Blog 2 - Goreme, Erzican and Dogabayzit

Blog 2 – Goreme, Erzican, Dogabayzit (Turkey)

Now this isn’t bad, first blog took two weeks, second blog took only four or five days to post. I am on a roll. The secret to my success is that I have discovered a way to type on the bus that doesn’t make me want to stop the bus to get sick. If I maneuver myself into a sideways position and drape the legs over the end of my seat and onto the opposite seat, thus blocking the walkway and the route to the toilet for everyone on the bus, I find that I can type for at least a couple of hours until my body circulation stops and I feel myself falling into a coma. Meanwhile, its probably worth noting that the poor eejit who’s sitting opposite me has to pin him / herself to the window, remove all their bits and bobs from the seat and remain in ‘Alcatraz’ until I choose to remove my ten tarsals and metatarsals from their laps. But isn’t it great that I can use bus time productively – and who is to gain? My blog Followers are to gain of course.

We have traveled LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of kilometers since I last updated my blog. Goreme, the city after Istanbul was absolutely amazing. I mentioned it in my weekly radio interview last night with Connemara Community Radio (for those interested, its possible to listen live to the Station by clicking on their website link). That is a plug if ever there was one. But back to Goreme, I have truly never seen a landscape like it before and it was my idea of what landing on the moon might be like. We all slept in a cave for two nights in a place called The Flintstone Cave hotel. But believe me, as caves go, I’d imagine it was a fairly fancy cave. I say that because it had a bar, swimming pool and sun-loungers outside the cave door – that’s fancy in my book. I’m finding it so amazing how the little luxuries like a shelf in the room, or a mirror, or a plug socket or a wifi connection can result in delirious excitement amongst us all. I nearly lost my life when I walked into my cave bedroom with my three other roommates, and I had a bit of a shelf carved into the cave wall directly over my bed. I took out my ipod, phone, lenses case, camera and lip balm and left it up on the shelf. Ten minutes later I took them all down and replaced them with my laptop, worldwide adaptor, mosquito spray and malaria tablets. Half an hour later, they too came down and up went my passport, pajamas, eye mask and ear plugs ….. I just couldn’t decide what important things belonging to me warranted a place on the shelf, not just any old shelf … it was the shelf that I didn’t have to share with anyone else …. it was MY shelf …. Debbie’s very own shelf.

On the first morning in Goreme, we got up at 5.00 a.m. to be taken by bus to the hot air balloon ride office. What an amazing experience i.e. the balloon ride as opposed to the balloon ride office. After climbing into the Mercedes Benz labelled balloon and spending several minutes diligently practicing our emergency landing position (though conscious that it didn’t do Steve Fossett much good), we made our gentle ascent and over the course of 45 minutes, savoured the splendid aerial views of the lunar-like Turkish landscape. Each balloon contained 25 people and with up to 55 hot air balloons in the sky at the same time, I was acutely aware that I was privileged to be where I was and was experiencing something very special. When we descended in the middle of a sparse desert like area, we were greeted by an employee of balloon company who produced a table and linen table cloth, a vase of flowers and she cracked open several bottles of champagne and handed around lots of Turkish cakes. As I stood there with my fifteen or sixteen Oz bus compatriots, the thought went through my head that it was 7.30 a.m. on a Monday morning, it was 23 degrees in morning sunshine, I had a flute of champagne in hand and the rest of the day to lounge by the swimming pool, and wasn’t life very good after all.

However all good things come to an end and in the small hours of the next morning, I was awoken by Becky, one of the girls who I was sharing the room with. She was stricken with stomach pains, was vomiting and had obviously succumbed to some type of virus or food poisoning. I leaped out of bed (in typical ER medic style), donned the equivalent of my stethoscope i.e. my contact lenses, and approached the ailing patient. All that was going through my mind was ‘Thank God its not me’. (that I’d imagine was ‘non-typical’ ER medic style). Being too ill to retrieve her own medical supplies from the base of her rucksack, I eagerly emptied my HUGE and EXTENSIVE first aid kit onto the bed. Thousands of pills of all different colours, shapes and sizes spilled onto the sheets and all of a sudden I realized that my earlier decision to remove the pills from their boxes to minimize packaging wasn’t such a good idea after all. I gazed down at what seemed like thousands of pills (all sans instructions!) and the fleeting thought went through my mind that despite my best intentions in administering the correct medication, working without instructions, I could quite easily kill the patient. Whilst Becky’s imploring eyes were fixed on me, willing me to make her better, (when she wasn’t heaving uncontrollably into a wastepaper bin), I was trying to fight off the visions of being ‘Banged Up Abroad’. I could see myself in a Turkish prison, sharing the 6 x 4 foot cell with twenty seven life-long criminals and poor Mom and Dad saving their old age pensions to make their bi-annual trip to Goreme to come and visit me. I immediately envisaged all in Renvyle wearing their ‘Justice for Debbie’ rosettes and I figured I would be a regular fixture in Father Gerry’s ‘Special Intentions’ section of the prayers every Sunday morning …. every Sunday morning for fourteen years. The headlines in the papers flashed in front of my eyes, ‘Irish girl receives unfair trial …. unjustly represented, tortured into a confession, gross miscarriage of justice’.

