My brain must also have...

lost two days in transit, as I had been unable to formulate a set itinerary for myself.  Was indecisive and woke up too late to do the tour of Pamukkale, a famous natural wonder of travertine (whatever that means) white cliffs left by mineral deposits from the hot springs.  But I am a little touristed out, and if I really wanted to see it, I would have gone. 

Instead, I opt to stick around this town that has grown on me.  While getting directions and advice from JuJu, one of the brothers who run the hotel, he takes me out on the balcony to show me the pimped out camel that has just arrived in town for the camel wrestling taking place in several days.  Darned, I have the worst timing.  Alas, I settle for a side trip to the small village of Sirinçe, which means pretty.  The story goes that the village’s name used to be another word that meant ugly to ward off unwanted visitors, but in the recent past has adopted this more inviting name.  It is set high in the mountains where the temperature dropped 5 degrees Celsius on the 15 minute minibus ride up.  An orthodox village that used to be Greek until the great population swap (Turks and Greeks expelling the other) of the 1920s, the village is known for its sweet fruit wines and olive oil. 

Well, it’s the most rural place I’ve ever visited – that’s for certain.  Pretty?  Well, that's in the eye of the beholder.  It was different.  Well-used, stuck in a rural past with muddy inclined paths and little shack houses fallen into deep disrepair, pressing against the future of strewn plastic garbage, satellite dishes everywhere, and what I presume to be a sewer drain being gouged out of the stone streets.  However, most of the white and brown houses dotting the mountainside were pretty.

Back in Selçuk,  I thought I’d try something different for dinner.  Some of the hotel staff just had Turkish pizza delivered from the place next door, which I’d been wanting to try.  I order a traditional pide - long, thin baguette-shaped, but flat and topped with minced meat and egg which came with a small salad, as well as some meatballs with cheese which came with two gigantic pitas (don’t know what the Turkish word for it is),  It was a lot of food, the pide alone would have sufficed.   A pair of Italian or Spanish tourists come in after eyeing the lone tourist diner through the window and order the same thing.  Between the two of them, they ate as much as I did.  It was really good, and I felt bad leaving the few slices of orphaned pide. 

As I ate, the staff was riveted by a tv program that I found quite compelling too, even if I had no idea what was going on.  It was completely over the top and started with a man clutching a small blanketed body in a dugout grave, unwilling to step out, even piling dirt upon himself.  Eventually, he emerges from the grave only for a Godfather/Tarantino-inspired gunfight to break out at the cemetery!  Guy can’t seem to catch a break, though he later successfully smothers an enemy to death while they both recover at the hospital.  Good stuff!

I wander the cold, mostly empty streets and stop into a candy and nuts shop and have my first Turkish delight and chocolate covered hazelnuts (Turkey is the leading producer of hazelnuts, fyi) of the trip.  For the uninformed, like myself, Turkish delight comes in a wide range of flavors, not just rose water.  I buy a small assortment and it is delightful – it’s like the original jelly candy/gummy bear, really. 

I take in my last night in Selçuk, only just having begun to know its rhythms.