Welcome to here!

I LOVE TURKEY!!! This country is so amazing, we already know we want to come back some day. So, so, so awesome! So, the Blue Cruise along the Mediterranean coast was fantastic, and I have to say that it was a lot about the scenery and the beautiful weather, but most of it was really the people. There were 18 of us, not including the captain and the adorable Turkish boys that were the crew. We met people from Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Germany, and Libya. If we hadn't bonded as well as we had, the cruise would have been much more uncomfortable, but as it was, we got outstanding scenery, delicious home cooked Turkish food (including the breakfasts, which are fresh tomatoes, a variety of cheeses, olives, a hard boiled egg, and all the fresh Italian bread and preserves you could manage. Oh, and Turkish tea, LOTS of Turkish tea!), and made new friends along the way.

Our cabin was at the back of the boat, which was super noisy when we started off early the first day. At 5:30 am I woke up scared we had to escape a tsunami or something...Ryan laughed at the idea of a tsunami in the Mediterranean, but to my sleep deprived mind (thank you overnight bus!), it was the only reasonable answer to why on the deep blue sea we had started the boat at 5:30 am. Turns out, they were just starting out early to give us a head start to beautiful bay # 379 that we got to jump in and swim around. I was thinking that lazy was the name of the game on a blue cruise, but not when you are me. I was busy taking pictures, having conversations with other travelers, eating, swimming, laying in the sun on the blue mats they had laying all over the deck, snorkeling around some amazing rocks that just jutted right down into the teal and navy blue swirled water, visitng Kas (pronounced cash), hiking up to a Byzentine castle, eating Turkish ice cream and buying grapes and visiting tombs from literally sometime B.C.,writing postcards, and just soaking up both sun and sea as much as possible. So awesome.

Ryan napped quite a bit the first day, while I swam around and got a few scrapes from the waves and rocks mixture in the Blue Lagoon. But, after dinner that first night, and bonding with the rest of the travelers when the first captain drank too much beer and fell in the water (yeah, that happened- eeek!), he actually really seemed to enjoy the pace of things. Luckily, we got a new, sober captain pretty much right away, who was named George, was hilarious, And yelled "welcome to here!" in a thick Turkish accent every time we arrived at a new, gorgeous harbor to snorkel! It applies, everywhere! Both Ryan and I loved him, and Ryan made friends too, and we spent equal amounts of time chatting with others, or cuddling on the deck at night under a million and one stars. I can say that we both loved it. What was my favorite part? All of it!

Everyone on the boat was really sad to leave on Tuesday. It was hard to say goodbye, after 4 days on a boat together, we took lots of photos, shared hugs, e mail addresses and it will result in continued friendship over Facebook, which will hopefully mean crossing paths again someday. :) Happiness on the Buket Boat blue cruise! I hope to do it again someday!

But, as all good things must come to an end, we were whisked away from each other on several buses, some people going on to Olympos, to stay in treehouses for a few nights, while we hit the road to Antalya for the rest of the day before our next overnight bus to Cappadocia.

Antalya was an extra added bonus in Turkey, because we didn't really have much time (just a few hours), and we really had no idea what to do there until the day before when we were sitting on deck with our new friend Alana from Australia, and she mentioned she had been there, and that she had hired a taxi for a reasonable fee for a few hours to take her to see some of the Roman ruins in the area. Holy Roman ruins, Batman!! I've never, ever seen anything like them really, perhaps the colluseum in Rome comes close, but the level of remains was spectacular. First, we visited the town of Perge, which was basically a full roman era town, complete with columns, roads, a canal, store fronts, a fountain, and parts of churches still remained. It was fantastic! It is actually still an archeological site, we even waved to a few guys getting off their shift as they walked away with barrels of Corinthian style column pieces. So much history was just laying around everywhere. One column still had faint etchings that was a full on piece of art. We walked down the street, paved with thousand year old paving stones, observed broken pipes running down the sides of the streets, and when I went near the remains of an old store, dusted a bit of sand away with my toe and found glass mosaics, still embedded in the sidewalk. This place had ghosts of a past that were practically still tangible. Breathtaking! It was getting late, so we snapped maybe the 1000th picture and got the taxi to another ancient site called Aspendos. Aspendos is an old amphitheater, which is outstandingly still mainly in tact, much like it would have been during the age where performances would have taken place there. A theater geek's (like me) dream! First off, there were very few people there, which made us feel like climbing up and down the stone seating for 15,000 (!?!?) was like stepping back in time. It was huge, older than I can fathom, with acoustics that made whistling sound like a damn symphony. Just incredible. We explored up the top, walking around in the sunset light through tunnels that made me think that this is why every baseball stadium in America is designed like this. Some things worked then, and they still work now. Way to go Romans, way to figure that out!! It's astounding!

