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Archive for July, 2009

To the Oldest City on Earth

28 Jul

Statue in Damascus

The last morning in Aleppo was spent finding a way to Damascus. I first walked to the train station, only to find that there were no trains until the next day. As nice as Aleppo was, I was on a schedule now, and took a taxi to the bus station. Tourists, it seems, tend to head straight to Damascus–as soon as I stepped inside the station touts from one of the country started shouting: “Eh! English! Damascus?” I nodded, and got a ticket all the way for only two hundred SYP, or about four dollars.

Man selling watermelons in Damascus

It was about a four hour ride across dry, dry country, with some kind of Syrian soap opera playing on the bus television–and judging by the overlaid website address and poor video quality, a pirated one at that. When we finally got into the Damascus bus station we were met by a swarm of taxis and drivers, one of whom spoke English and told me he knew of cheap hotels to stay in. It wasn’t until we were driving that I noticed how fast the meter was rising–and that the “cheap” hotels he was talking about were “very nice, very cheap, only sixty dollars for night!” When we stopped in front of a ritzy establishment with fake waterfalls and a faux Mongol theme, I figured out what was happening. Those hotels were full anyway, and the taxi driver wanted to take me somewhere else (my bags were locked in the trunk), but the meter was already at 450 SYP, over double what the entire ride from Aleppo had cost, and I convinced him to get my bags out for me, and, grudgingly, paid.

Damascus architecture

At this point, of course, I had no idea where I was. By now it was also getting dark, so I walked around for a bit, trying to find some cheap hotels I’d heard of, and finally settled on the cheapest one I could find at the hour–a three bed room for thirty dollars. Not bad by American standards, but it still hurt in the wallet.

Damascus street

The next day, I picked up a map from the local tourist information office and finally located the backpacker district of Damascus. This worked rather better–after checking a few places I found one where I could sleep on the roof for only 300 SYP a night, and, if I wanted, get a full breakfast for another 100 on top of that. Six dollars for lodging, I thought, was well worth the price, so I moved my luggage.

Al Hamidieh in Damascus

Now, finally, it was time to do what I had come to do: explore Damascus. I made my way into the old town, which has been an active city for at least five thousand years–the oldest on the planet–and headed for the main attraction, the Ummayad mosque. To get there, I took the main souq, a long thoroughfare called Souq Hamidieh. The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul had struck me as an Arabic shopping mall and the Aleppo souqs had seemed interesting and labyrinthine; this, the main souq of Damascus, was something else again. A wide road lined with shops and a high, arching metal ceiling, the souq is packed with people and curves into the distance. The constant foot traffic stirs up a lot of dust, and the holes in the ceiling–supposedly bullet holes from some of the battles for independence from the French in the early twentieth century–let in pencil-thin rays of sunlight that dapple the ground. Though more touristed than the Aleppo souqs, Al Hamidieh still manages to put off a combined feeling of medieval Arabic commerce and French colonial sophistication.

Woman in Ummayad square

The end of the souq opens up through an archway of ancient Roman columns, now hung with rugs and swarming with street vendors, onto the square of the Ummayad mosque. Like the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Ummayad Mosque also reflects the history of its city. It began its life as the Roman temple to Zeus. The columns at the end of the souq were once the main entrance to the temple, and one can still see the old Roman structure now built into the walls of the mosque. One of the gates still has Latin inscriptions from the time. With the Byzantines, the temple was converted into a church. And, with the rise of the Ummayad Dynasty in Damascus (the first Islamic empire) the church was converted into a mosque, which is what it is to this day.

Ummayad Mosque

I walked around the mosque, quite an impressive structure with its wide marble courtyard. Inside, behind an ornate bronze latticework wall and inside a marble box, is supposedly the head of John the Baptist, also considered to be a prophet in Islam. After making the rounds and stopping in next door to pay my respects at the grave of Saladin, I headed back onto the streets to just explore. Damascus is full of old and winding streets, many built over with wooden crossbeams to provide both more building space above and more shade below. The streets are really too narrow for vehicle traffic, but that doesn’t seem to stop anybody; you’ll be walking along a street when a taxi or truck rumbles down behind you, honking, and everyone presses to the wall to let it pass.

Inside the Ummayad mosque

On the way back some carpenters in a shop waved to me to take a picture of their shop, and then invited me, with almost no English, to stop for some tea. We started talking as best we could–I spoke no Arabic, and one of them spoke only a little English, and both of us spoke a little Russian. I told him in Russian I wanted to come back to Damascus to study Russian, and he and his friends immediately started pointing to objects and telling me how to say them. I pulled out my notebook and started writing, filling a few pages of my notebook. Their favorite was “hmar kbir”: big donkey.

Ummayad Minaret

As the sun began to go down I made it back to the Ummayad square, where I was approached by a Syrian man who spoke excellent English, and wanted to ask me some questions. I said all right. He then proceeded to ask me a series of completely random questions about English phrases and syntax–we started talking, and he ended up showing me around, including a good place to eat at an old house that had been converted into a restaurant, now known as Beit Jabri, or House Jabri.

