Dearest Friends and Family,

As promised, you should find the photos for THIS Chaligram much more interesting than the last one.

Our friends Martin and Sandy, who had just returned to their boat in Marmaris from their stateside home of Seattle, WA, joined us for a 1 week roadtrip in a Fiat rental car. It took us 2 days to get to our first destination of the famous Cappadocia: land of amazing rock sculptures. These rock shapes were created by erosion to the relatively soft tuffa rock, which is covered by the much harder black basalt that resulted after some serious volcanic activity about 30 million years ago. The natural erosion from wind, rain, rivers and extreme temperature changes created not only the so-called "fairy chimneys" of various shapes and sizes, but also created conditions for many underground cities and caves. These cities and caves provided much-needed shelter especially for the early christians, from the myriad invaders through Anatolia. As a result, there are LOTS of cave-churches with biblical-theme frescos dating from the 9th-12 centuries. pretty incredible.

Cappadocia is a regional name... which includes lots of towns and villages. We stayed in the town of Goreme at the Star Cave hotel, recommended by friends.... and yup, as you'll see from the photos, it was a real cave. We took the prescribed "blue tour" on a bus which took us to Derinkuyu, the largest of many underground cities (this one had 8 levels and included everything a normal city would have: living quarters, kitchens, stables, wells, ventilation systems, churches, schools, storage rooms, wine processing, civil meeting rooms, punishment centers.... you name it!).

We also went to the beautiful Ihlara Valley for a 3.5km walk through a deep canyon. This valley also had about 30 cave churchs. After the walk, we had a delicious lunch of river trout. We got back on the bus just in time to drive through a torrential HAIL storm. It was so heavy that it made the countryside look like it was covered with snow. As usual on group tours, there was a "hustle" stop at the Onyx factory to "educate us" on how onyx is cut and processed.... but the real objective of course was for us all to buy a lot of jewelry and other stuff. no thank you. We were lucky that the forecasted precipitation didn't get us while we were walking through the Ihlara Valley.

The next day though, it rained most of the day. We decided to go on our own in our car to Avanos, a town reknowned for its pottery/ceramics. Those shopkeepers were as aggressive as the rug merchants in Istanbul! We finally went into a pottery workshop of a man who did NOT hustle us. The style and coloring is much different than what I've bought in Marmaris or Istanbul. i just love this stuff! Since the potter didn't speak ANY English, he and I negotiated the price by each writing down our price/offer. It was fun. As we were driving down the road from Avanos, we stumbled upon the Zelve valley which had some quite outstanding rock formations. As you look at the pictures, trust me, i KNOW what you're thinking! The rain accentuated the darker basalt tops of these "fairy chimneys" and made them even more dramatic. After a good doner kabab lunch in Urgup, we drove to the Goreme Open Air museum, a UNESCO World Heritage site: Churches Churches Churches and monasteries.... all cut into the soft tuffa rock starting in the 9th century and some created as late as the 12th century. Many of these cave-churches had superb Byzantine frescos of varying degrees of color and quality. However, many of the faces of the biblical characters were scratched out by the (Christian) Iconoclasts as well as possibly the Islamists.

After 3 days in Cappadocia, we headed west, and stopped at the town of Egidir on the lake of the same name. Since we thought it would be pleasant to have dinner with the sunset, overlooking the lake and the snow-covered mountains, we elected to stay on the west side of the little island on the lake. Unfortunately, the only hotel on the west side was "The Big Fish" hotel. The Rough Guide recommended it. I think times have changed since its publication. I'll be kind, and say that it was, um, not the best place in the world. It's like bits and pieces from yardsales were gathered to create the rooms. The bathroom sink didn't come up to my hips.... (and i have very short legs!) It was obvious that there was no woman's touch in the design and decor of the rooms. sorry guys. it's just a fact. However.... the fish dinner there WAS good. BUT!

The next day, we arrived at the Venus Hotel in Pamukkale, and it was BEAUTIFUL AND.... less expensive even than the Big Fish. Enough about hotels...... Pamukkale is the site of the Roman town of Hierapolis which was a health resort in its day with its warm mineral spring waters. "Pamukkale" itself translates as "Cotton Castle", so named because of the vast white travertines of limestone that resulted over time from this same warm VERY high calcium carbonate-content spring water spilling over the hill. The travertines look like ice with beautiful formations and shapes. (Apparently Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park has similar travertines, although on a smaller scale, i think.) Both the Roman town AND the natural white creation created a very rich site, and a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.

On the way home to Marmaris, we stopped in Aphrodisias, ANOTHER Roman town....except the Romans were relative newcomers to the place. The hill upon which the Roman theatre was built is the site of an 8000 year old settlement from Neolithic times. The temple to Aphrodite (goddess of love) was there before the Romans... in fact, before she evolved into the love goddess, she probably started her career in the neolithic era as the Fertile Mother Goddess.... equal to the role of Artemis a little farther west in Ephesus. During Roman times, Aphrodisias was also the center of an influential school of sculpture, using the white marble from nearby quarries, and its statuary and sarcophagi were found throughout the entire Roman world, from Spain to the Danube. Happily for us, the museum in Aphrodisias was full of the most amazingly intact and beautiful roman sculpture that I've ever seen in all our travels through the ancient roman world. Pictures just can't do it justice, although I tried. The real excavation of Aphrodisias has only recently been started (1960's) by the late Professor Kenan Erim of NYU, with funding from National Geographic. It was nice to see an American institution involved in such an important dig. It's probably only a fifth uncovered!

After a week, i think we were both in visual and mental overload from such exquisite man-made and natural splendor. Time to get back to the real world.

I have to say that as beautiful and astounding as the sites were, and as nice as SOME hotels were, we were very happy to be back on board ChaliVentures. I think I prefer staying in my OWN floating "hotel," sleeping in my OWN floating bed. Nothing like a 1 week car trip (or more) to make you love being back home, right?

As I type, Chuck is preparing to re-commission the watermaker for the season, and I'm waiting for the return of our shared rentacar so Sandy and I can go off to the weekly market to load up on veggies, fruit, honey, cheeses, nuts and olives. MMMMMMMM. It's our *plan* to be outa here and underway within a week. We'll be heading to the Greek island of Kos, where i HOPE to catch a ferry to Athens and where i HOPE to fly to New York on May 18th for daughter Alex's Master's Thesis Art Show. Keep your fingers crossed that Greece doesn't totally shut down with all its transportation workers on strike or something. gulp.

link to the photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/chaliventures/BestOfApril2010Roadtrip?authkey=Gv1sRgCN3nsqbw4fDtQw&feat=directlink

We took 450 photos, so choosing JUST 49 was a real struggle.

We hope all is well with all of you, and that you're enjoying a pleasant Spring. Our daughter Sammy just turned 30, which makes me feel older than me turning 58! damn!

Love,

Chuck, Alison and Zoey of course....

Alison Spinney
Living the Dream onboard s/y ChaliVentures III in....
Marmaris, Turkey