Turkiye 2

The Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34 : 18

The Side Nymphaeum, a fountain built into the city walls of Side, had to have water supplied to it. The river Manavgat supplied this after travelling over aqueducts, which can still be seen more clearly now after the awful fires of 2021.

This area was thickly forested with pines, but now it is brown and dry , a sadness felt by the local people. Listen to our guide telling us how helicopters from Britain came to help put out the enormous flames. We are travelling through a village at this point.

Soon, we are out in a nude landscape. Here, the bees used to hum in the fresh pine filled air. It was cooler than by the coast and seasons came and went with green the main colour.

We are soon in the ancient city of Seleukia (Lyrbe). We see the ruins of a marketplace containing a row of two- and three storey building facades, a gate, a Mausoleum, a Roman bath, a necropolis, several temples, and churches.

Once back in the bus, we see a dam and head to the Green Canyon where the fire has painfully taken the mature trees. While on a boat, we clearly see bare banks. A tragedy.

This area is still producing many crops among them sesame and peanuts. It was interesting to hear our guide say that old women work very hard in the fields, particularly with the sesame crop. It was standing in hand-made stacks drying in the heat. Once the fruit is dry, it begins to open, and the seeds then have to be shaken out. She then went on to say these skills were not being passed on as young women didn’t want to do this sort of work

Before returning to our pick-up point we were able to see Manavgat waterfalls.

A few thoughts:

Every accident is a notice that something is wrong with man, methods, or material. Investigate then act.

Unknown

It is so hard to learn to put sadness in perspective. So hard to understand that it is a feeling that comes in degrees, it can be a candle burning gently and harmlessly in your home, or it can be a full – fledged forest fire that destroys almost everything and is controlled by almost nothing. It can also be so much in between .

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967-2020 Elizabeth was an American writer journalist and lawyer known for the confessional memoir Prozac Nation, which she published at the age of 27. If you Google her name, you can watch a person introduce her and then hear Elizabeth. She sadly died of breast cancer.

Thank you for reading this post the second from time spent in Turkiye.

Sandy 🙂