We are still alive, we just haven’t had consistent access to wifi. Istanbul was fantastic, so much history and architecture, and ferry boats and funiculars which are all good in my books. We’ve moved on to Goreme and Cappadocia which is a fantastic change in climate from Istanbul–no humidity yay! Stay tuned folks…
We’re going to Turkey in just over a week! I promise to put the finishing touches on the Spain entries and get those finished up before we head out, but for now, take a peek at some of the sites we’ll see. (Thanks to Leonardo Dalessandri for the video!)
In prep I’ve done over 800 Turkish lessons and have discovered that I’m much better at reading and writing Turkish than I am speaking or hearing. So, basically if someone writes me a sentence I’ll be golden, but if they talk to me, not so much. Ha! At least a legitimate language attempt has been made not to be an ignorant tourist.
I’ve also been reading. Some good, some not so good. The good–the cats of Istanbul. The Hagia Sofia Cat is going to be my buddy. And, this one Why Istanbul Should be Called Catstantinople.
And this article about Gaziantep, a city close to the Syrian border…not so good. Or this happening at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul last week. Also not so good.
Judging by mainstream news, the security situation isn’t the best. Travel advisories have affected where we were planning to travel.
Just over a month ago, a tour that we had planned to take through Gaziantep and Sanliurfa was cancelled, so we had to quickly rework 5 days of the trip. Everything worked out though, and the trip will be amazing.
My worry is that my heart will break from the Syrian refugee crisis. There is no logical reason for children and families who have lived normal lives to be displaced by acts of war. Imagine living, just as you do now, and suddenly being completely uprooted from your home with no security or safety guaranteed–not to mention food, shelter, or basic sanitation supplies.
So, my search for charitable opportunities in Istanbul and other parts of Turkey we’ll be visiting continues. Any small thing that can brighten someone’s day is worthwhile.
“Just because it isn’t happening here doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”
~j
Tomorrow morning we’re off to Spain for two-weeks. We’re Starting in Barcelona, and heading through Granada, Ronda, Gibraltar, Seville, and ending up in Madrid. There are a few other cities along the way that should make for a fantastic trip.
For now, here’s a little video preview of some of what we’ll see…thanks and credit to Rob Whitworth again for the video!
Jerusalem is Israel’s largest city by surface, but has less population than Tel Aviv. Overstating the historical significance of Jerusalem would be difficult. The Old City of Jerusalem is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and home to the cornerstones of three faiths, Judaism, Islam and Christianity with approximately 460,000 Jews, 225,000 Muslims, and 15,000 Christians.
Religion has the power to unite people with set rules, beliefs and traditions. A Christian, Muslim or Jew in the USA, Asia or Africa will all have relatively the same teachings based on their specific faiths. This creates a beautiful sense of community.
On the other hand, Religion has as much, if not more, power to divide. There is discord both amongst, as well as within each of the three faiths and their sects. Catholics and Protestants, Shia and Sunni, Orthodox or Conservative etc. Consequently, there has been much violence amongst and within the three for as long as they’ve been practiced.
The Western Wall, The Dome of the Rock and The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, along with numerous synagogues, mosques, churches, their associated traditions and teachings have anchored these faiths to the city for millennia.
We’ve traveled the world in a secular way to some of the most holy places for many faiths. I’ve done my best to research, and experience aspects of these religions, and don’t intend offence to anyone reading. I’ll simply tell you what we saw in the Old City of Jerusalem.
The Western Wall – The Kotel
If you’ve ever seen a travel show about Jerusalem, you’ve seen the Western Wall with the extraordinarily devout Jewish people rocking back and forth whilst praying or reciting the book of psalms. (Some visit the site daily to recite the entire book.) The Prayer Plaza is a site of pilgrimage for Jews and non-Jews world-wide.
Visitors tuck slips of paper with prayers and requests into the wall in hopes that they’ll be answered. Tradition says a person who goes to the Western Wall, and prays for 1 request for 40 consecutive days will have that request granted. FYI: You can even sign up on-line to have someone make the 40 days of prayer for you by proxy, for a fee of course!
