Day 195, Monday August 5, 2019
Al: ” Peg, would you like a BMW?”
Peg: ” I kinda see myself in a Jaguar.”
Al: ” Oh, if we could only find one that hungry.”
-Married With Children
Sites Covered in this Post
• Lake Tuz
• Derinkuyu
• Camel ride
• Göreme
Lesson Learned: How about a little trivia? Did you ever wonder why the American political parties were represented by a Donkey and an Elephant (placed in alphabetical order, not party of preference order)? I always thought it was because the pundits characterized the Dems as an obstinate, stubborn jackasses, and the GOP as fat, over-fed, gluttonous, rich guys (elephant). Well, I was wrong….sort of. Every four-year election cycle, or lately every night on MSNBC or Fox News, for almost forever in my mind we see illustrations of donkeys and elephants showing up in political cartoons, campaign buttons, posters, and on the Internet. They’ve been called a mainstay of America’s visual culture.
Yet most Americans, including me, were surprised to learn that these political symbols (as well as Santa Claus and Uncle Sam) were popularized by a single political cartoonist that almost nobody has ever heard of.
His name was Thomas Nast, and during his time at Harper’s Weekly (1862 to 1886) a magazine of American political commentary based in New York City from 1857 to its demise in 1916, he became America’s first great political cartoon satirist — and harshest political critic. He frequently lampooned the Civil War, the travesty of Reconstruction, immigration (wow, some things never change), and — most famously — the Tammany Hall political machine (which nobody today but a history nerd knows what the hell that was about).
Some have suggested that the word “nasty” derives from the artist’s surname, and while many authorities claim this isn’t true, I’ll give him cred and say that it is.
Nast, who evidently was a Republican, drew Democrats as a donkey, and an obese pachyderm (can an elephant truly be considered fat?) as a Republican. So, what was he smoking to come up with that? Somehow, those images stuck.
The elephant and the donkey continue on today as the embodiment of the dominant American political parties, while Nast has faded into forgotten historic lore. To date, the elephant remains the official symbol of the Republican Party, and although not claimed, the Democrats are forever branded with an Ass as their symbolic animalistic representative. It doesn’t matter whether they like it or not, those emblems have been etched into the collective psyche of the American people. So there ya go, now you know something that has always bugged you for not knowing. If it didn’t bug you, why the hell not?
Just so you Know: Eid al-Adha
Eid al-Adha – which translates to the Festival of Sacrifice, is going on now as we sit in Ankara, and damned near everything is closed. Probably, most Americans don’t even know what it is, I sure didn’t. The four-day religious holiday begins on the third day of the annual Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims who are physically and financially able are required to undertake once in their lifetime — some saving their whole lives to make the journey.
Its based upon the myth that honors the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God’s command. But, before Abraham (Ibrahim for Muslims) could sacrifice his son, God provided a lamb to sacrifice instead. In commemoration of this intervention, an animal is sacrificed ritually and divided into three parts. One share is given to the poor and needy, another is kept for home, and the third is given to relatives.
I guess that means if you discover a lamb in your backyard, you can’t kill your son, no matter how much he’s done to piss you off. Strangely, this story appears in historical literature for Jews and Christians as well. This probably means that either the originators were brothers, cooked up this story at a lodge meeting of the Sons of the Desert fraternal organization at a men-only retreat on the Dead Sea, or those guys got a hold of some really good mushrooms.
No matter what, it’s a very holy holiday here in the land of Allah. When you meet someone here, Eid Mubarak (pronounced EED muh-BAR-ack) and Eid Saeed are routine greetings used during the observance to offer best wishes. In the US, I think that greeting has been replaced with “It’s only two weeks until college football! Hell, yes!!”
Lake Tuz (Tuz Golu)
Lake Tuz, is a salt lake/salt plain simmering along the highway between Ankara and Cappadocia. This place is really flat, hot, dry, no trees, and empty. It makes me homesick for West Texas. As you descend down the plateau from Ankara, in the midst of wheat fields you’ll see a large white blemish on the horizon which grows and grows as you head south. From a distance it looks a snow scene from Frozen, but that couldn’t be further from the fact. Soon, it occupies a large part of the landscape, a huge area in the arid central plateau of Turkey, about 65 miles (105 km) northeast of Konya. Even though we’ve been heading down hill since leaving Ankara, the lake still lays 905 meters (2,970 feet) above sea level.
