails so people would know I was OK.

I also picked up my cell phone, which I’d left on the kitchen table intentionally, reasoning that the alarm on that is only set for weekdays, so why did I need it next to my bed? Well, I now know why – I missed 13 Whatsapp messages, a couple regular messages and some phone calls.

Catching up on that, I put finally together that I was supposed to continue down my branch of the phone tree and check on some other people, so I did that. And, like everyone else in the world, tried to figure out what was going on.

I swear I heard low-flying jets outside, and I could hear a dull roar, like people demonstrating. Also swear I heard an explosion, but everything was distant. I’m in a suburb and nowhere Taksim Square, which seems to be the place where everyone goes to protest. It takes me at least 30 minutes by bus/tram/taxi to get there, so it’s a ways away. And although I’ve been over the Bosporus bridge several times, it’s not anywhere near me and it takes an effort to get there.

So at no point did I feel in danger, although it was really weird. I hope it’s the only coup attempt I’m ever present for. We got a message telling us to stay where we were at around 2:30 a.m., which was lifted around 4 p.m. on Saturday.

So what a boring weekend! Fortunately, my DVD player arrived, so I’ve been watching “King of the Hill” and the Bourne movies. Also the latest “Star Wars” and “Monsters University,” which I just recently bought. So glad Walmart delivers.

And even though we were told to stay put, I figured that meant the apartment complex and not the apartment itself, so I went to the gym both mornings. There’s a TV there (I don’t have cable hooked up yet) so I got to watch BBC.

Ninety solid minutes of news and not a section spent on the U.S. presidential elections. So far, that’s the only plus I can figure from this. It’s just awful, and nothing good is going to come of it.

I don’t think it’s going to get any better, but I don’t feel unsafe.

Back from Baku

We had a big holiday this past week, and I took the opportunity to get out of town. (Of course I did!)

Maiden's Tower

By virtue of a poorly worded memo, I really thought I had to work for four hours on Monday, so my parameters for finding a place to go was it had to be a nonstop flight leaving after a certain time and be a little farther away than I could do on a Friday-Sunday weekend.

Flights.Google.com is a really fun tool and, after much ado, I finally found something that fit what I was looking for: Azerbaijan, specifically, Baku.

For those who don’t know, Azerbaijan is a relatively new country that came out of the breaking up of the Soviet Union. There are a lot of historic sites, but the country itself came about in the 1990s.

Its nickname is “the land of fire” because it’s rich in natural gas and oil. My first day, I went to a site with “mud volcanoes,” which, from what I understood, were caused in part by the natural gasses underground. On the way, there were literal pools of oil, just like Jed Clampett found on his property.

In this case, they’re found near Gobustan, a little area about 60 kilometers from Baku. There are lots of them there. (Wiki says that 400 of the 800 known mud volcanoes are in Azerbaijan, so it must be true, right?)

Black gold

They apparently occur when water underground gets warm mixes with the dirt, which makes the mud. It’s not lava, but it looks really slurry and then dries in funky formations. It seems that although it’s heated underground, it’s cooled off by the time it gets to the surface. I saw this because not only did I stick my fingers in it, but a bunch of kids there at the same time were playing in it.

Since I’m not a science major, I really don’t understand how the stuff makes it to the surface except that the earth is sometimes angry and spits stuff out. Wiki says, “This material is then forced upwards through a geological fault or fissure due to local subterranean pressure imbalances.” Sounds like “spit out” to me.

Anyway, it was very cool to see. I had a driver for the day and it was sort of Mongolia-like, driving off the road, past a bunch of pipelines and then up some really bouncy dirt paths for about five kilometers before arriving at a fairly steep incline. When we reached the top, there were suddenly a bunch of mounds of varying heights, plus a tour bus full of kids.

I took over 100 pictures. Leanne wasn’t impressed, but you have to realize it really was amazing. Although we do have some of these in the U.S. – Beth and John saw them in Yellowstone – I had never even heard of them. It was fun, trying to figure out how to photograph them.

Petroglyphics

At work, I’ve been issued an iPhone, and only took that with me – no laptop, no camera. I’m still relatively new to smartphones, and it was quite a struggle to try to work the photos. I was really bad at the shutter and kept getting “blasts” of a bunch of pictures, like 3-46 of them. It was kind of fun to play some of those back quickly because they looked like cartoon.

After culling and deleting, I wound up with 99 pictures. I was just so amazed at the natural beauty that I couldn’t stop taking pictures.

The drive was very monochrome – shades of sandy brown and not much else. Still, I thought it was amazing.

After the mud volcanoes – and much banging mud out of my Chacos – I stopped in the village to see the cave drawings, which date back to the Middle Ages.

Mud volcano

Again, lots of photos. Some drawings were easy to spot, and some were absolutely not. But I loved the rock formations and kept snapping away. I also liked the deserty flowers. The snake warning sign scared me, but it was around 3 p.m. and I knew all critters would be hanging out in the cool places, not directly in the sun like I was. I stayed on the path, though. Didn’t want any surprises.

Baku itself was fascinating. It’s a new country, a new “democracy,” and new to tourists, all of whom they assume to be Russian. The city has a bright and shiny façade on it, but if you look behind it, you see haggard old buildings. There’s  an effort to look polished – people as well as places – but it’s a bit raw behind the shine.

The Fountain Square was a beautiful little area, with new stores, cobblestones and works of art down by the waterfront. That area was front and center last month, when the Grand Prix rolled through. A ways away, an entire dilapidated neighborhood was being razed and we got snarled in a traffic jam.

Beware!

The historic city was intriguing. Again, it was all monochrome – not a lot of color at all, but still beautiful. The Maiden Tower is the city’s most well-known landmark, although in touring it, it’s clear no one knows exactly why it was built. There are several theories and all fit, but no one knows for sure. Ditto for the reason it’s known as Maiden’s Tower. Lots of speculation, but no proof.