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His name was Moumen, and we ended up meeting the next day as well, after I’d walked around the souks for some time. One of my favorite parts of Syria is the juice sellers–freshly squeezed strawberry juice, blackberry juice, tamarind juice, a glass with ice for only twenty-five SYP or so. Moumen showed me around a bit, pointing out the old gates of the city and interesting landmarks, and told me about living in Syria. Perhaps the most interesting thing to me, as a westerner, was hearing about the “vice police”: how adultery, or premarital sex, is still a punishable crime in Syria, and the lengths to which young non-Muslim Syrians go to to escape the watchful eyes of neighbors and hotel owners.

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My last full day in Damascus I met some of Moumen’s friends, three Dutch girls who were visiting Syria for a couple of weeks, and were leaving the same day I was (today). All three of them had studied psychology, though only one was going through with her studies, and all three lived and worked in Amsterdam. The four of us and two of Moumen’s friends, Tarik and Mahmoud, went out for dinner and talked until late in the evening.

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I’m still in Damascus now, the southernmost point of my trip. In a few hours I’ll head north to the old Roman city of Palmyra, now abandoned out in the desert, and from there continue on back up into eastern Turkey and, hopefully, Georgia before I have to head back to Istanbul.

Birds on a lamppost in Ummayad square

 
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Sorry, I don’t speak Arabic

23 Jul

Istanbul at sunset

I stayed in Istanbul one more day to see the Hagia Sophia and the fabled Grand Bazaar. After walking around the Bazaar for about twenty minutes, I was ready to leave–the ancient souk tradition of middle eastern commerce, combined with the massive inflow of western tourism Istanbul receives, have created what is essentially an enormous Arabic-themed shopping mall, teeming with jewelry stores and trinket shops, clean, efficient, and, in my opinion, devoid of whatever character it may once have had. That being said, if you’re traveling to shop, it seems to be the place to go in Istanbul–though you’ll get charged significantly more there than at some of the smaller shops frequented by the Turks in other parts of the city.

Inside the Hagia Sophia

The Hagia Sophia, on the other hand, still packs quite a punch to the visitor. It’s history essentially mirrors that of Turkey: it began its existance as an Orthodox Cathedral when Istanbul was Byzantium, and Christian; it was converted to a mosque under the Ottoman empire; now, after the secularization of Turkey under Ataturk, it has been converted again to a museum. It’s also under repair, with a mass of scaffolding rising to the dome towering above in the center of the building. The walls are peeling, but it’s still possible to feel the grandeur this place once had, both under the Church and under the ownership of Islam.

The view from the Hagia

Considering it high time to head on to Syria, I booked a twenty hour bus ride all the way from Istanbul to Aleppo for only ninety lira–about forty-five euro. Not a bad price at all, and hopefully a sign of tickets to come. I also considered my schedule (only three weeks left!) and reformulated my initial travel plans. So here, loyal readers, is the new itinerary: a week of exploration in Syria, a few days in eastern Turkey, a few days in Georgia, and then the remnant of the time traveling either by ship from Poti or along Turkey’s Black Sea coast back to Istanbul. From there I’ll catch a cheap regional flight to Frankfurt, and then, finally, back to the States. Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic will have to wait until next time.

Relativisitic effects at bus-level velocities may be negligible (that one’s for you, Philippe) but I’d say it’s a proven fact that twenty hours on a bus is longer than twenty hours anywhere else. I slept, assuming of course a broad definition of the verb “to sleep”, and read the entire book “Dandelion Wine” by Ray Bradbury. It was strange to be immersed in an excellently wrought of idealized Americana while driving through the sparse terrain of Southern Turkey, with talk shows in Turkish playing on the bus television, and conversations in Turkish and Arabic on all sides.

After switching buses in Antakya (that’s Antioch for you Biblical/Mesopotamian scholars out there) we headed for the Syrian border. This was the tensest moment of my trip, as my visa had actually expired the day before (note to self: next time apply closer to departure). We stepped out of the air-conditioned bus at the border to meet a wall of dry heat from the Syrian desert and walked into the visa office. Fortunately, the officials didn’t notice or didn’t care about the visa date, and after an hour or so of paperwork, I was officially welcomed into the country–by a rather surprised tourist information representative. I got the feeling the road borders didn’t get many American visitors.

The souk in Aleppo

The ticket was to Aleppo, but the bus driver informed us that they were actually going to Damascus, and so got us a taxi. The taxi driver was ostensibly waiting for someone else, but the only other passenger to Aleppo (a Syrian living in Canada, visiting home for a couple of weeks) and I “paid” (a.k.a. “bribed”) him five dollars and he drove us straight in. For the first time on my trip, I knew I was in really in another place. Stark desert, with villages built of desert stone, big machine shops servicing the trucks that crossed it, houses with camels tied up in front of them, and no English in sight.

