Speaking of balancing trip research and leaving surprises, I totally hit the nail on the head on this one. Sheer dumb luck though.
I'd never heard of this place before the trip at all TBH. My first encounter of it was a brief mention of "Catalhoyuk" on a sign in the archaeology museum in Istanbul stating that it was the oldest city ruins ever uncovered in the world. The history geek in me was instantly flustered to know I was so close to such a site and without plans to see it, but the seasoned traveller in me was resigned to the fact I'd miss it. Can't see everything anyway.
A couple days later, I'm reading our itinerary for the upcoming days and lo-and-behold, it's on there after all! Apparently it was only added to the UNESCO world heritage list last year, and G Adventures just added it to this tour sometime between when I researched the trip and now.
I have to admit, I was a bit giddy with anticipation leading up to that day, and nearly beside myself as we actually approached the site. It's definitely off the beaten path, and the drive in was interesting itself as we rolled along on rural roads through tiny farming villages and gypsy camps. As the only "bus" at the site, it was quiet, peaceful and even felt serene. When you consider the significance of such a sight in understanding our collective history - a snapshot of the transition point from nomadic hunter gatherers to settled agriculturists - walking up the tell in an open field felt almost like a religious experience.
I could describe the site and experience for pages, but I'll try to shoot for a quick summary instead:
- first off, I was a bit confused as to the "oldest" city part. It dates back to over 7500 BC, and I was pretty sure something like Jericho, for instance, dated to almost 10K BC. I guess the distinguishing term is "city" where as other ruins were considered "settlements". I'm not sure what the defining difference is, although I'd suspect the Turkish tourism industry was part of the equation.
- nonetheless, this be OLD, and from what I can tell with our spotty hotel internet, it is in fact generally regarded as the largest and best preserved Neolithic (aka stoneage, no metal here folks) settlement yet discovered. The "newest" layers on top date to ~5500BC, meaning that when it was abandoned, after already being inhabited for 2000 years, we still had several thousand years before we'd even conceive of, much less build, the pyramids. Like I said. O. L. D. In fact, there were no signs of ever having been attacked, so while there were some hunting spears kicking around, the bow and arrow, let alone the armies of even pre-historic city states, had yet to come into existence.
- the general structure was mud brick walls where each house merged together with the next, no streets in between at all. Kind of like a condo. The "streets" were on the roofs, and the doors were a ladder down to the inside. They estimate the mud brick homes would last about 80 years, and as they inevitably begin to crumble, they'd just go ahead and knock the tops down until the rubble created a new foundation and you'd rebuild on top. Over a couple thousand years you can build a pretty decent size mound.
- each layer going up would show signs of progression: brick making techniques improve, pottery becomes thinner and more sophisticated, paintings on the walls become more elaborate and expressive, bone and stone tools get better. At various points the types and amounts of bones even change leaving definitive signs of the transition from hunting to domestication of animals. It's an absolutely unreal time capsule, a physical documentary that left me plainly gobsmacked. All I remember of seeing Jericho was a wall and tower foundation which, while older, did nothing like this for me. Perhaps I was just too young to appreciate what I was looking at then as I was half my current age, but this felt far more incredible. It was almost like actually watching the moment in time where, after we'd long since left cave-type dwellings behind and figured out the very basics of brick making and clay backing and stone shaping and crop cultivating, we were now figuring out how apply these technologies into the earliest seeds of what would eventually become civilations. A sacred link between an almost traceless past, and our recorded histories. In case you can't tell, I'm still revelling in it.
- one other interesting thing you see: As people died, they'd dig a hole in the main area of the house, place the body in, then cover it back up, presumably so you could continue to sleep next to your loved ones. This goes on at each layer, and you can actually get an eerily good sense of where folks were in the formation of afterlife concepts if you envision the process and laying down to sleep on that. Less of a stark and abrupt transition we experience... more of a "last night they slept here beside me, tonight they sleep here below me... I just can't talk to them anymore." Still kinda there, still kinda with you, until you more naturally move on.
