i’ve forgotten how long we’ve been in turkey….we’re in instanbul!
this is the view from one of many bays we docked in for swimming, eating, having tea, or sleeping. it’s worth noting that the water was a little cold for a southern boy, but so as not to be made to look bad by lillis is quasi-eagerly jumped in. it was always a bit of a shock to the system when you first hit the water, but proved to be quite a refreshing way to spend a good bit of our days….when we weren’t laying under a canvas sunshade or napping.
here cam (our resident singer/songwriter) sean (who defended our boats honor in a dance fight) and i have ascended one of numerous ruins we encountered on the way. a bit of this city was actually underwater. the town’s layout was still very well formed with some buildings even having surviving roofs. were it in america it would be our most famous antiquity, i suppose, here it doesn’t even warrant a sign and is available for climbing.
lillis ever the acrobat!
here is our captain. he is “the most interesting man in the world.” i would link to the dos equis campaign, but apparently turkey does not like youtube. sigh. suffice to say, i could see this guy feeding baby eagles on the side of a cliff, running with a fox in arms, playing jai alai, or squiring a boat full of models in an inflatable raft across rough seas while smoking a cigar. he wore the same outfit everyday. when it rained. he put on a sweater. he is much more awesome than i. here he was grilling chicken wings. he is…..the most interesting man in the world.
here is a neighboring boat parked in a cove around the bend from the oddest disco/bar i’ve ever set foot in.
when we were told there was a place that sometimes opened up around the corner from us (you must understand we were in the middle of nowhere), i immediately thought of the performance in the movie “apocalypse now” crossed with the scene from the same movie where they have a bridge all lit up and the vietcong are shelling it. it actually was even better than i had imagined. a random dinghy showed up at around 9:30, picked us up and shuttled us into this little building with blacklights and an anatolian shepherd the size of a small horse. it was maybe the most random place i’ve ever spent an evening. here we all our dancing. looks relatively normal.
but this is what the place really looked like (with the flash off). it was noteworthy that i heard nwa AND bon jovi while here.
anyway…..that next afternoon we motored into port. hopped on a bus, hopped on another bus, said by to our friends, ate a mulberry, continue on our bus, hopped a cab, hopped a plane, and caught a shuttle and voila! we’re in istanbul.