More of the souk in Aleppo

Aleppo appeared after about sixty kilometers (very fast; the taxi driver, it seemed, had places to be), a modern city sprawled out across the desert, with the monolithic Aleppo Citadel rising in the very center. My taxi driver, who barely spoke English, transferred me to another, who spoke none, and I was driven to the cheap hotel district for about twenty five Syrian pounds. That works out to about fifty cents, USD: a good sign, I thought, for the price of living in Syria.

Turns out I was right. A hotel room for two nights was only sixty USD–a little more than I usually pay, but there’s nowhere to camp in Aleppo, and no hostels either. Still, a private room and a big free Syrian breakfast every morning aren’t bad at all. I dumped my bags and headed into town.

Aleppo from the Citadel steps

I hadn’t eaten for almost two days thanks to the twenty hour bus, so I decided to try a local restaurant. Monica had said Syrian food was unbelievable, and she turned out to be right. And cheap–I stuffed myself on a ground beef and tomato sauce dish with rice, pita bread with hummus, turkish coffee, a big salad, and a coke–all for less than ten USD. This, I thought, I can live with.

It was already getting dark and the citadel was closed, so I spent several hours just walking the old city streets. Aleppo is an ancient city, older than almost any in the world short of Damascus, and it feels it. The streets are narrow and winding, built of desert stone, and absolutely alive at night. Outside of the citadel itself and surrounding souks (more on those soon) there are almost no tourists, and I’m dark enough now after two and a half months of walking in the sun that for the most part I didn’t even get a second glance. At night, the temperature here is perfect, especially compared to the stifling heat of the day (visiting Syria in late July–what was I thinking?). As a result, that’s when the locals come out. Public squares are full of men talking and smoking or sitting with their women, nearly all of whom are clad in either full burqa or at least modest clothing and head scarf. The interesting thing is that, unlike in certain modest-dress sects of Christianity, Syrian women are still very fashionable–even the full burqas are embroidered and very elegant, as gender-oppressive as they may be.

Me on the citadel, looking quite pleased with myself

There is also food, everywhere. I almost wished I hadn’t eaten. Fresh fruit, meats, fried falafel, squeezed fruit juice, coffee. The souks are concentrated into districts, as are the shops just outside of the old city. The best was on the walk from the citadel back to my hotel: the spice market. Every breeze brings whiffs of cardamom, cumin, tea, rosemary; the effect is enchanting. Supermarket owners in the States, listen up: if you really want some customers, set up a wholesale spice section, and put it upwind.

A random Syrian who wanted his picture taken

I slept, woke up for an amazing Syrian breakfast of eggs, stuffed olives, pita bread, fresh jam, cheese, turkish coffee and tea, and cream. Rather beats the American tradition of stale pastries and old coffee, I have to say (if you think I’m bashing American industry to much, I’d just like to mention here that after experiencing Turkish and Syrian hole-in-the-ground toilets, for me the American bathroom industry as much as has wings and a halo).

Then into town, where, while waiting for the lighting on the citadel to improve, I explored the souks. If there’s one obvious thing that still surprised me about the middle east, it’s that this whole part of the world has an immense shopping culture. And they do it well. The Aleppo souk is labyrinthine, and roofed, making it a welcome cool refuge from the day’s heat. And, unlike the Great Shopping Mall of Istanbul, it’s a functioning marketplace. A long walk brings you past silver and gold sellers, wool sellers, wholesale silk and cotton sellers, whole corridors of markets full of olives, full of spices, full of roasted nuts, full of dairy products. And clothing stores. It’s an interesting commentary on the culture that almost every woman I’ve seen is very modestly dressed, and a good half of them are in the full black burqas, but nearly every clothing store was tailored toward women. And these shops look like they’re trying to compete with New York and Paris (ladies, pardon my laymanship if I’m spectacularly wrong). The lingerie–sold exclusively by men, as is everything else here–would look racy in the windows of a Victoria’s Secret outlet.

The mosque / throne room inside the Citadel

I walked for a bit out of the souks themselves into the surrounding town, and found much of the same culture of commerce. Covered streets, shouting, tiny markets, selling absolutely everything. I haven’t seen a single supermarket here, simply because you can buy literaly everything in these shops. One entire street, covered in tin, was entirely lined with blacksmiths’ shops, selling everything from machine parts to construction tools. The next was tin workers, and the next auto repair shops. The souk culture is very different from the American business model, and clearly translates well into modernity. I’d be interested to see an economic comparison of the two methods.

A hot air balloon filling outside the Citadel

Finally, after sitting down for an amazing sort of milkshake made from almonds (for about … a dollar) I decided to check out the main tourist attraction: the Aleppo Citadel. In the very heart of the old town, the Citadel dominates the city. It’s the oldest castle in the world (and has been conquered by just about everybody since and including Alexander the Great), has a moat around the mountain it stands on, and high walls encircling the entire perimeter. The only entrance is a span of stone that stretches out across the moat and has two gates. I got a student entry for ten pounds (ie twenty cents) and spent a couple of hours just exploring. This place was a fortress, and it’s still possible to visit the great cisterns beneath it where water was kept in case of attack. In fact, tunnels catacomb the entire fortress, though most of them are either unexcavated or blocked off to visitors. But the view is a spectacular one–from the walls, you can see out all the way across the old town to the glittering modern city around it, and, on the horizon, the dry expanse of the Syrian desert. Built into the fortifications above the entrance is a mosque (or possibly the throne room–if there was a sign, it was in Arabic) with expansive marble floors and perfectly kept; quite a surprise to come upon when exploring the crumbling ruins and tunnels of the rest of the citadel.

