Grabbing the ‘bul by the Golden Horn

Istanbul kicked my ass. There, I said it. First, it took 4 hours of driving around the city going back and forth across the Golden Horn to find our hostel. Istanbul has a population of around 15 million. It has poorly marked, narrow and windy streets like other European cities that were built before urban planning was a real profession. To make matters worse, it also has psychotic European/Middle-Eastern drivers tearing up the roads. Memo to self: leave car outside of city limits next time. Driving in Toronto or NYC or Athens is a joke compared to driving in Istanbul. I also got food poisoning in Istanbul and was bed ridden in the 37 deg C (humid) weather with no AC or fan. Oh yeah, and the Ramadan drumming at 3:30 am was like a sweet siren song to my ears (see Elise’s last post).

But this post is not really about Istanbul (I just came up with the title and I didn’t want my word play to go to waste). The REAL subject of this post is the TROGLODYTE. After Istanbul chewed me up and spat me out, we figured that in order to get better I needed to get back to my roots – my troglie roots – in Cappadocia, Turkey. That’s where there are whole cities of ancient troglodyte caves, some of which have been converted into hotels and hostels. But WTF is a troglie, you say? For my Troglie brethren back home you know exactly what I’m talking about. For those who don’t know, “troglie” is not simply short for short for troglodyte. It is, however, a made-up word for which I can’t really give you a definition. Suffice it to say that it can refer to a member of a particular social circle (e.g. “Are any Troglies gonna be at that party tonight?”), a state of being (e.g. “I was soooo troglied when I woke up for work on Monday morning”) and the name of my men’s league hockey team (who, by the way, are in second place with a 10-2-2 record this season). Anyway, the Troglies are a legacy. When I heard there were actual troglodyte caves in Turkey that we could sleep in I said “YES! Let’s buy some $4.00/L gas and drive to within a few hundred km of the Iraq border to stay in those caves!” And so we did. Our cave hostel was dark and damp and it smelled like mildew. We were pretty troglied by the time we left – but hey, it was worth it.

-G, #19

Wake Up! It's Ramazan!

boom-boom-boom--ba-boom. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BABOOM! This is a sound that can get your attention at 3 am.  Luckily, I was prepared, and I knew what was going on.  (Unfortunately, the guy in the room next to us was not so prepared.  Watch video!)

The day before we arrived in Turkey, we realized that we would be there during Ramadan.  (It's not a typo in the title, it's actually called Ramazan in Turkey!).  We did a quick bit of research and found out that in Istanbul and the touristy areas, this wouldn't really affect us, we could still eat and drink and not pray to our heart's content.

One Ramadan tradition that did affect us greatly was the wake up call.  Since the first meal of the day must be eaten before the sun rises (at the inconvenient hour of 4:30), someone must get up VERY early and cook breakfast.  So, an hour and a half before sunrise, the city must be woken up.  Of course, this tradition dates back to way before the happy invention of personal alarm clocks.  Enter the drummer.  Watch the videos!

By the way, this happens every morning for the whole month of Ramadan.

-E

Haircuts By The Sea!

Our gracious hosts in Kalo Nero, Greece not only gave us a free place to stay, we also got free haircuts!!!

-E

Greeks and Freaks

In our 7500+ km of driving thus far I have dealt with a myriad of driving styles and road conditions - all this while learning the local unwritten rules of the road on the fly. In summary, all Eastern Europeans drive way too fast (don’t worry parents, I’ve remained a prudent driver in spite of all the chaos on the road!). The Slovaks, Czechs and Austrians are all aggressive yet efficient, the Slovenians are a little more timid than there northerly neighbours, the Croatians and Bosniaks are reckless but civilized, the Montenegrins and Albanians have an obvious death wish, the Macedonians are skilled (but still have a death wish), and the Greeks and Turks create the impression that there is a war going on (and have a death wish, too). Check out the vid below to see how the Greeks turn a two lane highway into four lanes…strange that I never saw that familiar sign that is so ubiquitous in Canada: “DO NOT DRIVE ON PAVED SHOULDER”...

