Breakfast consists of bread, cheese and honey and coffee.

We continue to Pamukkale – a nature wonder that causes you to look at it and to look again, because you cannot believe what you see. A marble white tabletop-hill with different sized half mooned  basins protruding from the side with aquamarine water cascading from basin to basin to collect in a stream at the foot of the hill. Basins, foot-bath-, body bath- or jacuzzi-sized interspersed between fluffy “snow”-covered hills.
 


While Willie and the boys visited the site, I stayed with Sammie in the car to update my journal.

From Pamukkale to Antalya where we hope the visa agony will come to an end. We drive an hour and hunger drive us off the highway where we have leftovers from the previous evening with bread. We parked 100 meters from a house where we could see people busy with construction. By now we know that the car, with the strangers inside attract attention, so it was not unusual when we saw a man come from the house and looked with intent at us for several  minutes. Imagine for yourself: you are overseeing workers and from nowhere appears this Unknown Foreign Object. It stops; all 4 doors pop open and out tumble 4 strange looking beings: - 2 cowboys, a hippie, a blond-gray-haired woman and to top it – a very black four footed dog with a red bandana! They all disappear behind the back of the car and for minutes you are not sure what is happening and then…relief…They are eating! He walks over – maybe we are trespassing and then the surprise. From his gestures we realize that he wants to bring us tea. Would we like that? Yes! We are freezing and thank you so much! He jumps into his car and drive off. He had to go to the store because he did not have enough either tea or sugar. Finally he appears with a tray, 5 small Turkish tea cups and a steaming double pot tea. Please help yourself, he gestures. We had no idea what to do with this double pot and Andrej finally steps forward to bravely try his hand at it. Our friend sees that we need help and he takes action. All 4 cups are rinsed with warm water; from the top pot he pours a 1/3 full with strong tea concentrate and fill the cup with water from the bottom pot. He hands it to each one of us and we then add sugar. He joins us, and with no language, but Tasseker (Thank You) and hand gestures and our magnet we explain to him what we are doing.
 
As so often in the past I’ve seen once more that kindness and love are the universal language between strangers from different cultures, color and tongue and we are humbled by gracious hospitality.

Our friends to whom we have routed the passport is in Belek, a resort town, 40 km from Antalya. At an internet café our friend tells us that the passport did not come. We are disappointed, upset and stress accumulates as it is already dark and we have no place to stay. We search the internet for cheap hostels, but they are non-existing in this 5-star hotel/resort area and what is available is unaffordable. Full-blown stress behavior exhibits itself as we have no idea what to do, where to go. It is dark, cold and we are hungry and we do not like one another too much at the moment. Hugo saves the day. Next to the internet café is Top-Notch hotel which looked as if it is one notch up from a roach joint. They have a room for us for a very reasonable price: 4 bunk beds in a tiny room with a toilet-and-shower-in-one. Only one facility at a time can be utilized as the shower sprays over the toilet, BUT it is hot water and a decently clean room. After dinner Willie discovers an e-mail, 4 hours too late, from the visa agency informing him that his visa will arrive on Tuesday!  It would have saved us from an unnecessary relational thunder and lightning storm!

3 days of camping and we’ve realized that we need to change our current set up – the kitchen is not functional as we want it. While Andrej and Hugo are visiting Ephesus Willie and I unpack the car – every single box, sack, container, bag, tents under the trees in the parking lot. I’m sorry I did not think to take a picture of this. 3 times we were approached by Turkish men asking, “Bazaar, bazaar?” pointing to the stuff laid out on the grass.

 No, we are trying to change a stuffed 4x4 vehicle to be a functional mobile home for the next 5/6 months. Everything we need in regards to food, cooking etc are now in the 2 back large drawers.

While I reorganized the kitchen, Willie tried to figure out why our refrigerator does not charge – a concern not for now, but a few weeks from now, we will be sad if we do not have something that can keep food cool.

