Joe’s Trip to Turkey 2000 – 3 of 6

My third time to Goreme, I know enough people that I can instantly catch up on gossip. The hot bit is that the Phoenix Pension now has nightly entertainment that involves girls from the Ukraine and cash. I did not confirm this, but heard it from several sources. Another item, a fellow backpacker was involved in a car accident and died at the scene. He had hitchiked somewhere nearby and was not the driver. His passport (Korean) was left in his room, so the Jandarma had to go from pension to pension to figure out who this guy was. Allegedly, Turkey has the highest rate of traffic fatalities in the world. Every day, the doctor is summoned to Paradise Pension to treat sick backpackers. The common link appears to be Kadir’s Treehouses in Olimpos. This is not simple traveler’s dysentery, it is much more serious and the doctor has to give them an IV drip to get fluids back into their body and a dose of antibiotics. Now do you see why I avoid that place?

One day a group of us rented motorscooters! Being a big bloke as well as an experienced motorcyclist, I pooh-poohed the Peugeot scooters and opted instead for a MZ 2-stroke 350. This particular East German motorcycle was well knackered, but I had a swell time visiting Ãœrgup to eat ice cream and then ride home. A couple of carpets became mine. This time, I chose ones from Iran, nice ones that I have no room for. Perhaps I can carpet the lawn. I also got to sit in one night when the carpet “wholesaler” brought carpets to sell at “my” carpet shop. This was cool, I got to watch as the buyer rejected some really butt-ugly carpets, and I got to see cool stuff that I can never afford.

It was time to leave Goreme. I had spent the evenings drinking the local red wine and watching bats flitter around the streetlamps. Noisy little buggers, those bats. The plan, if you can call it that, was to go somewhere else, somewhere east, perhaps Mt. Nemrut. The plan was not written down, but I had spent six nights farting around Goreme and I had itchy feet (perhaps I should have changed my socks more often). Backpacker colleagues Karl and Jane were on their way to Aleppo, Syria, and invited me along. They were going to take the night bus to Antakya and then onwards to the border. Why not? I had always wanted to see the birthplace of one of the Marx brothers, so I bought a ticket too. The bus cost about $30 and left at 10:00 p.m. I took along a kabob and some Fanta. An all night bus is not as fun as it sounds, and sometime the next day we all arrived in the southeast part of the country, close to the border.

At this Otogar (bus station) the bus company took our passports and transferred everybody to a bus that would continue into Syria. All except for me, it seems. A man returned with a handful of passports. He was holding my green one separate from everyone else’s. “Joseph? Problem.” No matter what the guidebooks say, it is possible to obtain a visa at the border. Unless, of course, one has American citizenship, in which case one has to go and get a visa first in Ankara. I had no visa. Ankara is a long, long way away. I was screwed. Jane (Australia) and Karl (New Zealand) wished me luck as they went onwards.

I had been on a bus all night and was knackered. It was time for plan “B”. I wandered over to the offices of Diyakabar Bus Lines and got a ticket to Sanliurfa (Urfa) on a tired Mercedes 403 leaving in less than ten minutes. And in a few hours, I was in Urfa. Urfa is where Turks, Kurds and Arabs live in harmony. Not only that, they spend much of their time standing around on street corners, singing Doo-wop in perfect harmony.

I checked into my hotel and turned the a/c up to 11, showered and pooped and donned my gay apparel before setting out in search of the next day’s tour. My “Let’s Go” book listed an incorrect phone number for the Nemrut tours, and the desk clerk had not the foggiest idea of what I was talking about (My Kurdish language skills are not good). A British backpacker happened by, saw that I was a hopeless American, and offered assistance. Turns out that he was going on said tour the next day, that they needed a third person to fill the taxi, and invited me along.

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