Fellow travelers

Though it isn't the peak season for tourism, I have met a good number of fellow travelers. Perhaps because it isn't the peak season, I have met some very dedicated and very experienced travelers.

In Cappadocia I met a trio (Swiss male 60s, Swiss male 28, Swedish female 30s) as the took a respite from their Switzerland to Nepal bicycle trip. The 28 year old spend 2 months cycling through Pakistan last year and told me that cycling is just a better way to travel and that he didn't take more than one long ride a week when at home.

I chatted with a Kiwi jiu-jitsu/mui thai fighting 32 year old chef who works long enough to fund his next trip.

Two Indian men came through individually and were constantly on the go. They were either touring, eating, sleeping or preparing the next stage of their travel.

I briefly met a sketchy Moroccan man. He hung around the hostel all day. When two travelers noticed money missing, new arrivals from Istanbul mentioned a similar situation at their hostel and one tenant in common. The man promptly left.

I went on a few nice hikes with a Polish-American statistician who grew up all over. Sometimes thinking in odds and percentages doesn't translate well to hiking. After losing a path, we saw a familiar landmark across a steep valley and kept deciding that we could probably make it down one way or most likely get down another way. We definitely ran into a lot of dead ends, one of which was a 20 foot drop that we noticed after sliding down steep declines on our butts. We tried and failed to get out by several routes and as the sun was setting, the temperature was dropping and our fears were quıckly mounting, we managed to shimmy up with backs literally pressed against one wall and feet straight out ahead. Nice now, not then.

On a paid tour of an ancient underground city (7,000 years old?) and various valleys, I latched on to a group of bonded solo travelers. A history academiad re-thinking his goals (but offering great info. on the surrounds), an ecologist between jobs in Switzerland and New Mexico/Argentina, a USC film school grad recently off his first feature as a cinematographer, and finally a lone Swede among Americans a year out of high school, headed south through Syria, Jordan, Iran and maybe a few other places it's easier to go without stars and stripes on your passport.

After the paid tour, the history buff went back to a Bulgarian fellowship, the Swede continued south and I joined the other two for a morning trip to Konya.

Fighting a fever and soar throat, I endured the cold as the three of us wandered Konya, visited great museums and enjoyed a non-touristy destination. We intended to leave for Antalya the same day we arrived but just before leaving for the 5pm bus, we learned that it was the second day of the 736th annual Mevlana Festival. We wandered a bit more before managing to get tickets and hole up in a warm place for a few hours before the 8pm show. Almost as entertaining as the event was the crowd. Full rows of old mustachioed Turkish men would sit in front of full rows of old Turkish women with colorful scarves, colorful (though different from the scarves) sweaters and yet more (still different) colorful trousers.

The Whirling Dervishes that we saw were absolutely mesmerizing and much more somber than I expected. The hats they wear represent the tombstone and their clothing the shroud.