Kusadasi, Turkey

at pine bay resort in Kusadasi, Turkey. took ferry over from Samos, a 1 3/4 hour

ride, on Sat. It seems that we have a lot in our good karma bank account! So far, all our plans and meetings-up have worked out beautifully! after we got off the ferry and headed toward the taxi area, a really nice man asked if we wanted a taxi and where were we going. he took us to the hotel, chatting all the way! seems he lived in LA and Seattle and drove down the coast from WA to CA, knew Cannon Beach, had been to Beaverton, mainly he works in construction and drives taxi when that work is slow. he asked if we’d like him to take us to several places of interest around this area, it would

take 3 hours or so and he’d charge us 30 euro. turns out this guy, Savash, is a wealth of info on the history and historical sites around here, loves Turkey, loves the US and is in general a really happy nice guy! his family owns Hotel Bella, which he says got high ratings in several travel books... Lonely Planet is the only one i can think of right now. So.... ok, we are staying at this resort on our time share points and we’d reserved an apt. with 2 bedrooms, sml sitting area and sml kitchen... when we checked in those accomodations weren’t available, so instead they gave us 2 side-by-side “rooms”, which is actually a bedroom, sitting room, bathroom, kitchen (sort of) and balcony. this resort is really huge and lovely... several swimming pools, several restaurants and snack bars, massage, a doctor on premises, and i’m sure a lot more stuff that i can’t remember. so, first night we try to find a restaurant and could only find a gigantic buffet area and they wanted 20 euro/each (about $30), which not only seemed WAY expensive, but was not what we wanted! we were finally able to find the in-charge person and convinced him we only wanted a salad and glass of wine, so we each got a huge plate full of salad, bread and wine for about 5 euro. On Sun. a.m. Linda, our coyote, scouted out a snack bar by a pool where we could get a little lunch. At 2 p.m. Savash picked us up and we started our tour, going first to his home town. Selcuk, he stopped and pointed out the one remaining column of the temple of Artemis (one of the 7 wonders of the world) and we took photos. close by were some rounded dome-shaped things which were roman steam baths. i sure do wish we’d had a recorder so as to have a record of all the information he gave us... it was astounding! St. John’s Basilica was the first site.... lots of photos and wandering around. then the House of the Virgin Mary. and holy water which came from the springs which miraculously appeared when the area was suffering a severe drought. the 3rd archeological site was Ephesus and

that was the most impressive and extensive of all. and then.... he took us to the roof top restaurant of his family’s hotel and we had wine and snacks/appetizers/very good eating, and could practically see into several stork nests atop light poles. the closest one we watched while the mom brought food to the dad who was sitting on the egg. they take turns sitting til the baby hatches out! and THEN... we went to the basement room to meet the brother who (guess what!!) sells Turkish carpets! he gave us a lot of information on the tribal villages and the rugs they make. Linda and i casually threw out bits of stuff about yarn and dyeing. i asked which sheep’s wool they use... Karakul.. so i had to tell him about Caesar, the Karakul ram i had and the lovely cross-bred lambs i got from him. ok.. the short of it is that i bought 2 carpets... not huge, but not tiny either. will take photos of them when i’m home again, as they are right now all wrapped up and ready to travel. and then Savash brought us back. it was an incredible day and we felt SO fortunate that we’d found/been found by this guy, a really fine human being!

this may be complete heresy, but i’ve seen about all the historical ruins that i need to see, and walked and climbed enough hot stone and marble walkways to make my legs and feet ache. today is a day off for me. Linda and Greg got a rental car today and they and Jim took off to go to a park... which i’m sure has more ruins and rocks. and i stayed home to get some clothes washed, go to the lobby for internet and then try to write down some of what i’ve done and where i’ve been. still a lot of catching up to do!