In all, I have 231 photos from the three-day trip. I don’t think it’s a record, but that’s after paring it down as much as I could.

Heading out, I was six days removed from the bombing at the airport. There was a memorial, which choked me up big time. There weren’t too many people there. My trip there was kind of charmed, really. I was in no hurry, but hadn’t flown out of the airport yet, so I wasn’t sure how it worked. It seems many colleagues cough up $37 each way to hire a car to the airport, but it’s about a two-hour drive. The metro is long and boring, but it’s only an hour. Plus, it’s about $5 including the taxi to the metro station. (My apartment is about four kilometers from the nearest metro. I opted to be close to the office, so this is the tradeoff and I am fine with it.)

Flaming Towers at night

Anyway, for me, the metro is the way to go. Going and coming were flawless as far as that went. The dicey part was immigration – man, I want my diplomatic passport back. The wait was over an hour long. There were fistfights. I almost got into it, too. Some woman tried to muscle around me and I blocked her, saying she was behind me. She then tried to get around the other side and I blocked her again. But then she essentially shoved me out of the way, then pushed – and I mean, linebacker-like – further ahead. I figured she wasn’t worth it, but man, I want my visa in order. I do not want to do that again.

Hopefully, I can get that done next month. I don’t intend to fly internationally until I get it, and then it’ll be to depart and return on the proper visa.

Looking ahead, I have six potential long weekends left in the calendar year. I’m hopeful I can maximize.

Big Red Bussing it

Week four or something in Istanbul, and I finally ventured down to the touristy spots.

Today’s the last day of Ramadan and next week is a holiday, so a lot of the people are gone to visit family and the downtown area hasn’t been all that crowded. I took the opportunity to do the cheesy thing and get a Big Red Bus tour of my own town.

Probably it was a waste of $35, but I enjoyed it. It gave me a pretty good lay of the land and a running narration on the history, of which there is much. Walls built in the fourth century! Wow – civilization started here. It’s amazing.

Of course, I’m not ready to be tested on it or anything. There’s just too much. As I sat on the bus listening to it, I was pretty thankful to be born in a relatively new country. I cannot imagine having to learn all that in middle school. Byzantine, Ottomans, Turks … it was a lot to grasp.

I couldn’t find anyone to go with me on the tour but one of my colleague had to go a market that morning so I went down to meet the bus with her. There is a metro/tram system here, but since I walk work, I haven’t had a chance to use it.

I have yet to take the metro trains, but now I know where to catch a bus that will take me to a tram that will take me down to the Blue Mosque area, which is where the big tours and stuff stars. It’s a nice area, and was far more crowded in the afternoon than it was in the morning. There was no one there when we got there, and we were in the towel shop before anyone else work up, I think.

When I met the bus, there were a total of three people on it. I went as far as Takism Square initially and got off and wandered there before getting back on and stopping at Hard Rock for lunch. I realize that was also a bit cheesy, but I was playing tourist and had a free drink.

After that, I had some trouble finding the next bus stop. I was aiming at one church and thought I found the road, but promptly got as lost as you can while armed with a GPS and wound up finding a totally different bus stop and getting on there. I’d tried to meet the bus at stop No. 11 or something, but wound up getting back on at No. 3 and had to go through the whole let’s-go-to-Asia routine again. Let’s face it, that’ll never get old, but this driver had no idea one of those pedals at his feet could make the bus go faster. We were going to so slow, he actually stopped at one point.

That route put me behind about an hour, but since I’m here two years it’s all good. I finally got off that route and got on the other one, which took you around the Golden Horn area. I knew there was something called a “Dolphinarium,” but I didn’t know you could scuba dive with dolphins. I seriously might have to do that.

At that point in the tour, I was starting to get a raging headache and it was close to being over, so I didn’t get off and do the cable car or the miniature city or anything like that. I just soaked in the history and wound down back at the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque, where I started to get hassled for sales, which is when it’s time to make my departure.

The trip back, solo, was way more complicated than the way there. I found the tram all right but when I went to the end, I had no idea where the bus stop was. When we got off, the tram was right there, but all I saw on the other side of the road was taxis.

So I figured I’d just start walking down the road. It was right by the water, and as long as the water stayed on my right, I knew I was heading in the right direction. (I used “right” three times in that sentence, and it still sounded right, right?)

Right on. Anyway, at no point was the water on my left, so I knew I was correct, but it sure seemed weird – and long. You know how in America, buses stop something like every 30 feet? Well, I knew I was headed in the – um, not wrong – direction because one of my buses passed me, and I knew they were 15 minutes apart. I swear I did not see another stop. I just kept walking and walking. I finally got to this bus jam stop in front of one what appeared to be popular area. I thought it was a bus stop, but then realized all those buses were the same number, so I walked on.

No sooner did I cross in front of all the bus 30As than I saw an actual bus stop. I was so relieved, but then when I checked the “upcoming” buses, I did not see my bus, No. 22. I couldn’t figure out why not, because it sure seemed like 15 minutes had passed by since I’d seen the bus. And then I realized that while I was standing there, a bus pulled up, and it was mine.

I was so happy to sit down. And the, I hit Istanbul traffic. I had stopped to get a bottle of water and some cookies, so I no longer felt like I was going to starve. (The Hard Rock fish and chips only lasted so long. It was 7:30 by that point, and I didn’t get home until almost 9 p.m.

So I was really happy to not have to work today. I didn’t sleep late or anything, but after getting up, running 6k, doing laundry, cooking and going to the grocery store, I did take a nap. Now I am up and getting ready to tackle the metro on the way to the airport. I’m headed to Baku for a couple of days. Back on Friday.