Saturday 3rd May 2008.
I woke up excited because we were going on a trip today, finally I was going to get to see some of the country. Russ was irritated with me because he was already pushed to have enough time to get some breakfast before we had to get the coach. I told him to take first shower and go I’d meet him either in the dining room or on the coach.
I couldn’t decide what to wear. I didn’t want to dress in jeans because they might be very uncomfortable but I’d felt very self conscious in Belek when I wore summer clothes. In the end I chose an ankle length Indian cotton hippie skirt, my bikini just in case we had sunbathing opportunities and a loose shirt. I packed plenty of sun cream and my book which I was now well into and enjoying very much.
I met Russ in the dining room. I didn’t want anything to eat, my thoughts were already churning as I wondered if any of our fellow trippers were likely to be travel sick. Russ was chomping his way through an enormous breakfast. He likes his food and the man should be the size of a house by now, but because life is eternally unfair, he isn’t. He asked that as I wasn’t eating could I pack up a picnic for the trip. A full lunch was provided inclusive of the price at a restaurant mid afternoon but Russ would have wasted away before then. I made some sandwiches and took some nibbles and fruit. I took two bottles of water and four small bottles of fruit juice. It felt like stealing but a waiter who had seen what I was doing despite me trying to be discrete came over with a plastic box. “No, Madam, tissue paper it stick to sammige, not nice for pack lunch. Here please, put in box.”
Russ went right to the back of the bus working on the assumption that if it wasn’t very full we might have the entire back seat to ourselves. I eyed the front of his shorts and with my scrutiny what he had in mind was clear to see.
Our guide for the day was a man called Eren, who was lovely. He had real passion for the history of his country and was great to listen to. Everybody agreed that he was very good but because he went into such elaborate detail a lot of people did lose interest and became bored quickly.
We drove for about an hour and a half to our first stop. The roads took us through endless citrus groves and right along the base of part of the beautiful misty Taurus mountain range. It’s those mountains that give the Antalya area its wonderful humid weather. Because the mountains irrigate the land and create great atmospheric pressure the intense heat can still get through but it is not too dry or suffocating. Eren explained that in their region of Turkey they get over three hundred and twenty days of sunshine and heat a year.
He told us that their biggest export is tomatoes, but they are currently looking to buy in the machinery needed to build a ketchup factory because they export their tomatoes to England, we pulp them into ketchup and then sell them their own tomatoes back on a four hundred percent mark up.
Another interesting tale is the story of the erect-a-set houses. Everywhere you go in Turkey you can see what look like completely abandoned shells of semi-built houses. Eren asked us why we thought they were like that. It looked to me as though there had been a housing boom, that businessmen had begun construction and before even half completing the arse had fallen out of the market leaving them without funds to finish their projects.
The true reason is far more interesting. In Turkey, family is responsible for looking after family, there is no welfare state and family members with work are expected to provide for any kin who has no means of supporting themselves. A mark of real Wealth is if you can build a home for your children to marry into. Most people can’t.
The people with middle bracket wealth will lay claim to a piece of what’s called ‘free land’ which is why these houses suddenly pop up in the middle of nowhere. They do this on the birth of their first child. When the child goes to school the parents should have saved enough money to lay the foundations of a house. For graduation they build the ground floor. When the son gets engaged, the family is expected to build the first floor and on marriage the second. The parent’s obligation is fulfilled at this point and the children are expected to have saved enough of their own money to put on the roof. It’s all very symbolic and an odd way to build a house, personally I prefer our six weeks beginning to end building sites but each to their own. That’s why there are half built houses all over Turkey.
We were very hot and glad to be getting off the coach when we arrived at the ancient city of Perga. Our first glimpse of anything worth seeing was at the hill rise assent to the city. Traders who had not been prominent enough to gain access within the city walls but were still high enough up the social scale to have means had built arched caves into the hillside these were open fronted and they would lay their goods out on tressels outside the cave. The merchant sat inside the cave which was kept cool with the rock from the hills and in the evening he used his arches as a lock up in exactly the same way that Grant and Phil Mitchell do in Eastenders fifteen hundred years later.
The city was founded by Pollonious the Greek in the fifth century BC. The city underwent many battles for control and was led my many people and cultures. It passed between the Greeks and Romans for many centuries until the Phonetians invaded. They were great traders and did much to make Perga a top trading capital.
The city was restored after being destroyed by the Greeks in the fifth century AD. The Hedonists took over next and the city was considered a great feather in the Hedonists cap because the disciple St. Paul had lived there in the times of the prophet, Jesus Christ. The Hedonists held control until the eleventh century AD when the Romans once again invaded and took ownership of the City.
The Romans rebuilt the city but were cheeky and stole extra ground. They extended the city walls quarter of a mile square. They built their own new city gates, but out of respect for the Hedonists and Turks they left the original walls standing as a mark of respect for what had been. The original city gates were incorporated in a vast courtyard and became a seat of learning for the professors and book men of the city. For many ages Perga had been a Christian settlement and Muslims only took over Perga in very recent times.
I was fascinated. All the artefacts of the city had been taken to museums and only the ruins remained. Perja was a very rich City when the Romans inhabited and they proclaimed this by giving the ‘new’ gates five arches rather than just three. They built in artificial waterways to bring goods inland and Perja thrived. Some of the city has been restored to give an idea of how it looked in its glory. Marble pillars have been renovated and lead poured inside them to make them stand using only the original method of construction. Eren showed us the bath houses, including the vomintarium, as you can imagine that left a lasting impression on me. The fat Romans were all bulimic. They would sit in the bath house eating all day long. A man’s greatness was measured only by the size of his gut. Only great men could afford to eat well and while they ate the peasants in the streets starved. The men would literally gorge on food in the intense heat. A channel for them to vomit into ran along one wall of the room. They would eat, vomit and have room to eat again.
We saw the sports arena where children were inspired from a very young age to train as gladiators. Niches were set into the wall of the pool room where statues of their greatest heroes would be laid to inspire them.
We’d been standing for nearly two hours listening to Eren talk. I found it fascinating though a lot of people seemed to have glazed over. They were making noises about lunch and drinks. When would we have some free time? I felt sorry for the only child in the group, she was about six and very bored. She had been so good and was only now beginning to whine and most of the adults weren’t far behind her.
I was interested in learning every detail that I could though. I figured that I was only ever going to be here once. Yes it was hot and a bit uncomfortable but I was getting a great tan and a cheap history lesson all at the same time. It was interesting to have the way things were done explained. I was hanging on his every word ... and then in three seconds flat he lost me.
We’d come from the closely built areas of the city into the market place. There was a large arena and ancient rocks had been left in the overgrown grasslands. I’d turned my head to the left and there sitting on the tallest rock was the most beautiful black headed agama that I’d ever seen. His markings were astounding. He was a big lad at a foot long snout to vent, his skin was shiny black with brilliant red and yellow flashing. He was sitting proud on the very tallest of the rocks telling the world that he was the king. As my eyes scanned for movement, sure enough I saw three females, half his size and beige in appearance. They were scurrying on the lower levels of the rock, none brave enough to encroach the Kings space. When he turned his eyes on them, they’d bob and display and show their wares by turning tail and lifting their back end for him to see. He’d scurry down towards them and chase them around a bit but it was the wrong time of day for mating.
I was in Lizard heaven and this fabulous old city that I’d been walking the bustling streets of in my imagination seconds earlier was now just a pile of old rocks that lizards lived in. As I watched a young male came in with the balls to invade. Just as the Romans had marched on this very piece of land many times so this little guy thought he was big enough to take on the King. He puffed himself up and ran two thirds of the way up the rock. He was only half grown, no more than a last year’s young with the first bit of vim in his testes. He still had most of his juvenile marking and this bravado was more play than a serious fight for dominance. He stood his ground for a second head bobbing and waving his legs like mad. The King ran to meet him also bobbing his magnificent head. His dewlap was down in aggressive posture and the little lad took one look at him bearing down on top of him and legged it.
All this had happened less than ten feet away from me. I wanted to see how close I could get to them and primed the camera. The agama let me get right up to the rock and actually put my hand on it. The females all ran and hit in crevices before I got close, but the King stood and watched me. He displayed at me a couple of times just to show me how truly magnificent he was and to strike fear into me. I displayed back at him. He was used to humans. They were big stupid creatures who might even try to catch him sometimes but he was too fast for them. I made no attempt to reach for him though he was within touching distance. We stood looking at each other for at least three or four minutes. I was talking to him and he was listening. I wanted to see how long he’d stand before taking fright and moving off, but I was the one to break down first. I’d lost all interest in the history of the place and was only interested in the wildlife now but I was being called on to move to the next point of interest.
Before we left Perja we were given forty minutes free time to look around on our own. I didn’t need telling twice, I knew just where to look. In a wall crevice I found a four lined skink. I gently put my finger into the hole and felt something wiggling underneath my fingertip. Suddenly the little three inch long skink ran out of the hole and over my hand before escaping into one of his other entrances. I poked around in several holes in the hope of finding snakes, but didn’t see a single one. I saw a basilisk basking on a wall. I’m not sure what sub species of bassy it was but it was very pretty. And I saw several little garden and sand lizards. None were as lovely as the big agama but I’d had a fantastic day.
“I’d bet you’d like to take that lizard home, wouldn’t you?” said Russ.
“No, this guy wouldn’t last five minutes in captivity and if he didn’t starve himself to death physically then it would be even worse for him because his spirit would be dead inside him. He needs to be here in this beautiful place.” The thought of having that gorgeous specimen locked up in one of my vivs at home literally brought tears to my eyes and made me glad that my animals with the exception of Asante the bosc monitor who came to England as an egg are all captive bred and know nothing else but their life on laminate flooring.
Along the old shopping street traders were selling cheap jewellery from wicker baskets. I haggled with a few but didn’t get the price I wanted. The necklaces that I wanted to buy were just a single, hole bored stone pendant on a thong. I was only willing to pay the equivalent of one English pound each. I finally got twelve necklaces for twelve quid, which I was happy with.
I bought us freshly squeezed orange juice from a stall by the bus. I got conned by the old euro/lira thing again. The Turks get a higher exchange rate on the Euro and prefer to deal in it. You have to be very clear which currency you are dealing in before you make your purchase. Once you have struck a deal they consider that to be binding. One euro is twice as much as one lira.
A sign outside the stall advertised orange juice for one and an in-defined squiggle. I ordered two and was told “four lira, madam,” I pointed out that the sign said only one lira each. “No madam, one euro, each, no lira.” It must have taken them ages to make that squiggle so indistinct.