The boys came back and I’ve asked them to write about their Ephesus experience. By 12 we are back in the car direction of Pamukkale. 

 We buy provisions at a basic necessity store in a small village, because time for finding a campsite is close. The time is determined by the position of the sun! Camping in the wild means we have to find a suitable camping spot: preferably away from people, away from traffic, as private as possible, even terrain, if possible not too rocky. That is a tall order when it gets dark and you have 4 individuals with strong, different opinions about where the perfect spot for the night is!

Therefore, finding a campsite can push our individual buttons in a major way and if one could stick a tension thermometer in the car it would surely explode – especially when the sun is teasingly sticking her tongue out at us as she waves goodbye.

I don’t do too well with camping in the wild. I’m afraid we are trespassing, that bandits will attack us; that the police will arrive, yell at us in a foreign language;chase us away, fine us heavily or even worse lock Willie behind bars and leave us 3 sitting not understanding or knowing what to do...if I allow my imagination to run, I can stir up scenario upon scenario. So, after the first bush camp search, familiar rise of tension and tempers I had a conversation with God...I already have enough that freaks me out and I’ve yielded my right to an opinion to Him. I entrust the camping spot hunt to Him and try to look and agree in a serene way whatever the 3 of them decide. It works well for me and God has found us safe and pleasant spots.

We leave the highway and drive along a 2 track forest road until we leave the track for bundu bashing to exactly the right spot! We are surrounded by tree covered mountains and a strange silence rests in the valley. Sammie is first to explore and he enjoys criss-crossing his new territory marking it thoroughly!

The new “kitchen arrangement” works much better and we eat tuna salad with Andrej’s ‘broykie’ (bread in Afrikaans)  as the cold climbs down from the snow-covered rocks to join us around a minute fire as we did not want to draw too much attention to us being there. We had another disagreement with the cold and end up in our tent 8pm – another long, strange, sinisterly silent night. The silence broken every now and then by Andrej’s hacking cough. Andrej started to cough and we have no idea what causes it, because he does not feel sick, nor runs a fever.

The name of our campsite usually evolves from what we experienced and ‘Eerie Silence' is how we will remember it.

On our way to Ephesus we passed close by Bergama which was the ancient Greek city Pergamon - Pergamum. We made an imprompto decision to visit the Acropolis.  Perched on a hill 5 km outside Bergama towers the dramatic ruins of the Acropolis built in honor of the Greek rulers Trajan and Hadrian and the Greek god Zeus. Pergamon also  had an open-air amphitheatre and a famous library which housed more than 200 ooo volumes.
The well preserved ruins exuded ancient history. A 10,000 seat amphitheater reached down to touch the earth 75-100 meters below from where we stood. Hugo, Andrej and Sammie energetically bounced down the 100+ steps to the ‘stage’ of the theatre for further exploration. Hugo was intoxicated by the ancient voices of the ages who invited him to join them for an open air performance. He gallantly accepted and ageless acoustics carried his acapella opera aria to us and a thrilled fast-growing German tour group audience. He received a standing ovation. Sammie was pulled onto the stage for the encore and became a dying Juliet in the arms of a distraught Romeo…The tragedy’s dramatic climax changed to a twisted comedy when Juliet managed to escape Romeo’s arms and nippily darted off the stage!

 Thank you Hugo and Sammie for an outstanding performance!   

 We  found a camping spot at Pamacuk, a small village on the Aegian sea where we enjoyed the fresh ocean breeze and warmer weather.  

Friday: We have no rhythm yet - it's like having new shoes, or new teeth...it pinches and irritates, but it is not necessarily bad ... We learn from every experience: this last night was decidedly the coldest yet! What did we learn? It is not pleasant, nor fun, nor anything to camp CAMP when it is below zero. I look with new eyes at Mount Everest conquerors...why on earth would you want to expose yourself to that?  I think we handled it well under the 'circumcoldces'.We We find a very empty, but official camp site where we pitched camp a 100m from the ocean.