KONYA
Ok, time for some brevity. Stayed in a local family's home here. Gracious people, full of smiles and kind enough to make special dishes for me. Went for a brief walk of a small village, eating Russian olives and sunflowers from the fields, and saw the community preparing their "winter bread" rations. Also was the night I took 5 hours to fall asleep and went through an entire role of toilet paper blowing my poor nose. I've become a thief and had taken to stealing rolls at almost every stop by this point just to ensure an adequate tissue supply line at all times.
ANTALYA
A very definite and sudden line marks the switch from cold and rainy Konya and the sunny and hot coastal side of the mountains. Our first stop was Antalya, a modern city with a quaint old town and beautiful harbour. Spent a delightful free afternoon here. Also had a late morning start and the extra rest finally put me back on the mend.
Enroute to here we also saw the literal birth town of the literal jolly ol' St. Nicolas. Noel Baba they call him.
KEKOVA
The partial return to health came just in time as I was able to board an overnight boat with the group. We floated past the sunken Lycian city of Kekova, swam in several spots, ate delicious meals of stuffed veggies and grilled sea bream, hiked up to an island castle (Kale in Turk), and spotted a surprising number of seas turtles. Surprisingly, this was actually the first time I'd ever swam in the Mediterranean. I had to think about that for a while cause I'd seen it a few times and couldn't believe I'd never actually dipped in yet. It's warm(ish) and very salty.
KAS
A small resort town again on the coast. Took some strolls but mostly relaxed around the hotel to escape the heat and wash up from the boat... A good time for G to select accommodations with a pressure washer for a shower. Also had a delicious seafood meal of fresh calamari, whole shrimp, and very tasty swordfish skewer. Served of course with tomatoes, peppers, and French fries. Turks know what they like and they stick with it.
Unfortunately, Jaimie's picked up my cold now, so she had to skip out on dinner. Poor gal, she doesn't know how bad it's gonna be tomorrow. A few others on the tour complained of the same itchy throat tonight so they are a day behind her. The inevitable pandemic is beginning.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
- I can confirm twitter uses your location to select which ads to display. Getting a lot of Turkish language in my feed here.
- Also getting a lot of ISIS news. Along the border it's a serious problem - with some 120,000 Kurdish refugees fleeing here in the last 3 days alone. People here are obviously concerned with it, but they pretty much laugh at the thought of them actually trying to attack Turkey. It'll be a challenge to route them out of Iraq and Syria, but it's seen as a non-issue here at least in terms of keeping them out.
- I've started getting creative to improve my meal variety and taken to "cooking" without any kitchen access. If you chop up tomatoes and cucumbers with a butter knife and add them and feta cheese to a package of oatmeal, you get a pretty creamy-crunchy gruel that's actually a pretty tasty breakfast treat. Oatmeal Salat I call it.
- anytime I need a good laugh, I just ask Jaimie to say thank you. It's "te-she-kewer", which admittedly isn't as easy as saying something like "danke", but she's having just a dickens of a time trying to figure it out and usually ends up with something like tashukalaponderosa. Well not quite. But there's always a surprising amount of sounds and syllables in her version.
- The general rhythm of mornings here goes something like this: the sun's rays lightly kiss the horizon and wake the roosters; the roosters crow and wake the imam: the imam hops on the horn and performs the call to prayer which wakes the tourists; the tourists start looking for places to spend their money which wakes the rest of the village. When you are laying awake in the cold breeze on top a boat deck at 5AM, it's kinda fun to wonder if one could break the entire chain were you to be in possession of a sniper rifle as the dang roosters start giving their positions away.
Jaimie and her new twin Lisa. I keep telling them to stop wearing the same shirt so I don't accidentally put my arm around the wrong one. Could you really blame me if it happened???
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