The Citadel entrance

After thoroughly exploring the place and (finally) getting my picture taken in front of some scenery, I headed back into town and sat down to write at an open-air cafe just outside the entrance, enjoying the feeling of the city coming to life as the sun went down and the day finally began to cool.

Now, back at my hotel, I’m finally having to think about coming home. It’s less than a month away, and for the first time is really giving me a set date when I have to somewhere (namely, Istanbul). Every place I’ve been so far I’ve wanted to stay longer, and at every train station, all I see is possibilities–to Vienna from Trieste, or Moscow from Belgrade, to Jordan or Lebanon from Syria, to everywhere from Istanbul. Entrancing possibilities, temptations to just go that get stronger rather than weaker the longer I travel. The last two months seem to have passed in no time at all, but at the same time Dublin feels an eternity behind. Forever and an instant; the world is immense, and very small; six billion friendly people who are constantly at war. It seems travel deals in paradox, and it’s done the same to me. I’m more comfortable alone than I ever was, and at the same time more able to meet new people. I have more questions, but feel more strongly what I believe. I’m ready to wander for as long as I can foresee, but I think more and more of home, even as my definitions of the word constantly shift. I’m going to come back a different person than when I left. I suppose that’s how it’s meant to be.

The Citadel at dusk

 
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Entering Asia

20 Jul

Leaving Santorini

After writing my last blog post, I finally got in touch with Sophia, only to find out that her work schedule was tight and wouldn’t take them through Fira. So, we said our final goodbyes over the phone and I camped outside of town, heading down to the port to catch the ferry to Rhodes the next morning. It was a long ride, sliding past Greek islands under clear skies and a red sunset. I arrived in Rhodes an hour or so after dark, and, not wanting to try to find a place to camp so late, got a ride to a hostel with the manager of the place, who was waiting at the port.

Rhodes street

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He drove me from the port into the middle of the old down of Rhodes, a fortified medieval city dating from the Crusades. My hostel, the Rhodes Youth Hostel, was right in the middle of the old town, next to an old Byzantine church. I dropped my bags and went out to take a look around. Narrow stone streets, old Byzantine churches and Ottoman mosques side by side, archways spanning the walkways just above head level–this island has been a major focal point for Mediterranean trade for a few thousand years now, and shows it in the feeling of a crossroads of eastern and western sea culture. In the old days it was famous for housing one of the seven wonders of the ancient world–the Rhodes Colossus, an enormous statue that dominated the harbor and was the first thing many ships saw upon sailing into the city.

The mosque in Rhodes

I booked two nights, since the ferry to Marmaris on the Turkish coast left too early in the morning to give me enough time to explore the city. I spent the next day walking around, seeing as much of the old city as I could and walking out along the seafront, where more recent Turkish architecture can be found, as well as the island’s long beaches. That afternoon I stopped back by the hostel, and met a fellow traveler called Philippe, a Canadian from Quebec who was traveling for a bit before beginning a PhD program in mathematics in Paris. It turned out he was also traveling to Turkey, so we joined forces and caught the ferry the next morning to the Turkish coast.

Architecture in Rhodes

The fortified walls of Rhodes

The Turkish visa process was surprisingly easy, costing only twenty USD and taking no more than ten minutes to process. We headed straight to the Marmaris bus station and caught the first bus north along the coast to a city called Denizli. In Turkey, the city buses that connect the main cities are fast, comfortable, and generally on time. On top of that, passengers are served tea and snacks en route, even on trips of only a couple of hours. Quite a refreshing change from some of the other bus journeys I’ve taken.

The mineral springs at Pamukkhale

After a trip through the arid mountains and plains just inland from the Turkish Aegean coast, we arrived in Denizli and took a small bus, or dolmus, to the town of Pammukahle. In Turkey, dolmuses provide local public transportation, usually at a rate of around two lira (roughly one Euro) for a ride. They’re shortened white buses, generally packed with locals, that network out from every major city to the smaller villages and towns nearby.

The ruins at Hieropolis

Our destination, Pammukahle, is home to a cascading series of sulfuric pools, resulting in pure white cliffs and still pools of milky warm water, with the sprawling ruins of the ancient Roman settlement of Hieropolis stretching out on the plateau of them. We checked into a local inn for only about fifteen lira each and were introduced for the first time to Turkish hospitality. The owner, a portly man by the name of Omar Sharrif, sat us down after we’d paid, gave us tea (in the traditional Turkish style, served hot in curved glasses), and talked to us for a bit. Despite his thick accent and our lack of Turkish, we got on well. When his wife came to ask him for the money, he shook his head and rubbed his brow. “Wife asks for money. Son asks for money. Little son asks for money. I am crazy.” I suppose some things are the same in every culture.