We were tired from a full days worth if touring crammed into a few hours, and the sun was setting over the mountains as the taxi driver took us back to the bus station. When I say bus station, I'm sure it conjures up images of a dingy hall full of grimy plastic sears stuck together in rows, which is NOT the case in most of the Turkish towns we've had the pleasure to visit by bus. Turkey does not, as it turns out, have an extensive railway system much like the rest of Europe, but it makes up for this with an EXTENSIVE bus and roadway system that is both economical, and comfortable. Even the 3 AM bus stops along the way were bustling roadside plazas that had everything from shopping to a full cafeteria, to the little old ladies that sat outside covered up in their head scarves making "pancakes", which is like the Turkish version of a crepe on a convex grill with fresh ingredients like spinach, cheese, and potatoes.

The bus station in Antalya was much like a very nice airport, where we could leave our luggage, choose from multiple restaurants, get more Turkish tea, take a break at the Internet cafe and it was truly what we needed before our long overnight journey. The bus left at 10, but actually, I was so exhausted from the past few days that I slept nearly the whole way! Not the best sleep ever, but it did the trick. Only woke up once at the rest stop for a 3 AM pancake! Ryan slept too, which is a frickin' miracle!

We arrived in the Cappadocia area at 6:30, about 2 hours ahead of schedule! We watched in awe as the sun came up and at least 100 hot air balloons filled the sky over the conical shaped rock formations that crowd this part of the country. We groggily got a shuttle bus to take us to the centre of Goreme, where of course, our tour company was closed. We found a few open tour companies that could direct us to our cave hotel (actually set in one of the conical rock caves) down the street. We lugged our backpacks, and upon waking up the girl in duty from her sleep on the couch, we felt so thankful that our room was free so we could have a rest, shower and grab some even more delicious Turkish breakfast before we headed out on a day tour of the area.

We visited an underground city (9 levels down), a monastery built within the caves, hiked along a river in a canyon and had apple tea with my friend Juana from Singapore who was an old couch surfer of mine (I knew she was in the same town, but we just randomly met on the trail in the canyon!?! How does that happen!?!) and we climbed up and down plenty of fun rock formations!It really is a crazy landscape! We had just enough strength left to enjoy a wonderful dinner down in the center of town, where we saw the same girl from our hotel who we woke up that morning, she talked to the manager, and got us a huge spread of food to enjoy with our meal! The Capadocian wine did just the trick to get us to quickly drift off to sleep in our cave room (beautifully remodeled, but still looks like the guys house who turned this into a hotel, but cold!).

We got up today at 4:30 in order to make the shuttle for our own hot air balloon ride over the landscape!! Whoa!!! I'll share a picture, because words can't to it justice to highlight the peace and awe that resulted from floating high above the rocks and canyons as the sun lit up the balloons and the landscape. Whoa.

We did another full tour today, but we were really really tired, and I think yesterday's tour was a bit better. Today was still good, but my stomach was acting a little funny, which made
Me not want to hike around inside the rock dwellings as much as I did yesterday. After lunch by an Arabian horse farm and some Turkish ice cream, I felt a bit better, but we were totally due for a nap and a shower when we arrived back at our cave this afternoon. I'm glad today's tour was a little shorter because I have enjoyed sitting up on the shared balcony, overlooking the caves and watching the sunset around the cones and the fairy lights of the city turn on. Might be time for one last meal of amazing Turkish food before heading for bed! Italy begins tomorrow!!