But, why is it more effective to pray at the Western Wall than anywhere else?!? What’s wrong with praying at a neighbourhood synagogue, home, etc.? Couldn’t the person just make the request from Albuquerque if needed? The answer can be sweetly summed up with a quick Google search for some Rabbinical wisdom.
…although G‑d is everywhere, His light shines stronger in some places than in others. He compares this to the human body: You are everywhere in your body, yet you are far more conscious of your mind than of your toes. So too, in the universe that G‑d created, there are places, times and states of being where we are able to be more aware of Him—and it is from those places/times/states that our prayers can fly best.
from: http://www.chabad.org
We arrived in Jerusalem during Jewish holiday of Shavuot, and saw thousands of people making their way to the Wall. The assortment of religious attire is fascinating! Fuzzy fur hats, long woolen coats, knotted strings on shirt corners, tiny boxes tied to the top of the head, the list goes on. Check out the Tefellin, the Tallit, the Shtreimel, and why they are customary to some, but not others.
Jewish women also have specific dress codes with black being the color of choice for most, with very modest hemlines and collars. Most had their hair covered as is mandatory for married Orthodox women. We did not notice any women wearing pants.
The Bar Mitzvah celebrations we saw were super fun, but also upsetting. The area is segregated into men’s and women’s prayer sections, so a mother isn’t able to attend her own son’s Bar Mitzvah celebration, but has to watch from behind a fence. Though tradition, this was kind of unfortunate.
The ancient, 2,000-year-old stones of the Western Wall have witnessed the Jewish people’s birth, exile, and redemption. This is where the Jewish nation’s past mingles with its hopes for the future.
from: http://www.thekotel.org
Outside of Temple Mount, the Western Wall is the most sacred site for the Jewish faith. What we see today is a remnant of the western retaining wall of the Second Temple built by Herod the Great. Although, there is much more of the wall visible beneath the surface which we were able to see.
We did the tour of the Kotel or Western Wall tunnels. If you’re going to Jerusalem, make sure to pre-book a time for this tour as it is well worth the visit. The Western Wall is a captivating and bewildering piece of the religious significance in Jerusalem.
This shining dome pictured above the Western Wall is an iconic symbol of the Old City of Jerusalem. The glittering golden dome was not always golden; it was refinished in the early ’90’s to its current state. The dome is only a small part of the beauty of the building. The Islamic art covering the exterior is phenomenal.
In addition to the Dome of the Rock, The Dome of the Chain and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are atop the site. Muslims believe the “Rock” is the spot that Muhammad visited on his Night Journey, and the al-Aqsa Mosque is the spot from which Muhammad ascended to Heaven with the angel Gabriel to pray with other prophets.
As the third holiest site in Islam, The Dome of the Rock is obviously an important place of worship. Unfortunately, due to conflict, Israeli police restrict the access of Muslim Palestinians to the site. Men from the West Bank must be over 35 in order to apply for a permit to visit the site, and even then they are typically restricted to access on Muslim holidays only.
As non-Muslims, we weren’t permitted to enter either of the mosques, but we were able to tour the exteriors and grounds freely. On our return to Canada, a few people asked why we didn’t just say we were Muslim and go into the mosque. Well…not only would that be dishonest, but also pretty obvious that we’re not Muslim through not knowing mosque customs or behaviour etc enough to pass muster.
The other huge reason is that faking isn’t really an option when officials ask visitors to quote passages of the Qur’an in Arabic at the entrance. I have only mastered a few basic Arabic phrases, and I’m sure basic greetings, “a man and a boat,” or, “a girl and a bicycle,” don’t cut it!
This Dome is also atop the holiest site on earth (The Holy of Holies) for Judaism, which Jewish Law bans Jews from visiting. The Dome covers the Foundation Stone, believed by Jews to be the first part of the earth to come into existence, and the spot where God gathered earth to create Adam. Jews also believe the rock is the foundation for the Ark of the Covenant.
The Dome of the Rock is a flash point for tension. The Friday that we toured the Mount of Olives, there was a scuffle/riot/police situation going on at the Temple Mount.
