Roman Cistern in Dara

Tuesday 2 November 2021

it seems that over a week has passed since these maunderings have been augmented by further blather. Hi!

Arrived Didim Monday afternoon and proceeded, after securing Anthem and accomplishing minimal paperwork thanks to our friendly agent Attila, to perform excessive camaraderie. Had a great time hobnobbing with friends, old and new on good mates catamaran, with copious amounts of red Turkish wine, which is inexpensive and surprisingly good. Despite effects of this grand time we finished clearing in with authorities and marina next morning, then taxied (taksied) into Didim for sim cards. Finally felt normal by Wednesday.

Rest of week was boringly spent doing things that appear to have resulted in a new Samsung phone & Birkenstock shoes for Jan, jeans, wallet & belt for me, purchase of parts for & replumbing of propane system in boat to use Turkish tanks and cleaning bottom of dinghy that in six years had never even been turned over for inspection. Alcoholic consumption during this time of recovery was low end of moderate.

Sunday, after taking bus to Izmir with two couple friends and laying over, awoke at 0330 for 0600 flight to Diyarbakir where we waited at airport for three hours to meet three others for two hour bus ride to Kurdish, upper Mesopotamian city of Mardin, a World Heritage site. It's really old, is along the silk road from China to the Mediterranean near Syria and has way too much history including the Crusades to even begin. If interested in ancient history, look it up. It's fascinating.

Today we visited Dara to see: a necropolis dug into the sides of a quarry near a huge, pillar-supported, Roman built cistern that we climbed into (they were apparently not concerned about proximity, health issues), a Christian monastery where they pray three times a day in Aramaic (language used in Jesus' time which we observed for the noon event) and a Madrasa (Medreses in Turkish, where science, not religion, is taught). All immensely old.

We're staying at the Reyhani Kasri Hotel for two nights before continuing on. As in European buildings the floor we walked into from street level is not the first floor. This floor is designated zero and shown as so on the elevator. A moment's thought might bring the revelation that there is a difference between zero and nothing as there was and demonstrably remains something as we enter. Incidentally ancient Romans would have been completely lost as zero was not invented until sixth century CE by an Indian mathematician so, although Europeans eventually got with the program (eleventh century), they were mathematically challenged for quite some time vis-a-vis the East. Anyway, our hotel has taken confusion one step further as we're in room 205 on the first floor and others are in 305 on floor two. We've learned to cope.

Jack & Jan