Belly dancing, departure to Iskenderun

We left Nevsehır late Wednesday nıght, after takıng incredıble photos of the sunset over the chimney rock formatıons and spendıng the day visıting an underground city and several cave churches from the early centuries B.C.

Other than the Turkish bath, one of the highlights of our stay in Nevsehir was the Cappadocia Rotary meeting on Tuesday. After the meeting, the stage was moved aside and club president Ercan Turhan invited everyone to participate in belly dancing. Lisa, Bethany and Jan all got their groove on to the Turkish music, and the Cappadocians and I eventually joined in, turning the event into something resembling a conga line.

After boarding the bus from Nevsehir at midnight on Thursday morning, we journeyed eastward to Iskenderun for seven hours, arriving early this morning...about 12 kilometers past our stop. The host families came to pick us up, and brought us back westward a bit to Iskenderun. I will be staying for the next three days at the home of Meryem Ciftci and her husband. Meryem is a former English teacher who now works in her father's coal exportıng company. She had participated ın a GSE trip to Australia in 2003.