Safe haven in Istanbul.

After so long relying only on hotels, we're once again couchsurfing and we're being hosted - for the second time - by our friends: Ercan and Ebru.

We continue to explore Istanbul for one day and half, the city with which we started this journey, almost a month ago.
It's really interesting to see so many changes and to discover the transformations the city has been through, since the last time we strolled it's streets. So, while revisiting some places, we take a stroll down the memory lane - just to compare the present and the not so distant past.
The streets are packed with a lot more tourists now and the local small entrepreneurs take advantage of the situation: there are taverns everywhere - offering all sorts of goodies - especially ice-cream and boiled corn.
We couldn't resist the temptation and already ate three corns in Sultanahmet area. And since we have some more Turkish lira left to spend, we'll try various dishes from the local cuisine.
Also, it's time to buy some souvenirs and add some goodies to the small stash we're carrying for our friends back home.

Cappadocia - part II (meeting locals, trying pottery kebab and making pottery).

Beside just hiking, we also experienced some other interesting things while in Goreme village:

First, the day I started feeling sick, we searched for a place to eat a good soup, hoping it will help my condition.
We ended up in a cozy restaurant being run by a family. Although there was a huge language barrier and we barely understood each-other, we had a great time with the four old women preparing "ravioli".
While I ate soup and drank two coups of "çay" (tea - pronounced "ceai"), Andra joined in preparing that dish together with the old ladies.

A short summer rain caught us inside the restaurant, so we stayed there until it stopped half an hour later.

Off the beaten track in Cappadocia.

It's a shame we had to postpone writing about the wonderful Cappadocia, but it's not too late to do it now. The memories are still fresh, we have plenty of amazing pictures and there's a perfect setting for recollecting and writing: we're both laying on a couch from the hotel's exterior bar, inhaling mixed scents combined with the fresh mountain air, and listening to a good choice of songs.

The people below have started a camp fire as well.. so, let's just start the story-telling:
The first minutes in Cappadocia were quite silent, interrupted only by the camera's shutter clicks and remarks like: "wow", "look at that", "and that".. The scenery was quite unusual and amazing, with cone like structures that were used by people for various purposes, including as houses. Everything looked so fairytale like, that we wouldn't have been too surprised to see hobbits getting out of those weirdly shaped houses :)

Licking my wounds under the Mediterranean sun.

With the feet tucked below a hot curtain of sand, and the head protected under a shallow shade - cast by the nearby rocks, I'm waiting for Andra to come out of the water.

The Olympos village (Turkey) is not exactly what we expected, but it's still a good place to relax - especially now when we're getting closer to the end of our Middle Eastern pilgrimage.
The village itself is placed in a small valley surrounded by mountains, while the sea washes the shores approximately 1 kilometer away from our hotel. A tree house hotel that packs a lot of Turkish and international tourists. So many that there's a long line advancing slowly towards the people serving us dinner in the evenings.
There is one small inconvenience to this place: the showers with fluctuating water temperature; they seem to be a problem in all huts, not just ours.
However, in my case, 6 years in a university campus have thought me to anticipate the change of temperature and avoid being frozen or burned by the moody water jet. Also, I've learned to make rapid changes, so that the water stays constant for longer periods of time.
I've tried to come up with some instructions for Andra, only to discover that it's just instinct and reflex, no universal formula. There are some guidelines though:
- don't open the water flow to maximum - it gets more vulnerable to pressure drops caused by other people using the showers or toilets; it also limits your control options.
- millimeter rotations can induce the desired effect, so refrain yourself from making major adjustments (the slowly growing anger can easily influence the hand).
hmm, my mind is playing with words again: "the most minute changes induced in a system, can cause an imbalance or the desired effect. We rarely need drastic decisions in our quest for achieving a certain purpose. Just aim for the snowball effect, instead of a system that needs constant tweaking".
I have no idea if I read something like this somewhere, or it's an ad hoc personal creation.

Back to using the showers, it's a small sadistic pleasure hearing Andra fighting with the hidden enemy that plays with the water pressure. And the sounds she makes... we joked about that she's feeding the imagination of our neighbors from the other side of the thin wooden wall.

...

The shade is my enemy and my friend..here on the beach, while I fight a sore throat and a bit of a cold that threatens to morph into something worse.
I'm trying to find that "happy place", but it's not always working ...writing keeps me busy for a while.
When everything will fail, I'll put my hopes in the can of beer that is slowly getting warmer in the sand; the alcohol will numb the senses for a while and help me enjoy the scenery.

I move forward with the towel, to catch up the advancing shade. I plan to tuck the feet again under the hot sand, close the notebook's lid and deeply inhale the sea breeze ..through an insensitive nose.. maybe I'll feel something in the end.

In a Turkish hospital..

"It's not a matter of IF, it's a matter of WHEN!"

I've heard this saying a lot, when documenting about Middle East and stomach problems or food intoxication.

I didn't expect it to hit me so hard.. and in Turkey. I would have bet on any of the other countries, especially Egypt.

Long story short, in the picture above it's me in a Turkish hospital, with an annoyingly long needle in my vein and two packs of ice under my arms - to keep the high temperature in check.

