11 July 2012-- vistas on the way to Ankara

Today was on early day. SItting over breakfast, hot air balloons passed over the horizon.




This area has stunning vistas, so there are many companies that take people up. Several on our trip took advantage of this. I will do this another time.




In the distance, we were able to see Mt. Erciyes. Driving into the area two days ago, the peak was shrouded in clouds. There are a lot of sheep around, and some goats. Apples, wheat, barley, and potatoes are grown around here.




This is a view of the salt lake. We drove along it for an hour or so. The white areas are where the water has evaporated.
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10 July 2012 -- Carpetium

We visited the Carpetium today. This is a government cooperative, where women receive training in carpet weaving. At the center, women work and demonstrate how a carpet is made.

Here you can see women working on various types of carpets. It can take anywhere from 5 weeks to 17 months to make a carpet, depending upon the size. As you can imagine, it is tedious work. Women may work 40 minutes and take a break. Over the course of an 8-hour day, they may work a total of 4 hours.

Martha Stewart visited this site.

Silk is one of the strongest fibers in the world. A single strand is very weak. One thread will have 100 strands, and five threads and spun together. It was amazing to see this done.






















































The showroom was amazing. Ariel and his staff showed us many different types of rugs. I was amazed that by turning a carpet, the colors change based upon the sheen.















My roommate Tony called the presentation Cirque du Soleil of Carpet-- Carpetium. We just need to come up with a catchy theme song.

I got a few pictures of spinning carpets. 

The presentation was amazing and the carpets were beautiful. All dyes are organic.



















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10 July 2012-- Göreme Open Air Museum

Today was another day of wonders! I admit that I had these great intentions prior to the trip. I was going to read up on each site, study a little Turkish culture and politics, and was going to be this well-informed traveller. Well, this did not happen. In some respects, I think this was to my advantage because every site was very new to me. Even familiar sites (Ayasofia) were new and I found something to discover.

Göreme was an amazing site. From Wikipedia:

Göreme is a district of the Nevşehir Province in Turkey. After the eruption of Mount Erciyes about 2,000 years ago, ash and lava formed soft rocks in the Cappadocia Region, covering a region of about 20,000 km. The softer rock was eroded by wind and water, leaving the hard cap rock on top of pillars, forming the present-day fairy chimneys. People of Göreme, at the heart of the Cappadocia Region, realized that these soft rocks could be easily carved out to form houses, churches, monasteries. These Christian sanctuaries contain many examples of Byzantine art from the post-iconoclastic period. These frescoes are a unique artistic achievement from this period.

In the 4th century small anchorite communities began to form in the region, acting on instruction of Saint Basil of Caesarea. They carved cells in the soft rock. During the iconoclastic period (725-842) the decoration of the many sanctuaries in the region was held to a minimum, usually symbols such as the depiction of the cross. After this period, new churches were dug into the rocks and they were richly decorated with colourful frescoes.

Here I am at a scenic overlook.

St Barbara

We visited the Nunnery, the Apple Church, St. Barbara's Church, St. Onuphorius Church, Chapel of St. Catherine, Çarikli (Sandal) Church, and the Tokali (Buckle) Church.

These churches were vandalized at some point prior to the site becoming a museum in 1950. In Islam, it was forbidden to draw pictures of humans, so many of the faces were scratched out. Sometimes, just the nose or an eye would be scratched out.

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9 July 2012-- Scenic views of Uchisar, Pasabag (Monks Valley) and Pigeon Valley

The scenery in this part of the country is stunning (not a word often used by me). These chimneys have been formed by erosion over time, shapped by wind and rain. People lived in the cliffs in this area until the late 1940s and 1950s when the Turkish government gave residents incentives to move from the hills into the valleys. some of the cliff dwellings have been turned into boutique hotels.







Our great guide Arda...












Göreme




















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9 July 2012-- Sema (Mevlevi Worship Ceremony), The Whirling Dervishes Ceremony at Saruhan Caravanserai

The Mevlevi order of the whirling dervishes is a mystic group whose members are followers of Mevlana Celaleddin Runi, a great Turkish poet and mystic. (We visited his grave and museum yesterday in Konya). No pictures were allowed during the ceremony, but I was able to capture pictures in the courtyard of the caravanserai.

This was such an amazing experience. I remember as a kid seeing an article in National Geographic magazine or perhaps a National Geographic special. Despite the language barrier, the audience was lulled into a trance by the beauty of the music and the motion of the dervishes. I had a preconceived notion that somehow they would have been a little more frenetic. I was certainly wrong.

The service is a combination of old Turk, Arabic, and Farsi languages.




























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