Marking Time

Photos: Us at theater, Making guzleme

Oct.. 26, 2022-Digging Antalya What day is it? I know the date, but not day. David just told me it’s Wednesday. I know it as the day I changed from jeans to light weight safari pants that convert to shorts. I thought wearing the jeans for two weeks was efficient. Anyway, it’s much warmer down here. Confession…I didn’t go to the home hosted dinner last night. I have a cold. It’s better today, so I’m back on tour. I’ll fill you in on David’s report. The hosts share a duplex building that’s been in the family 22 years. David’s group ate with the married children. They have 5 year old rambunstious twin boys who were quickly sent downstairs to their grandparents. Luckily, the wife’s mother was visiting. She’s a professional chef and the food was top notch. Conversation flowed freely in English with politics and religion being foremost. Their opinion is that Erdoğan will lose the upcoming election but won’t leave office. Sound familiar? There’s no law against homosexuality, but no one cares if an LGBTQ person is persecuted or killed. Tom asked whether Christian missionaries were permitted to proselytize. He was told that they were, but if they were killed in the process no one investigated. Guess whose family is big into missionary work? I stayed in our room and sneezed non-stop using two rolls of toilet paper. David asked Rudy to provide me a sandwich and it was huge: a beef salami, cheese, lettuce, and tomato hoagie. I entertained myself watching Netflix: Hassan Minhaj, a brilliant comedian, and the movie Passing. Yesterday there was a lecture about the find at Perge and we saw artifacts from the site that had been removed and restored. Today we visited in person. It was occupied by Bronze Age people (perhaps Hittites) around 4,000-3,000 BCE. The sophisticated city ruins we saw were built by Romans after Greek occupation. It had a central waterway and sewer that could be a model for any modern settlement. It survived Romans and was visited twice by St. Paul and St. Barnabus. Onward to the “Best Roman Theater in the World.” Rudy likes superlatives. According to dated coins Aspendos, in Perge, dates from the 5th century BCE. Alexander the Great visited in 330 BCE. David orated Genesis 1 in Hebrew and if there were any Jews or Israelis at the site, they didn’t salute. The theater is in great shape and never had to be restored. It was in constant use and maintained through the ages. Lunch was an impromptu stop at a roadside stand where a woman was cozied up to a wooodfire heated stone making thin square flatbread filled with cheese or veggies. We were served four guzleme, salad of tomato and cucumber, and fresh orange or pomegranate juiice. Cost was $4/person. When we paid, she made change from a stash of cash under her tusch. After all the above, we walked across the street from our hotel to check out the free ethnic museum. It was in an old house and quite charming. There were several displays of Turkish life and crafts using mannequins to stage the scenes. The walk to and from the bus isn’t as hard during the daytime when we’re rested. Doing it after a 10 hour bus ride was not a good test. Today Rudy pointed out the Antalya airport with three terminals. I asked why we couldn’t fly from Konya to Antalya. He said that with transfers in Istanbul it would take six hours and we’d miss Rumi’s monastery. I was willing to ditch Rumi and fly. We joined two of the group for dinner. Indecision led us back to a place where we’d had lunch. It was average, but the walk to the ice-cream stand afterwards made up for it. Tomorrow we leave for Fethiye and board the gulet. Remember, we will not have Wi-Fi for four days. Toby