The sun beginning to set over old Hieropolis

The hot springs are famous in the region as a health spot for visiting tourists to wade in mineral water, and for a hefty fee, to go swimming in the old baths–complete with original Roman marble columns. The stairstep pools, with their white walls and pale water, were pretty enough, but I was especially impressed by the ruins of Hieropolis. Sprawled out across the valley, the vast majority of theme seem untouched, and none of them are closed off or restricted to visitors. As Philippe and I were walking through the ruins of an early Byzantine style octagonal church, we were approached by some gypsies who offered to sell us some Roman coins for twenty lira. They felt fake, and I very much hope they were, because I didn’t buy one.

We headed back to the hotel around sunset, where we were treated to a truly excellent Turkish dinner of lamb kebabs, grilled eggplant, rice with butter, and a number of other excellent side dishes, by Omar’s wife. As we ate, Turkish music played, and the hotel owners’ teenage daughter and twenty-one year old son danced in the courtyard as the rest of us watched and clapped in time. Altogether, not bad for less than the price of a dorm bed in a hostel in some of the big cities of Europe.

The ruins at Ephesus

The next day we headed to the ruins Ephesus, taking another bus to Selcuk. We picked up a hotel room there and were driven to teh ruins by a friend of the owner, where we walked down through the crumbling city. Though better preserved than Hieropolis had been, Ephesus was more crowded and more restricted. Still, at around six most of the tourists left to head back to their cruise ships on the nearby coast and the ruins were nicely abandoned for sunset. We walked back into town, where we met back up with the friend who’d given us a ride to the ruins. He was a Kurd, who owned with some friends and relatives a trio of shops just off the main street of Selcuk. We sat around and talked, drank tea, and smoked nargila, or a Turkish water pipe with flavored tobacco. The owners showed me their rugs, including some truly spectacular specimens–which were, of course, well beyond my price range.

Sunset over Ephesus

We finally headed back to our hotel at around two in the morning, and unlocked our room to find a couple sleeping in our bed. Needless to say, we were somewhat confused, and headed back downstairs to wake up the managers. This turned out to be harder than it looked, and when one of them finally stirred himself, he told us that they’d moved our room, and gave us the new key.

Monica and Philippe

The next day we’d planned to head further north, but we both liked the feel of Selcuk and wanted to look around a bit more. At breakfast (provided, as usual, by our hotel–fruit, cheese, olives, bread with sweet Turkish honey, and tea) we met an American girl named Monica who was in Turkey for studies in Istanbul, and was exploring a bit the week before her classes started. She also spoke some Turkish, which turned out to be quite helpful as we explored the city. The three of us headed out that evening to the beach, a long beautiful stretch of sand with the sun setting behind the rocky mountains up the coast. We were the only ones there, a welcome change from the noise and crowds of Santorini’s main beach a few days earlier.

After another night in the hotel we headed for Istanbul. We decided to take the train through Izmir, a pretty port town, and on up the coast to Menemen. The train took us through a wide valley, past vineyards and villages, into the bustling port city of Izmir, where we booked a ticket on to Menemen. It only cost us a few lira each, and we were told to be back to catch a shuttle to the other train station in the city. So, we walked around for a few hours and returned to catch our shuttle bus. After half an hour in said shuttle, we were wondering just where this other train station was. After an hour, we saw the signs for the Menemen train station and had to laugh–we’d just taken a bus, using a train ticket, from the train station in one town to the train station in the next.

Menemen seemed to be a town fairly devoid of tourists or any of the infrastructure needed to attract them. It was sprawling and industrial, with no clear center. When we got to the bus station, Monica’s Turkish turned out to be a life saver, as no one there spoke English, and the station was a madhouse of regional buses and dozens of dolmuses. We also turned out to be minor celebrities, as they hardly got any tourists. My camera especially was a big hit, and at least half a dozen of the Turks lounging about in the station cafe asked me to take their pictures.

Boy in the Menemen bus station

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A chef at the bus station making doner kebabs

The bus toward Istanbul, to Ayvalik, where we planned to spend the night, turned out to be an hour late, not showing up until seven in the evening, and took longer than we expected. We had planned to go from Ayvalik to Assos, a little beach town nearby, but weren’t sure of the possibility of doing so arriving at midnight, so we hopped off a stop before, at a city on the coast. I didn’t (and still don’t) know the name of the town, but it turned out to be a sort of Turkish nightlife center, with plenty of Turks visiting and next to no foreign tourists–none, in fact, that we saw, other than ourselves. We ended up sleeping out next to a lighthouse, as it was a warm night and we wanted to catch an early bus the next morning on to Istanbul.

A mosque from the Bosphorus in Istanbul

After a rather sleepless night and some good Turkish coffee the next morning, we boarded a bus to Istanbul, which took the better part of the day, and finally arrived that evening. Istanbul is truly enchanting, and I loved it from the moment I arrived. The city is massive, sprawling out across the land on either side of the Bosphorous, straddling Asia and Europe. Here, no buildings can be built higher than the mosques, and to look out across the city is to see a sea of buildings punctuated with minarets. Five times a day the call to prayer wails out across the city, sung by some of the best voices in the Muslim world–a sound not to be ignored, or easily forgotten. All combined, the city is alive, vibrant, and (to us westerners, at least) like something at the edges of another world.