Before I got to the hospital it was horrible: powerful nausea, upset stomach, high temperature and really cold feeling in the same time, moments when I felt that I was about to pass out..

Catching up..

We're a bit behind with the stories, mostly because we didn't have constant access to the internet for the past week, and also because there was a fast turn of events.

The crossing of Jordan was partially covered in a previous post. So, I'll just add a few details and then move forward as fast as possible, without omitting essential stuff.

Swimming in the Dead Sea.

One of the weirdest experiences we've had in this pilgrimage: effortless floating in the crazy salted water.

Petra.

The day we saw Petra will stay with me for the rest of my life, just like other memories from the Middle East: first time in a mosque, at the pyramids, in Karnak temple, in a hot-air balloon over Luxor..

However, this experience was different than all the other ones. So, I'll do my best to take you there with me, while reliving this particular memory.

We woke up in our first day in Wadi Musa, without having any idea about what lied ahead.

Zachary and Hillary whom we've recently met, joined us for breakfast and some small talk, the kind you have in the morning when the sleep still lingers on your eye lashes.

The hotel provided us with a free ride to the Petra entrance, so around 9:00 o'clock in the morning we were already buying our tickets - which included a horse ride for the first 800 meters. We slipped into the saddle and enjoyed the ride. Nice experience.. it brought back some long forgotten memories from my childhood, when I used to ride the neighbors' horses ..without them knowing.

Jordan.

Jordan came not a moment too soon after the hectic Egypt, and it was a most welcomed change for us.

While still in Egypt, when waiting in line for the ferry tickets (from Nuweiba to Aquaba), we met a nice couple from US. Since we discovered that we all have exactly the same route for the next two days, we decided to stick together.
So, from two, we were four people in just a couple of hours after leaving Dahab. It was especially great as we didn't have to wait one night in Aquaba to catch the morning bus to Wadi Musa (Petra); now we could instead share a "service taxi" for the two and a half hours trip directly to Petra.

Dahab.

Dahab marked our last stay in Egypt and it was a great place to relax before leaving this country.

We enjoyed traveling to Dahab with some of the people we've met in Luxor, although the 16 hours bus drive wasn't the most pleasant one we've had so far..

One special thing that we did in this city, was snorkeling in the blue whole - from the blue lagoon: for the 1st time, we saw coral reefs and a lot of marine fauna, more than we've ever seen gathered in one place.
We were awe-struck for the first 20 minutes spent eyes down in the water. We didn't even care about the abyss below us (I think there were 50 or 70 meters until the sea bed) and also we didn't feel the time passing by.
I couldn't resist the temptation to swim through or with banks of colored fish, so I did a bit of free diving as well; not to deep since my ears hurt like hell after a few meters.
Long story short, we were so mesmerized this time, that the next time we'll surely apply for a diving permit (around 185 euros and 3 days training).

Equaly special was to eat together at a very nice restaurant, called Nemo. Being low season, the manager offered 30% discount, free starters, appetizer and salads, free shisha and ice-cream - at the end of the meal. The staf was super friendly, the location was perfect (2 meters from the water), nice illumination and fitting music. Oh, and wi-fi :)


It felt just like a dream coming true: spending time on the seashore, surrounded by great people, good food (vegetarian, by the way), pleasant music and having internet connection at your disposal :)

What more could we ask from Dahab?
Well, maybe some sand on the beach, since it was entirely rocky. But this can definetly be excused, taking into account all that it offered us.

Making new friends & acquaintances

One of the best thing about traveling is being able to meet interesting people almost every day, each with an interesting, funny or sometimes even a sad story to tell.
At the end of this trip, we hope to have a nice list with acquaintances and some good friends as well.

Here are some of the people we've met so far:
- Ercan and Ebru in Istanbul, whom we've already mentioned before.
They're one of the most welcoming couchsurfers we've met until now and we enjoyed every minute spent with them. Can't wait to surf their couch again and feed those funny turtles they have :)

- Jenna and Chris in Cairo.
Jenna was our host, while Chris joined us all for a nice dinner and some story sharing in our 1st night in Egypt. We owe Jenna a tour in Bucharest since she kindly offered herself as a guide in Cairo (probably the best one we had in Egypt!).

- Rebbeka, our second host in Cairo. She had a farewell party going on in the first day we arrived at her place, so, thanks to that, we met a lot of interesting German teachers living in Cairo.
Rebeka's place was like an oasis in the busy and noisy Cairo. Being placed behind the secret police office definitely helped a lot :).

- Julian, Paola and their friends, all from Columbia, funny and easy going people whom we've met on the train from Cairo to Aswan.

- Aswan: Bianca and Joost, brave couple from Holland, doing a trip through Middle East, by car, on the way to South Africa.

- In Luxor and Dahab: Tom and Alanna from Ireland; Freya from India - living in US and working at Microsoft; Hanna from US, Kim from South Korea; two guys from Taiwan (with impossible names :D); Paulo from Argentina; a couple from Japan and another nice couple from Argentina (unfortunately we can't remember their names right now, shame on us :|).

Here are some pictures with most of them: