The old facade of a golden citadel towers over Afyon, a typically Turkish city where carbon-copy apartment buildings vie with older houses and mosques for space on the crowded streets.  Horses carting mattresses wait for their owners near shops selling gold jewelry, while an entire street is full of men sharpening knives and selling cutlery and pots and pans.  Tables on corners are piled high with pomegranates and greenish oranges with leaves still attached.  From everywhere in town you can see a large rock hill poking into the sky, circled by the walls of the old Afyon Kaseli.  Seven hundred steps to climb to the top, to have the opportunity to overlook the city, sitting on the graffiti-marked fortress.  I decided to go for it - up to that point, all I’d done in Afyon was eat Turkish Delight, so some exercise might be good.  For the record, seven hundred is an awful lot of steps.

I counted the steps, pausing after each 100 - then eventually switching to each 50 - while young Turkish schoolboys, still in uniform for their lunch break, scampered past me, then at the top, turned around and passed me again on the way down.  Embarrassing!  On the other hand, I passed some older Turkish men taking their time to soak in all the scenery.  I’d climbed the 504 steps to the Cologne cathedral tower, so I knew I could do 700 - but knowing you can do it doesn’t make it any more fun!  I’d often take advantage of the scenery to get out my camera and take a picture, cleverly also stopping without appearing to be tired.  After a long climb, I did make it to the top and was rewarded by an only slightly hazy view over the identical apartment buildings of Afyon.  The top was crowded, with a large group of young teenagers carving their names into the refurbished golden-yellow rock wall. A couple took pictures and held each other, and an old man looked over the city from his vantage point on a large rock.

Apparently the Afyon Kaseli dates from 1500 BC.  It sits atiny 226m above sea leve (although it feels like much more!) and was ruled by, over time, the Hittites, Hapanuvas, Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, and many others.

Anyway, I’m not really one to sit around thinking, so I set off for the bottom pretty shortly after arriving.  Plus, it was cold up there!  Rushing down the steps, I was nearing the bottom when a young boy dressed neatly in slacks and a sweater yelled out “Hello” at me.  This is pretty common - children off greet Westerners with “Hello!” and “Welcome!”  Anyways, he came over and practiced a bit of English on me: “What is your name?” and “Where are you from?” and then asked me something in Turkish.  Not understanding, I shrugged and he grandly began a monologue of loud, proud Turkish.  Gesturing, rolling all his R’s and changing his speed and pitch as the story went on and became more and more exciting, despite not understanding a word I was just soaking it all in.  His dramatic cadence drew me in.  I gather he said something about the history of the citadel but couldn’t say exactly what.  Of course, after his speech he made the universal gesture for money and said “quarter.”  My first instinct was to pass - after all, I hadn’t really said yes.  So I just shrugged again with an “I don’t understand” and he went back down the hill.

When I travel, I’m really averse to giving children or beggars money.  For one thing, I’m incredibly cheap.  More importantly, supporting children working during the school hours disincentivizes them from actually attending school.  Also, it makes it that much more of a hassle for tourists passing through in the future - dealing with lots of people asking for money can be unpleasant and it’s best not to encourage it. Finally, all I’ve read suggests that a better way to deal with poverty in third-world countries is by donating money to a reputable charity than giving out quarters on the street.  Thus, my kneejerk response to being asked for money is to say no.

Still, I won’t lie, I felt a little guilty.  I had enjoyed the speech.  Continuing my climb down, I passed him again and gave him a quarter and said thanks in Turkish.  Then, I left the citadel to rush back, grab my laundry, and catch the bus to leave that afternoon.  After a few minutes, I heard running footsteps and my name (garbled) from the street behind me.  It was Hussan, bringing me a map I’d left behind at the bottom of the citadel - a map with the name and address of the laundromat all of my clothes were in!  Without that map, I’m not sure that I would have been able to find it - and without giving him money I probably wouldn’t have gotten the map!  I guess paying Hussan paid off in the end.

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It was interesting to visit Turkey again.  Two years ago I made my first trip and hit most of the tourist highlights, including Istanbul, Ephesus, the coast, and Goreme. While my trips were only separated by a few years, things felt very different.  Turkey is moving quite rapidly into the European community, and I was shocked by the much more orderly traffic, the fact that I occasionally saw people actually wearing seatbelts and stopping at red lights, and the way bus drivers weren’t always guaranteed to be smoking a cigarette the entire ride.  Still, in some ways Turkey has become, at the sime time, much less secular.  Before in Istanbul, it was relatively rare to see a woman wearing the scarf.  Today, this is common and there are many women wearing the full black chador that covers the neck and body (in addition to the hair.)  This was a bit of a surprise given the way Istanbul was otherwise modernizing, and these changes seemed to be taking place all over Turkey. It was nice to return!

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As for me, I’m about to leave Syria, a country I just loved visiting.  I firmly recommend it to anything thinking about the Middle East, and found it very safe.   I was able to see a large part of the region, with Palmyra as my favorite stop.  Most of these pictures have been uploaded to flickr.  Lebanon also stole a few of my days!  It’s a fascinating country and quite different (and much more modern) than Syria.   I’m off to Jordan tomorrow, and hope to see Jerusalem, Petra, Wadi Rum and then… the Pyramids!

Also, as a special contest announcement, I think I made it too hard!  I’m extending the deadline by a week and will give points for each correct guess - there’s no need to match up with the number anymore.  Good luck!