The underground cisterns

We went out that night to the Taksim quarter. This was Monica’s third visit, and she knew her way around–we picked up some dinner (fish sandwiches on one of the Bosphorus bridges) and found a little bar with live Kurdish music. With a steady rhythm and beautiful wavering vocals sung by a Kurdish woman, I was fascinated. The best part was that other people in the bar were handing in requests–this isn’t folk music of the variety found in the states, meant to introduce a style of music to those unfamiliar with it; this is regional music, and the Kurds who come here know the songs by heart and often sing along.

A conservative muslim female tourist

Then, over the next few days, exploration and more exploration. We climbed a hill through an Ottoman cemetery and sat and watched the city. We walked through the Blue Mosque, craning our necks at the vaulted dome, inscribed in Arabic, far above. We descended into the old cisterns of the city, built in the 6th century and only rediscovered in the 16th–a cavernous vaulted space underground, with two feet of water in the bottom, fish swimming about, and rows upon rows of stone columns. We explored the opulence of the Topkapi Palace, seat of the Sultanate in the Ottoman Empire. And, of course, we walked, to innumerable little coffee shops and parks.

Istanbul has been the most unforgettable city yet, and I still have two more days here. On Tuesday I’ll catch a train to Aleppo, in Syria. I have less than a month left now, and am beginning to dread the date when it will all have to end. But I suppose it has to–after all, I’m going to have to start making enough money to pay for the next trip.

The courtyard of Istanbul's Blue Mosque

 
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Posted in Summer 09, Uncategorized

 

To the Islands

10 Jul

Fira, Santorini

After booking my ticket to Santorini, I found that I had a lucky coincidence. Sophia works for a Greek travel website as a translator, writing content in English. As it happened, she and two of her colleagues were making a trip to Santorini as well–on the same ferry I had booked that morning. I took the metro to Piraeus, the port of Athens, and made my way to the massive ferry that awaited the hordes of tourists heading to the islands.

Fira

I found Sophia and her friends, Stavros and Michael, half an hour or so after departure. We found a place on deck and talked for the entire five hour journey–philosophy and history, and then, because Michael is a bass player in a jazz band, music theory and bands. It was dark when we disembarked. The three of them had driven a car that was full of equipment with absolutely no room (Sophia was sitting near the roof on the pile in the back), so we split up at the docks, with a plan to meet the next day. I headed to Fira, the main town of Santorini, on a two euro bus that took the winding road up the high cliffs from the harbor. The ferry was leaving as we climbed, a glittering mass of light that reflected in the still water of the bay under the full moon above.

Sophia!

Fortunately, Fira isn’t all that large of a town, and the bus station is on the edge, so I was able to find a place to camp less than ten minutes’ walk from the station. Not so fortunately, my sleep schedule was still on Athens weekend time–going to sleep at sunrise, waking up at noon. I slept briefly and fitfully, then gave it up when the sun came up and the day got hot. I walked into town at seven to the beautiful sight of the white buildings built into the volcanic cliffs high above the blue waters of the Aegean. The town was empty save for a few people hosing down the streets.

Ship in the Santorini bay, seen from Ia

That changed quickly. In the sea below Fira, two cruise ships were anchored, and a stream of small boats were heading out to bring in the first loads of tourists. Half an hour later they were arriving at the city via cable cars from the old harbor or by the donkey trains that still run up the steep path down to the water’s edge. It was hot, too, and bright: with the deep blue of the waters, the clear blue of the skies, and the pure white of the buildings, it’s easy enough to see where Greece got its national colors.

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I met up with Sophia, Stavros and Michael a little after noon, and had my first taste of the life of a professional travel writer. They had a list of sites to visit and photograph, and were madly dashing from place to place to get it all in in the five days or so they’ll be here. That day, that meant hiking through Fira along the coast to its highest point, and then out to a bare pinnacle of rock. I, of course, had to climb it–and found, on the top, the ruins of old houses dug into the top. Michael told me there had been a problem with piracy here at one point, and this pinnacle has a naturally commanding view of the harbor, and was used as a fortress until a great earthquake destroyed most of the town that had been here.

Sunset from Ia

After finally getting back to the car (empty of equipment now) we headed for the famous sunset at Ia, on one of the points of the island’s crescent-like shape. There were no clouds in the sky, so the sunset was only an average one (Michael: “That’s it? I want my money back!”), but it was pretty enough, and a good place to just sit for a couple of hours.

At one of the wineries of Santorini

I camped that night near where they were staying, in Akrotiri, on the other end of the island, and met with them the next morning for a full day’s work. Wine-tasting in the morning and early afternoon: different local wines in rustic surroundings, and “Vinsanto,” a local dessert wine made from sun-dried grapes–tasting, perhaps not surprisingly, like sweet raisins. We photographed everything, and then took a walk through a beautiful little village without so much of the crowded tourist-focused feel of Fira or even Ia. We climbed to the top, where a Greek Orthodox church and the ruins of a castle give a wide view across the coast in both directions, over the white buildings of the village, and the white clusters farther away of the other cities.

