Turkey Vacation - day 3: around Goreme...even on horseback at one point!

Time to tour Goreme!

1st stop: Goreme Open Air Museum

Whole towns lived in these cave dwellings, complete with homes, schools, churches, and even mortuaries and cemeteries! 

Church

Cemetery...see the 2 skeletons?

Storage room for kitchen.

Famous Turkish ice cream that stretches and is advertised as it being eaten with a fork and knife.

Rosemary got vanilla and berry. I got wonderful pistachio...it was delicious and fun to eat!

Wild horses roam these areas, as seen below.

Funky tree covered in tied on plastic bags.

Let the horse riding begin...2nd time on a horse...

Meet Iysha...she only did random running starts a few times. She was mostly chill. Rosemary's horse went rogue and bucked 2 other horses. Her tail was dyed red and at one point she took off running and all i saw in my peripheral was her red tail flashing before my eyes and hearing Rosemary screaming along...good times ;o]

This is where our horses hiked us to and we stayed for the amazing sunset.

Our view of the valley below.

Our 2 hour ride ended up being more of a 3 hour ride, and my saddle area didn't let me forget that for the next few days. Thankfully none of us went over a cliff or got bucked off our horses or Rosie's horse didn't kill anyone. 

Turkey Vacation - day 2: "Green Tour" in Cappadocia

Here is the Nomad Cave hostel that we stayed at for 4 nights in Goreme. Here was our 1st encounter with the amazing friendliness that we experienced over and over in Turkey! The owner of this hostel was almost overwhelmingly friendly and hospitable! He booked all of our tours with other companies at discounted prices, he actually drove us to a traditional Turkish dance/dinner and waited for us in the lobby (for about 3 hours) and drove us back, he always offered his tea (cinnamon tea w/honey off the comb!) and mulled wine, he sat and talked with us every evening about our day and if we needed help planning for the next day, he even offered free traditional Turkish breakfast every morning! He is a great man! 

This is where everyone in the hostel hangs out...super chill and mellow...perfect after exploring for the whole day to come back to this to relax.

Here is the traditional Turkish breakfast spread that we had the privilege of enjoying every morning! My favorite was the fresh tomatos and cucumbers with amazing feta cheese! Also, to have fresh oranges after not having them since leaving the States was a real treat!

After breakfast we were picked up at the hostel to go on the "Green Tour" which included an underground city, a hike through a beautiful valley with cave churches, a tea break in the middle of the woods and stream in cute little tea huts sitting over the water, a traditional Turkish lunch, a hike through a cathedral in the cliffs, Pigeon Valley, and a stop to eat & drink free samplings of Turkish Delight and tea!

Rosemary, Christine, and me trying to look funny, but in reality looking a little evil, squished in one of the many doorways to rooms in the underground city. The story goes that Christians built these underground cities to hide from being persecuted for their faith. They still haven't found all of the underground cities, but while we were there, the owner of the hostel said they found the biggest one yet! He said it had been all over the news while we were on our tour! 

So begins our hike through the valley!

Meet Squampous, my roaming gnome bear. I won him during PST when we played a game where we had to guess, in Romanian, what things were in our language instructor's box. After many questions, i finally guessed "urs" meaning "bear" and this is who i won! What better thing to do with him than have adventures with him! And what better place to start our adventures together than in Turkey!

Climbing down all those stairs led us to this church in a cave...pretty cool!

I think that's Joseph, Mary, and Jesus on the donkey going to Bethlehem.

After visiting the cave church, we hiked next to a stream...it was so refreshing!

At our halfway point there was a place in the middle of nowhere serving fresh-squeezed orange juice and Turkish, sage, and apple tea that we enjoyed while sitting in these little tea huts over the stream. It was magical!

Christine's waiting for our fresh-squeezed orange juices...o citrus, how i've missed you!

Our view from our little tea hut...so adorable!

Fresh-squeezed orange juice served in no other than a Coca-Cola glass sitting next to my delicious sage tea.

Squampous needed to get in on this...

