Hey everyone, it's me again, (Shane). Linda has been very busy with work and studying so she asked that I bring you the news of our latest excursion into Turkey. Before I get to that I want to bring you up to speed on our home and all of our personal belongings. This may take a few minutes so I hope you will bare with me. Are you ready? Here it goes.
We still don't have them! (Pause for dramatic effect) In all seriousness though, the house really is starting to take shape. As our last blog said, we just bought two really nice hand-made carpets. They are absolutely beautiful and we love them. On Tuesday we had wall to wall carpeting put in. It's not what one would traditionally think of though. It's more along the lines of the outdoor carpeting that is often used on porches or in garages but it is a major upgrade over the cold hard tile floors that we had, and the color goes great with the paint Linda picked. Plus it's cheap. Yay for cheap!!
And now back to our regularly scheduled programing.
This past Monday Linda and I had the pleasure of traveling to Tarsus. This is the birthplace of the Apostle Paul. (You know, the guy who wrote the majority of the New Testament.) The first picture you see above is believed to be the very well that Paul used as he grew up some 2,000 years ago. It is about 90 feet deep and is still fully functional. One of the men working there sent the bucket down and brought up a gallon or so of very cold and refreshing water. It is believed by many that the water is blessed and therefore holds some form of healing power in it. I'm not so sure about all that, but I rinsed my hands with it and splashed a little on my face just in case. I'm not gettin' any younger you know. It was truly humbling to be in such a place.
Of course Paul's teachings don't exactly line up with the Koran, but never-the-less, the Turks acknowledge his significance in history and have done a great job of preserving the well. Just a few feet away is the site of his home. It is completely covered by a glass roof to protect it from the elements. After that we went to a place called heaven and hell.
Traveling west from Tarsus about an hour is a small town called Kizkalesi. There are two natural caves, or more accurately described, "holes" in the ground. The first is Heaven and with just over 450 steps from top to bottom, it is quite large. About half way down is a 5th century Byzantine chapel that, as you can see from the photo, was very pretty. It was a great experience to walk down into the cave. After you pass the stone church the temperature dropped to the point of almost being cold. It was very refreshing but also very short lived. We had over 300 grueling steps to get back out and the temperature seemed to rise a degree with every one of them. After that we went to hell. As we were walking the 200 yard distance, the base chaplain called out to me. "Hey Shane!" "What?" "Go to hell!!!" It was a funny exchange that got a laugh from everyone.
Hell is literally a huge hole in the ground. It's about 30 yards across and over 200 yards deep, and the sides are straight down. Legend has it that Zeus imprisoned the 100-headed monster Typhon in it after he defeated it in battle. I looked for like 20 minutes and didn't see as much as a single bird flying in there, let alone a 100-headed monster, but whatever, it was cool.
We then went back into Kizkalesi where there is a large castle right on the coast. It was built during the 13th century and was really neat to walk around and explore. We found several small staircases that lead to the upper part of the walls and different rooms. There is also a castle out in the water. That is the other picture above. Linda took the photo through a hole in the side of the first castle. It's a few hundred yards off the coastline and at one time was connected by a dam. The dam was destroyed long ago by the waves, but the castle remains. We will be going back to take a boat out and explore it very soon.
There were other stops along the way including a beautiful waterfall and some ruins of an ancient holy city. It was a great day with my beautiful wife and some good friends. Linda and I look forward to more excursions into the Turkish countryside and returning home to share the memories with all of you via our blog.
I hope you enjoyed this edition of "Keeping up with the Joneses". Join us next time for an update on our household goods and more fun adventures with Shane and Linda.
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