Wine grapes

As the sun set we made one last hike down from the cliffs to an overlook and an old church. The top layer of Santorini is compressed volcanic ash with a texture and color almost like white plaster, and there are cave houses everywhere dug into it. At the edge, where we were hiking, the rock is eroded into the fantastical shapes one can see in the states in the redrock canyons of the southwest.

Eroded volcanic ash

Then it was time to part again, and this time possibly for good. They dropped me off in Perissa. My plan was to go to Thira the next day (today) and get my next ticket to continue my journey towards Turkey and Istanbul, and to call them if I ended up being here for another day. So, I said my goodbyes and headed to the beach to spend the night–quite a long walk, through the vineyards around Perissa, as the sun finally set behind me. I arrived on the long black sand beach and slept on a beach chair.

The inner cliff of Santorini

This morning I took an early swim and then took the bus to Thira to check my tickets. I had two options: either go back through Athens and take the train or bus from there to Turkey, or to try to cross the Aegean to the Turkish coast and bus north from there. I chose the latter, and booked a ferry to Rhodes for tomorrow afternoon, then called Sophia–and found that her cell phone was off or broken. I’ll try again soon, but if I don’t get in touch with her before I leave: Sophia, thanks again for everything.

The blue and white architecture of Santorini

 
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Posted in Summer 09, Uncategorized

 

Archaeology and Anarchists

05 Jul

The Thessaloniki waterfront

I slept–surprisingly well–in the train station in Skopje, on the train platform two stories above the city. The train to Thessaloniki, as if to provide an accurate parting impression of Eastern Europe, was two hours late, and I got into Thessaloniki around three in the afternoon, passing from the farmlands of Macedonia to the sparser terrain of northern Greece, and the hot sun of the Mediterranean coast.

Grafitti in Thessaloniki

I called Sophia, my couchsurfing host for Athens, but a recorded message informed me that her phone had been disconnected. Hmmm. An obstacle. To be safe, I booked the overnight train rather than the bus that would get me there an hour before midnight–and only then found a place to check my email, where I found a message from Sophia saying her cell phone was out of commission and providing me with her home phone. I called and let her know the new plan, and settled in to wait.

More grafitti in Thessaloniki

In the bakery in the Thessaloniki train station I met a couple, Eli and Charlotte, who’d just hitchhiked south through the Balkans. Eli was from Montana as well, and we started talking. He had quite an interesting story to tell: he and Charlotte were on their way to the Greek island of Lesbos to attend Eli’s sister’s wedding there. Apparently she had been working as an English teacher at a school in Istanbul. Most of the English teachers were non-Turkish citizens, and working without work visas thanks to the difficulty of obtaining them in Turkey.

Statue of Alexander the Great in Thessaloniki

The government had come down on the school and deported all the teachers without valid work visas, which meant Eli’s sister couldn’t come back to Istanbul. So, on short notice, she announced to her family she was marrying her Turkish boyfriend, which would, of course, let her come back to Istanbul to work. Eli even invited me to the wedding–another random Montanan, he said, might as well show up–but I unfortunately wouldn’t be in the island on time.

The Roman Agora in Athens

I said goodbye and boarded my train for yet another uncomfortable attempt to sleep on the train. I arrived in Athens around 7:30 the next morning and called Sophia for directions to her apartment, barely more than a hundred meters from the Athens Archeological museum. We talked for a bit and then she headed to work while I dropped my pack and walked out to get my first taste of the city.

Ruin on the Acropolis

The key point for any tourist activity in Athens is, of course, the Acropolis. Since the first day in a city for me is usually tourist day, I walked from Sophia’s house through the city to get there. I’d underestimated just how dominating the formation is. A great stone mountain rising to some hundred and fifty meters above sea level, the Acropolis is visible from nearly anywhere in the city. Sophia later told me that Athens building codes restricted building anything so high that it would obstruct the view–the city is still justifiably proud of its most significant (and visible) piece of ancient history.

The Parthenon

On the way, I explored the Roman agora, the center of commerce in Athens during Roman times, and bought the student ticket packet (six Euro) that would let me into any of the sites in the city. Then, after walking through the old town at the base of the formation, I passed the gates and began the long climb to the top. It was hot, and very crowded, voices chattering in every possible language and people standing in lines to take pictures of themselves and their friends and families in front of the Parthenon. The dominating structure on top of the Acropolis, the Parthenon (from the Greek for “virgin”) was dedicated to the godess Athena, for whom the city is named. Legend has it that the first king of Athens was a half-snake, half-man named Cecrops, who promised to give patronage of the city to the god who could give it the best gift. Poseidon and Athena competed for the privelege: Poseidon struck the earth with his spear and a great spring rose from the ground. But, as he was god of the sea, the spring was salty, and not very useful. Athena struck the ground with hers and an olive tree grew there, to this day a symbol of peace and prosperity. Cecrops liked the olive tree and Athena got the job, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Gypsy caravan in Athens, surrounded by dogs

After the Acroplis I walked toward the sea and climbed the adjacent Hill of Muses, where, suddenly, I was alone. The hill is topped with a single ruin, a dedication to the muses, and there is no entrance fee–either way, the tourists seem to stop at the line of refreshment stalls at the bottom of the Acropolis without continuing past to the other side. I walked for some time, on dirt paths through the hill and the two others beside it, before finally cutting back out and heading back toward the city center.

Flowers in front of the Acropolis

I stopped briefly at the temple of Zeus. Though all that remains is a dozen or so massive pillars, it’s still quite an impressive sight, towering above the few people walking below. When it was finished, by the Roman emperor Hadrian (an impressive number of the giant ancient buildings I’ve seen so far bear the attribute of “finished by Hadrian”), it had well over fifty of these towering columns, no doubt instigating in its attendees the sort of religious awe that can still be felt in the Catholic cathedrals of today.

The temple of Zeus in Athens

By now Sophia was off work, and we met so she could show me around the city. I was fortunate: she translates Greek travel material into English for a living and just finished a piece about a walk around Athens, so she took me on it and narrated, with detail to the point that we both started laughing at how much like a professional tour guide she sounded.

The corner where the killing happened--the boy's picture is in the lower right

Then we went for a couple of drinks into the Exarchia district of Athens, which was an experience entirely unlike my ruin and tourist filled day. Exarchia is the meeting place of activists, young intellectuals, edgy musicians, and anarchists, and the air itself seemed charged. Young people were seated everywhere, drinking coffee or wine, with tattoos, dreadlocks, and the fashions of Greek alternative culture. The walls were covered in political grafitti of significantly higher intellectual content than your average city block: lines of poetry, political slogans, and the ever popular circled A of the anarchist. One street corner in the center of the district was the site of the infamous police killing of a sixteen year old boy last december, which sparked the riots that reached national television around the world. The corner is covered in memorial grafitti and tacked up pictures of the boy. Sophia was near one of the protests with a friend when the police came down on them, and was afraid to try to get home for fear of being arrested. The conflict is still very current, and as an outsider it’s difficult to say who is at fault: Sophia told me the (government-friendly) media spoke only of the rioting actions of the anarchists, while independent videos were released on the internet and in some private publications revealing police actually inciting protestors to violence and starting some of the fires themselves. Either way, it’s a tragic situation, and one that will happen again–both here in Athens, and around the world.

Grafitti in Athens

The next day was back to tourism again, and I spent most of it exploring the Archaeological Museum of Athens, two expansive floors of artifacts from around Greece from the neolithic period up through Roman rule. I had also visited the Acropolis museum the day before, and had noticed something interesting: many of the main pieces, such as the statues from the Parthenon, were plaster casts rather than the original stone. I overheard a tour guide talking about how the pieces were looted during past wars. “These are only the plaster-cast miniatures,” she says. Pause. “The originals are in the British museum.” One can almost hear her teeth grinding.

One thing I have to comment on is the Athens metro system. It is by far the cleanest I’ve seen anywhere, and is especially interesting because of all of the layers of history beneath the city: a fair percentage of the metro stops have glass floors opening to archaeological excavations going on beneath their floors, uncovered during the construction of the metro system. You’ll be walking through a steel and glass corridor full of modern art and look down and see, beneath your feet, the labyrinthine stone streets and architecture of ancient Athens. As I was walking into one of them with Sophia, she nodded and said, “They are the best thing about Athens.” Pause. “And the Acropolis.”

Sophia is fairly well connected with the rest of the couchsurfing community in Athens, and we went out that night with a French expat named Cedric who lives here in Athens and two American girls, Cate and Linda, who he was hosting for the night. The place was a bar on a rooftop, unmarked from the street, with a perfect view of the Acropolis, grandly lit up and towering against the dark and glittering lights of the city below.

A caught soul in Athens

I spent the next day “soul catching,” or walking around the city taking pictures of people–if the old tribes are right, that taking someone’s picture entitles you to his or her soul, I’m amassing quite a spiritual army. Then it was more couchsurfer meetings, for the next couple of nights–I can’t honestly say much happened during the days, as it was the weekend and we were generally out until between five and eight in the morning (Greeks, apparently, are nocturnal). One of the best things about Couchsurfing, I think, is that it creates a truly international community–the long discussions on everything from politics to film to religion and philosophy, with people from all over the world, will be some of my best memories of Athens. I even made a friend from Chihuahua, Mexico, which is the starting point for exploring one of the biggest canyons in the world–look forward to a few such Good and Lost episodes in the next few years!

A statue in a park in Athens

Tomorrow, hopefully, I catch a ferry on to either Folegandros or Santorini, to experience a few of the Greek islands. I’ve got a place to stay in Istanbul lined up, again through couchsurfing, though I have a feeling that, as usual, I may be a few days late.

 
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Posted in Summer 09, Uncategorized