They say it holds water, but much like the Great Salt Lake in Utah, it was mostly a white crystal desert to our observation. It looks a lot like the Bonneville Salt Flats. This place is huge, it runs for miles along the highway and supposedly covers 580 square miles or 1500 square kilometers for most of the year, which probably fluctuates based on rainfall or snow melt. During dry summer months, and this place looks West Texas kind of dry, (though it does have lots of wheat fields) and the lake evaporates leaving behind a blinding white, thick layer of salt crust on the surface.
This place is huge (didn’t I already say that?), it’s not only the biggest salt lake in Turkey but one of the biggest in the world as well. Like most salt flats, the lake has no outlet, so the water flows in and stands until it evaporates leaving a layer of salt and other minerals on the lake bed. At least they are able to mine the salt to support the local economy. The area gets about as much rain as Odessa, Texas only about 10 inches (250 mm) per year. Perhaps if Odessa/Midland had a salt flat, they’d have another industry besides petroleum, and high school football to support the community.
As we approached the lake, it appeared it was covered with ants. As we drew closer, we could see these specks weren’t ants, just visitors walking out on the dry lake bed. There was a restaurant on its shore, capitalizing on the access point to the salt flats. Who were we to pass this opportunity up? It’s a great place to spend a few minutes or an hour. Just don’t forget your sun screen, hat and your sunglasses.
Derinkuyu: Underground City of Cappadocia
We wanted to visit one of the underground cities in the area. Ellen and Arleigh decided to sit this out and remain on the surface, but Mary and I, sans hard hats and miner lights decided to duck below and check the city out. Derinkuyu underground city, is more than just a deep hole in the ground, it’s an ancient multi-level underground city in the Derinkuyu district in Nevşehir Province, Turkey.
As you descend into the tunnels, it keeps going down, and down extending to a depth of 60 meters (200 ft). They (somebody that is supposed to know about these things) estimate that the city is large enough to have housed up to 20,000 people together with their livestock and food stores. I’ve been there, and walked through these tiny, narrow, low tunnels, so the thought of 20,000 people, goats, sheep, chickens, and cows is really a disgusting thought.
It is the largest excavated underground city in Turkey and is one of several underground complexes found across Cappadocia. This is really surprising, since the entrance to the complex is just one tiny door into the city through a structure which looks more like an outhouse (without a half moon on the door) than it does the entrance into a huge underground labyrinth, though it does have a turnstile at the entrance. Come to think of it though, lots of public toilets on our trip have had turnstiles installed in front of the doors as well.
The same experts as referred to above, think the caves might have been build by the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, in the 8th–7th centuries BCE. Later on, the inhabitants, now Christian, expanded their underground caverns to deep multiple-level structures adding the chapels and Greek inscriptions in the first or second century. Derinkuyu was fully formed in the Byzantine era, when it was heavily used as protection from Muslim Arabs during the Arab–Byzantine wars (780–1180 CE). The city was connected with other underground cities through many kilometers (miles) of tunnels.
These cities continued to be used by the Christian natives as protection from the Mongolian incursions of Timur in the 14th century. After the region fell to the Ottomans, the cities were used as refuges by the natives from the Turkish Muslim rulers, which makes me wonder if it might have just been easier to move.
The underground city at Derinkuyu could be closed from the inside with large stone doors (which were huge). Each floor could be closed off separately, though we only passed through two entrances with stone doors as most of the city was roped off. The city had amenities such as wine and oil presses, stables, cellars, storage rooms, refectories, and chapels, not to mention all those goats and sheep providing a rich, aromatic aroma to the entire place.
There is a large 55-meter (180 ft) ventilation shaft that appears to have been used as a well. The shaft provided water to both the villagers above and, if the outside world was not accessible, to those hiding below. Somehow, after walking around in this underground maze, I can visualize people poking their heads out of holes to see if its safe to come out. Sort of a real-life version of “Whack a Mole”
In 1923, the Christian inhabitants of the region were expelled from Turkey and moved to Greece in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, whereupon the tunnels were abandoned. Abandoned, and maybe forgotton until in 1963, the tunnels were rediscovered after a resident found a mysterious room behind a wall in his home. Further digging revealed access to the tunnel network. In 1969, the site was opened to visitors, with about half of the underground city currently accessible. From what we saw, not nearly half of the city is open, perhaps 10%. On the other hand, looking down the rabbit holes, I’m really not sure how much of the city I really want to explore.
So, Mary Frances and I climbed out of the hole in time to have ice cream with Arleigh, and Nana, and take a ride on a camel. How much more fun can one have in one day?