Day 11 - Sultanham, Cappadocia, Dervishes

Day 11
Thursday, June 30th
Weather - 78 degrees and partly cloudy
Plans - Sultanham Caravanserai, Cappadocia Christan Conclave, Whirling Dervishes in nearby Cappadocia


It's the last day of June, and that makes me sad to think that this great journey is soon going to come to an end. However, we've been gone for quite some time and I'm starting to find myself eager to return to home.

Sultanham Caravanserai

When the Ottomans wrested power from the Seljuks in the early 15th century, one thing they had going for them was that their territory was the keystone on the Silk Road. However, one issue they had was professional bandits from all over the world stationed themselves in the empty quarters of the blossoming empire to ransack caravans in transport while asleep at night. The Ottomans figured out a way to counter this problem - build large, unmanned protective forts along the Silk Road and let the traders and their men use them at the end of a day's voyage; they called them caravanserais. This was a genius edition to the route, and it costs the Ottomans little more than the construction costs, but it was a win for the traders and a win for the people who lived along the route in the empire. I found it to be a compelling place, and though we had a quick stop there, it was a nice tidbit of history to have under my belt.


Cappadocia

Easily one of my favorite places along our tour is this immense UNESCO site. Traveling across the Anatolian Plateau has been rather, well, unchanging. Rolling, verdant hills give way to a more steep embankment here and there, but there's not much in terms of variance in the culture or the geography - until we reached Cappadocia. Vast, spear-like rocks jettison out of the ground as if Hades himself built an artillery here in the heart of Turkey. The site of the old volcanic remains would be astonishing enough to the eye, until we remember that this site was used by Christians escaping persecution in the 4th century. The followers of Christ who moved here transformed and adapted to the landscape, turning the tallest of the peaks into guard towers, and the widest of them into vast, intricate churches.

Just walking around keeping your eyes to the bright whites and tans are spine-tingling enough, but when we went inside some of the dwellings, I tried to put myself in the place of the monks who sat at the tables and ate dinner on a rock table while sitting on their rock seats (pictured here to the left). I tried to envision being a nun climbing a ladder to collect pigeon dung to use as fertilizer in the fields. And I tried to think about what it was like to escape the persecution of the Romans who were pushing the early followers into the outskirts of society like this majestic place. See my video of entering the caves here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4mjHm9oKc8

However, all my thoughts collapsed when we entered the churches. It's a shame I couldn't take any photos, because the colors that began with simple crosses and designs in the 400s AD and became full on iconography in the 10th century were mind numbing - and to see them in a cave. Wow.

Christians had lived in these caves up until the 1920s, when, after losing World War I, Greek Christians were mistreated in Turkey just as Muslim Turks were mistreated in Greece. The prime ministers of both countries agreed to a population exchange and the many of the Greek Orthodox parishioners were told to leave their 1,500 year home and go back to Greece. Many were glad to escape the violence, and some of it could be seen in the caves.

After the Christians left, Turks and others lived here in Cappadocia until the 1970s, when the government forced them out of there because the 4 season weather in the area (filled with frosts, freezings, and the weather damage done by them) made the caves unsafe to live. Today much of the place remains unchanged, minus the tourism deposits and the upkeep of the intricate church murals. Check out Mark's burpees here for another cool view of the landscape - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIARTwK0Na4


Whirling Dervishes

After visiting Cappadocia we went to watch the Whirling Dervishes perform at a different caravanserai. It was a very slow-paced and sleep-inducing ceremony for me, but that's because the atmosphere was so comfortable and dark. For the dervishes, they put on an impressive show. We weren't allowed to take photos or video (minus this online replica I pulled), so I can't share any thing beyond the words here, but the approximately 35 minute presentation was an impressive show of dedication and reverence. I've never seen anyone as physically, psychologically, and spiritually invested in what they're doing as the dervishes in a 10 minute consecutive spin, one arm towards the heavens and one arm towards the ground, locked in position and unflinching the entire time. You can see me do my best to whirl through the doorway not of heaven, but our hotel in Konya, complete with a whirling dervish in the whirling door. It was just too easy to do my own video, complete with whirling through the metal detector - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M11g2pMidAk


Tomorrow we head to the underground cities in Cappadocia, watch some of the fools in our crew ride camels, and then attend a workshop.