Observing my glazed eyes and my ‘rabbit in the headlights’ appearance, and realising that she was going to die alone in the waste paper bin (at least if Dr. Debbie was anything to do with it), Becky plucked up the energy to whisper to Beverley in the next bed and asked if could she borrow her first aid kit. Within seconds, Beverly was up, scrubbed in, had Googled the exact dosage, distributed ‘instant’ melt on your tongue Imodium, advised the patient of the likely side effects, prescribed the follow-up treatment and had her on the road to recovery. Ten minutes later, I found myself still sitting on the bed, surrounded by my useful but useless pills and preparing my ‘Just released from prison speech’. I could visualize myself on an elevated podium before I boarded the plane in Istanbul to return to Irish soil, still proclaiming my innocence and thanking all involved in the ‘Justice for Debbie’ campaign. RTE would have Charlie Bird flown over to interview me as I made my ascent up the steps of the plane (that’s if he didn’t think he’d be too depressed being away from home!) and Miriam O’Callaghan and Ryan Tubridy would be fighting over who’d get the scoop of the first interview with me. By the time all those thoughts had gone through my head, Becky had managed to eat some breakfast and was half way through her lunch and had three excursions planned. I eventually came out of my trance, gathered up all my coloured pills and shamefacedly made my way to the bus. So the only positive outcome of the incident was that I know that my free time in Iran (and there’ll be LOTS of it), has to be spent on the Irish Medicine Board website and researching what pill goes with what ailment.

Speaking of Iran, we cross over into that country tomorrow morning. For many on the bus, it’s the most country that they are looking forward to getting to see. My own biggest concern is not that we’ll be without alcohol for a week, not that internet and phones won’t work, not that we have to keep ourselves covered up …… but rather that the scarf that Mom made me take will stifle people with the smell of mould. It’s purple and black and looks okay, but has been stored in some old suitcase up under the bed for about twenty years. I’ve tried giving it a spray of Sure Deodrant and even give it a daily spray of my good Elizabeth Arden perfume, but …. it still smells of mould. I have visions of me and my scarf entering mosques and clearing them, me and my scarf entering the bazaars and clearing them and me and my scarf entering religious sites and clearing them. I also have a vision of thousands of Mustafas and Mohammads and Hosseins approaching me and saying ‘Please, please please take off ‘that garment’ around your head …. we’ll put up with the sight of your chestnut coloured tresses but we can’t put up with the smell of the scarf!”.

I shouldn’t joke really because I genuinely have one concern which I will now share with you. We all had been instructed to buy a tunic type of thing that covers your chest and shoulders and arms. Myself and the other seventeen women on the bus were frog-marched down to the bizarre in Istanbul to make the purchase. The only instruction was that it had to be a dark colour and couldn’t be tight and show ones curves. No, this garment had to be dark and baggy and shapeless. In truth, it was no different to any other shopping excursion that I’ve ever been on. Anyway, we all made our purchases and left the bazaar with a small brown bag each, the contents of which will prevent us from getting stoned in Iran (and I mean literally). However, I have a concern that I haven’t divulged to anyone and it is this. I think I am an orangutan! Although everyone’s sleeves are down to their wrist, and many to their knuckles, mine only comes half way down between the elbow and the wrist. I have tried to stretch the fabric but its not stretchable and despite my best efforts of drooping my shoulders and walking like something out of Planet of the Apes, the bottom of my arms are still VERY visible to the Iranian males eyes. I never realised that I had such an obvious physical impediment and that my arms were freakishly long – why didn’t ye tell me??? I have decided that I have a few options:-

1) I can paint black shoe polish onto the skin that is on show (this might have the added advantage of the polish masking the smell of the scarf).

2) I can cut up my black t-shirt and sew two arm-shaped pieces of material which I can drag over my bare arms and I could pretend that I’m a recovering burns victim.

3) Throughout my time in Iran, I can wear a helmet to deflect the stones away from my temples.

That last option is simply a risk minimization strategy as it is possible that the stone-throwers may not be blessed with accuracy and may not always aim for the head in any case. I could be a broken woman (literally) by the time I exit Iran and enter India.

So I’ll finish up here – again I apologize for not telling you about the flora and fauna and the rugged landscapes and the picturesque villages and the meandering lakes and hills (do both meander?). It may be after the week in Iran before I get to post the next update as we’re told there may be very little if any means of communication. Therefore, until we talk again, I promise to use the time productively and I’ll try get some tuition classes on ‘details and descriptions proper blogs should contain’. Love to you all. xxx