More walking

It will probably take as long to describe today’s walk as it did to walk it.
Instead of going up the hill and directly to the village, today I decided to walk around the other side, to the left of 1001 Nights hotel and following the shepherd’s route. The shepherd’s route is obvious. You just follow the tracks and sheep manure in the snow. I learned today that you also pass the shepherd’s house not far from the hotel. Today, four of his five children were playing on the roof or in the snow. Their faces were smeared with dirt. I wanted to throw them all in a full bathtub with a bar of soap. I also learned today that this shepherd is not a nice man. (I had my suspicions last year). If I understood correctly, the hotel owner gave all the children books, pens, notebooks and clothes for school, but the parents don’t make the kids go. Neither are they responsible for their children’s hygiene or manners.

As I made my way over the sheep’s path, I noticed patches of bloody snow. I assumed that one of the semi-feral dogs was injured in a fight. Sometimes the paths are treacherous, and I carefully picked my way over the icy patches, determined not to land on my backside.

I clambered up the hill to revisit the church and look at the huge oven below. Because there were no dogs in front of the sheep cave, I assumed it was empty. To my surprise, there were roughly 40 lambs, some of them little little, busily eating straw, some inside and on top of the wooden manger or out of the those carved in the cave walls. Who knows how long this cave has been used in the same way, centuries maybe? For some reason, I found the farmy smell of hay, animals and manure, and the sound of lambs determinedly crunching straw very comforting and homey. I also realized that maybe it wasn’t an injured dog that colored the snow, but a sheep giving birth. At least, that’s what I’m going to believe.

Up above the cave, I followed narrow streets between empty, ruined houses. Of course, I entered. One of the caves actually had a tandir with a stone lid balanced to one side. The tandir of course was full of glass bottles.

A little girl in a bright pink coat was building a snowman with her mother. She stared and stared at me. Three women came down the street, all with hands nearly blackened from henna. We compared our different shades.

From there, I took the indirect way to castle, stopping to say hello to Hasan who offered me a glass of tea. Then off to say hello to Taner who was on the roof of the building he’s repairing to extend his carpet, jewellery and antique shop. I climbed the rubble filled stairs to look at his progress, walked over planks set up for wheelbarrows and refused to attempt the unstable looking ladder to reach the higher roof for a view of Avanos. A nice view, I’m sure, but my arthritic knees don’t like ladders. Nevzat was there, smashing unwanted ledges and shovelling the remains with the energy of a goat.

Just below Taner’s store is a tiny little shop in which a man carves little statues of Cappadocian fairy chimneys from the local pumice. Since I had already tried my hand, however briefly, at carving the stone, I have wanted to make something with it. What, I’m not sure. The man who runs this shop is white haired, but looks younger than Nevzat’s 55. I find it difficult to understand him, not because of the language difference, but because he must have had some kind of medical problem that took his voice. In my Tarzan Turkish, I asked if I could buy a piece of pumice to carve. He looked at me oddly, then controlled his curiosity. After I chose one from a large pile, I asked the price and he said 3. I assumed he meant 3 YTL, but by 3, many people mean 300 old lire or 30 kurush. I gave him 3YTL. Maybe he was feeling generous, maybe he thought I was nuts, or maybe he thought the price was a bit excessive for a piece of rock, I don’t know. He spontaneously gave me a small statue, maybe 2 ½” tall and wrapped it in newspaper for safe keeping. I gave him a kiss on both cheeks as is customary when receiving gifts. Then, he demonstrated how to use a pumice stone on his foot, and put that in the bag as well, maybe because he appreciated a kiss on the cheek from a younger, foreign woman. Yes, I’m bringing back rocks to Istanbul.

Feeling adventurous, I took another of the narrow roads in between the houses. These aren’t paved roads, just the narrow spaces in between rows of houses. I finally saw one of my snowball fighting friends from last year, a little boy with an impish grin. I like to think he recognized me even before I told him that I had seen him last year. Of course we threw snowballs at each other and grinned impishly.

Despite the fact that I ran into more ice than anticipated, took little detours to avoid it, and stopped to pet the Kangal, a huge breed of dog indigenous to Turkey, in front of a nearby hotel, I was only 3 minutes late for my lesson with the restaurant staff.