Selcuk

Sorry folks for the long delay in updating...there's been a zillion things happening and when I have had a chance to visit an internet cafe I was typing up a job application. Here's a little bit of what's happened over the last two weeks. I will have to add the rest in a few days when I get a chance.

Selcuk
It seems that I left off even longer ago than I had originally thought. So onward...

From Canakkale and ANZAC haven, we headed to Selcuk on an overnight bus. In Canakkale we were staying at a hotel that was associated with a tour company called Hassle Free...we have since nick-named this Hassle Free Hassle. We asked them to book us on a morning bus out to Selcuk and the first thing that they did was book it for the wrong day. So when we went to pick up the reserved tickets, the bus people looked at us like we were crazy. We fixed it by booking for the 10pm bus cause the morning one was full by this time. Then we asked for the hostel to call and book us at a room in Selcuk. They said that it was all arranged and that there would be someone there to greet us at 6am when we arrived. 6am roles around and no one is there. Luckily the hostel was close and some people gave us directions. When we arrived, we ended up waking up the owner who told us that he had waited the previous morning for us for an hour. We felt terrible. So it just goes to show that travel agents suck.

The hostel in Selcuk was called Kiwi House and is probably one of the favorite places that both Em and I have stayed at. When we arrived at the crack of dawn there were no dorms available so they put us in a private room with a king bed. This was in the basement so it was actually cool and comfortable to sleep in (you wouldn't believe how hard it is to sleep in some of these places where it's 90 degrees at night and there is no fan or AC). When we crawled out of bed at noon they gave us breakfast for free and told us about all of the great things that you can do in and around Selcuk.

Selcuk itself is a relatively small town that doesn't host a ton of attractions, but it does happen to be home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and a few ruins that are quite well known in their own right.

Around 1pm we set out to explore the town and hike the 3km to Ephesus. Our first port of call was the Ephesus museum. Since we didn't have a huge idea what these famous ruins represented we decided to check out the museum dedicated to them before venturing to the ruins themselves. The museum itself is cute, with a nice simple collection of some of the more impressive items recovered from excavations at the site. An the best thing is that it's air-conditioned...a treat in this part of the world.

From the museum we set out for the ruins themselves. An old mayor of the town decided to beautify the town by adding a 2km stretch of tree lined sidewalk that leads from Selcuk proper to the turn off for Ephesus. In the hot, dry climate, this shady walk way is quite nice. Along the path there is a turn off for Artemis' Temple, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. This temple used to be grand and huge. It was a place were thousands flocked to pay homage to the Anatolian fertility goddess Cybele/Artemis. In it's heyday it was larger than the Greek Parthenon. In 356BC the Temple was burned down by Herostratus who claimed that he wanted his fifteen minutes of fame. I think he was just nuts. The Ephesians planned to build a new grander temple to replaced the destroyed one in 334BC. Alexander the Great found it so wonderful that he offered to pay for the reconstruction if they'd dedicate it to him, but the people wouldn't allow him saying that it wasn't fitting for one God to make a dedication to another. When the new temple was complete, it was recognized as one of the Seven Wonders. Today all that remains for the most part is a tall pillar in the middle of some shattered stone blocks and a marsh like floor. It's really hard to picture what this masterpiece used to look like.

A few kilometers later and we arrived at the entrance to Ephesus itself (an empty tour bus going back to pick up its human cargo actually gave us a ride for the last kilometer or so saying that it was too hot to walk...nice huh?). We opted to purchase a hand-held guide (one of those things where you type in a number and it gives you information corresponding with that particular item) and spent the next three hours exploring the ruins. We even wondered into off-limits territory accidentally cause we came from the back way and didn't realize until we were at the front that we'd gone out of bounds.

Ephesus is the best-preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean city started as a large trading center and the center of the cult of Cybele. Under the Ionians, Cybele became Artemis, the Temple of Artemis was built and more people arrived to worship and trade. Then the Romans came and Artemis became Diana and Ephesus became the Roman provincial capital. Some of the main sites to behold in this city are the Great Theater, where gladiator flights were common during Roman rule; the Marble, where an elaborate water and sewage system was set up below the street; the Library of Celsus; the public latrine; and many of the gates.

The next day in town we ventured to the Castle that was reported to be interesting. On the way there we checked out an Archaeological library that is in its infancy. There is an American woman that married a Turk who always wanted to teach archaeology to locals and to have a place for scholars to come to when in Turkey. When the husband passed away, she began the venture to make his dream a reality. The result is that there is a very nice library, complete with computers and a small cafe. They are in the process of setting up some sort of learning center and possibly a field school. When we showed up at the door, the lady in charge was more than happy to give us the whorl-wind tour.

From the library to the Church of Saint John we went. The church was built by --- who believed that Saint John was buried there. The church is quite nice and leads to the Castle which we tried to visit. We didn't know that you had to go through the Church to get to the Castle so we left the ruins and wandered around for a while down dead end streets trying to determined where the entrance was. Eventually we found someone that spoke enough English to let us know that the entrance was through the Church ruins, but that it was currently closed to the public.

Deciding to cut our loses and to head somewhere cool, we set out for the pool associated with our hostel. This pool is a 2km walk away from town, but is well worth it when you finally arrive. The pool is situated in the middle of an orchard and is filled wıth fresh mountain spring water. The down side of this is that it was freezing cold water (even with it being hot as hell outside), but the upside is that there was no Chlorine to make you feel gross on getting out. It was nice and we stayed there for the remainder of the day.

While at Kiwi house, the proprietor told us about the Blue Cruise, which is a four day/three night boat cruise from the town of Fethiye to the wooded coop-op of Olympus. This sounded so inviting that we signed up. That left us two days to get to Fethiye.

Staying goodbye to our favorite hostel, we set out for our next destination, stopping a few places along the way.

Unfortunately I've got to run to catch a bus so that part of the story will have to wait till I can again find time to write. Sorry that there's not much here to account for the last 15 days.