-G

A Dark Moment

One thing that will forever be associated in my mind with travelling around in less developed countries is the sound of cats fighting. Everywhere we go, the streets are filled with scrawny, scraggly street cats with half-tails, scratched up faces, and mangy fur. Life is tough for these kitties, they need to battle to get ahead.
I am listening to this exact sound as I get ready for bed in the latest campground of our escapade. I am in the dirty one toilet/one shower bathroom that is supposed to serve the entire population of the campground. I am brushing my teeth, and I have to keep moving because the light is on a 10 second motion timer. I would just give up and brush in the dark, but I don’t want to creep out the other campers. Going to the bathroom is fun, I can hardly get my shorts unbuttoned before I am plunged into total darkness, and the motion sensor for the light doesn’t detect toilet stall movement. Now I am navigating a toilet stall with my shorts around my ankles in the pitch black. I should also mention that there is no toilet seat, and toilet paper can’t be thrown into the toilet, so there is an overflowing trash bin of used toilet paper in the corner.
During all this, the cats are wailing, and it’s so hot that I will have to sleep in the car in my bikini (for respectability) with all the windows open because even going near the sweatbox of a tent makes me hyperventilate. And I think to myself – what am I doing here?

And the cat fur clumps float by in the air…

-E
PS… Turkey has banned YouTube (for various insults to Turkishness, which is illegal), so video posting will have to wait :(

ϹЕРИЛИК ИЗ ОСЕМ!!!!

That’s what we learned in Macedonia. We mastered most of the Cyrillic alphabet, and now we plan to use it as our secret code language once we get back home. For those less fortunate who aren’t familiar with this alphabet, what I said was ‘Cyrillic is awesome!!’. And so it is.
We spend six days in Skopje, with a friend of mine from my university days. Actually, we stayed with her mother, who had more space (and patience) for us and all our sh*t. Skopje is a very nice place, although we didn’t get to see too much of it, because we were too busy being fed homemade dishes and homemade liquor. I think we found our new mom!! (Sorry old moms, but in order to compete, you need to learn how to make rakija and ajvar).

...I guess I should explain - rakija is very potent liquor made from fruit, usually grapes or pears or something like that, and ajvar is a sauce/relish made from red peppers that is great with EVERYTHING...even just from the spoon.

Skopje is virtually tourist free, which is a rare treat. Gully and I would have fit right in… except that it took us ten minutes to sound out each word that we read (much to the amusement of our friends), and Gully’s propensity for taking off his shirt, which apparently isn’t as cool here as it is in Canada.

-E

Andrijana & I

Enjoying Sunday lunch in our new home

TWO kinds of home-made rakija!!

A meal fit for a king - moussaka, wine, rakija, and of course milk

The Bane of my Existence

Despite being in the country for only 24 hours, Albania really had a lasting impression on us. Here are a few things we observed:


- Certain parts of Albania operate according to Kanun law. That basically means that if you kill a member of my clan then I get to kill a member of your clan and you can in turn kill another member of my clan until there is no one left to kill. We avoided those parts of the country.

- There are 60,000 concrete bunkers that litter the countryside. They are relics of an ill-fated self-reliant defence plan started by the communists. The igloo-shaped eyesores can withstand a full tank assault. The majority of Albanians were conceived in these cramped little bunkers. How romantic.

- Mercedes outnumber any other kind of car in Albania. In fact, I think Albania has the highest number of Mercs per capita in the world. That’s a bit strange considering it might also be the poorest country in Europe (with the exception of Kosovo). I can’t get over how many Mercedes are here. From the new X6 to the old 100E, souped-up to decrepit and falling apart – there are tons! It’s insane! I heard they’re all stolen from Western Europe.

- Donkeys, pigs, goats, chicken, and sheep on the road outnumber cars.

- Car washes outnumber people. Hey, you worked hard for that Benz. Better keep it clean.

- Potholes outnumber people, cars, car washes, livestock, concrete bunkers, protons, electrons and neutrons combined. Albania has THE WORST roads in Europe by far. It took 10 hours to drive 300 km on a major highway. Enough said.

Pics!

-G

Wanna see my bed?

I count five Benzes

Typical

Albanian rush hour