Gorgeous views during our hike.

The end of our hike took us to our traditional Turkish lunch. I had trout that had been fished out of the stream we had been walking next to. It wasn't the greatest, but definitely has potential. We all had apple tea for the 1st time too, which tasted like hot apple juice, which i thought was pretty good.

Next stop on the "Green Tour"

And next stop: Pigeon Valley. The people who used to live here raised pigeons and used them for EVERYTHING! From food, to using their droppings as fertilizer and paint, to using their bones as sewing needles! 

Last stop: samples of Turkish Delight and other various goodies!

After our tour was over we met the owner of a rug store who invited us in for Turkish Raki, tea, snacks, and chats. He asked us if we wanted "Tourist Tea" which is the Apple tea that everyone offers to all the tourists...kinda funny. So of course we obliged...only after having Raki and halva 1st!

It was a great end to a spectacular day!

Turkey Vacation - day 1: travel

YAY!!! Vacation!!! It was wonderful to get away for 9 days in Turkey with 4 other PCVs! And even though the 1st day ended up being over 12 hours of travel (from 10:30a - 12 midnight to be exact), it was still a GREAT (exhausting) day! 

Air Moldova is surprisingly fancy too! That little knob on the seat is a "coat pull" so people can hang their coats (or whatever else) on it instead of putting them overhead, on their laps, or on the floor...pretty thoughtful!

We ended up waiting on the plane for 1.5 hours before taking off though because we were apparently waiting for another passenger to arrive on the plane... After waiting for 1.5 hours, he arrived and I overheard him tell the people he was sitting next to that the pilot said we'd be taking off in 5 minutes, and we did. By the time we took off, we should've already landed in Turkey and been on a bus on our way to Cappadocia. Thankfully we weren't in a big hurry!

We even got sandwiches on our 1 hour flight to Turkey! It made me think that people who visit America are probably disappointed with American flights...with our tiny, not so great, snacks, that nowadays may even cost money! 

A toilet in the Istanbul airport...that's right...i've gone from squatty potties as the norm in Moldova to toilets with bidets in Turkish airports (and even restaurants, i soon found out!)!

Rosemary's and my 1st purchase in Turkey: super yummy delicious hot chocolate from an Italian coffee shop called Cafe Nero...it tasted like melted dark chocolate...soooooooo delicious!!!!! That ended up being dinner...thankfully we got those free sandwiches on the plane!

1st Turkey pic! Istanbul reminded me a lot of San Francisco. 

2 taxis, 2 flights, and 2 buses later, we finally arrived to our hostel in Goreme in the region of Cappadocia!...exhausted, hungry, and giddily happy!! 

And a Happy New Year

Sangalala Chaka Chatsopano (Happy New Year) from Malawi! I spent New Years at Senga Bay near Salima. Which means I finally got to see Lake Malawi!

Lake Malawi is also called the Calendar Lake because it is 365 miles long and 52 miles wide. The weather was mostly overcast, so when the fog obscured the view of the islands and coast in the distance, it looked like the ocean.

We had dinner at the hotel on New Years Eve. It was a buffet with lots of yumminess like turkey and cranberry sauce, roasted potatoes, minestrone soup, curried chickpeas and even dessert! Which is kind of a rare thing in Malawi. My favorite was the strawberry mousse in the little white teacups. Here are me and Mary Beth, enjoying our dessert:

We went snorkeling on New Years Day. We rode in a boat to a nearby island and then swam around looking at all the cichlid fish. This was the spot where I saw the most fish.

Some of them blended in with the algae-covered rocks. Others were bright blue and very easy to see. It was a lot of fun and I would love to go snorkeling again!

The campsite was pretty full. People drove their cars in and set up massive tents, then were coming and drinking and dancing to the music that was playing all day and most of the night. So it was a pretty normal holiday by the beach. Except that this is Malawi, and just over the wall at the edge of the campsite were...monkeys! So I had fun watching them climb and swing.

Happy 2015! It's off to a great start already. Here's to a wonderful year ahead for is all.