Recently, I read that the Temple Mount has been temporarily closed to visitors, and that the age minimum of worshippers from the West Bank was raised from 35 to 50 years. Clearly, there is no constancy or certainty of access which really is unfortunate.
The holiest place in Christendom is The Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Christians believe the church is the site of the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
The Holy Sepulchre is nothing fanciful outside. The exterior is blandly nondescript. Oddly enough, the interior an utter hodge podge of decorative styles inside from highly ornate to completely run down and fire damaged.
At the time of the Crusades, there were three primary denominations appointed to care for the church, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Roman Catholic Churches. Since then, there are Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox and Syrian Orthodox churches and shrines within and around the Holy Sepulchre.
A schedule has been made to regulate times and places of worship for each sect. Since 1192, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre were entrusted to a Muslim family, as none of the factions could agree on who should hold the key for fear of limiting the others’ access. A whole other kind of conflict exists at this holy place!
Eleven monks – seven of them Ethiopian, four Egyptian – were hurt in the violence which followed as the rivals hurled stones, iron bars and chairs at each other.
For example, a 2002 scuffle between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church of Egypt that resulted in serious injuries. And this, all because the Ethiopians objected to a Coptic Monk moving his chair a mere 8 inches in an attempt to find shade on a stifling summer day.
It probably doesn’t help that in 1970, the Ethiopians changed the locks on the rooftop chapel while the Coptics were attending midnight prayers, which is why the Coptic Monk was sitting watch/staking claim to the chapel in the first place. The behaviour is mind-boggling!
Clearly, they’re a ridiculously territorial passionate bunch at the Holy Sepulchre, and any violation on boundaries can bring on fisticuffs. I don’t think this video shows the ethic of reciprocity that is supposed to be embodied by the Golden Rule.
Nothing represents the absurdity of the discord quite as well as The Immovable Ladder. This little cedar ladder has been the source of conflict for over a century. Due to Church governance, no cleric of any of the orders may move or rearrange property without the consent of all of the other 5 orders.
No agreement can be made on who has the right to move the ladder. To maintain status quo, no one dares touch it. Yes, folks, that’s a 150-year-old argument about a ladder! (FYI: You can see it under the right window in the photo of the church above)
We didn’t see any of this conflict during our visit to this church. We did wait with hundreds of pilgrims (mostly Russian and Ethiopian) to visit Jesus’ tomb. The group in front of us was chanting and singing while waiting. The zombie drone-like chanting was FREAKY, but the singing was pretty.
The tomb, the actual Holy Sepulchre, is the last stop on the Via Dolorosa, a walk following the 14 Stations of the Cross believed to trace Christ’s footsteps to the crucifixion.
We walked the Via Dolorosa in a round about way while exploring the Souk. Some of the stations were very difficult to find. Scholars doubt the path Jesus took was anywhere near this current path. Through many centuries, they’ve been created, venerated and become fact to the faithful.
We visited stations 10-13 inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but it wasn’t always possible/polite to photograph. For example, there was a line to visit Golgotha. Stopping to photograph and hold up legit pilgrims would have been obnoxious.
The Old City of Jerusalem, and the little we learned about traditions and religious practices was incredibly fascinating, frustrating and a little frightening at the same time. The fervour of worship was unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
Faith, rather than fanaticism, entwined with tolerance would make for a much more peaceful region. Here’s hoping.
~j
Whenever I mentioned this little trip prior to departure, people probably thought I was off my rocker for actually traveling with my 62 year old father. Think about it–you probably can’t imagine spending 2 weeks straight with either of your parents, or purposefully including 16-20hr flights in that time period. Now, imagine traveling with someone who has a very rigid diet and a horrible caffeine addiction. We managed just fine though.
The flight from Vancouver to Auckland went smoothly. Air New Zealand had super friendly flight staff, and the economy seats were actually roomy. I could reach my arm straight out, and wasn’t even flat palmed on the seat back in front of me. Even the safety video was more fun than normal.
We stayed in the central business district, just up from the Britomart transport centre which is the last stop for the Airport Shuttle. We were just up from the ferry terminal, and only short distances from most major sights. So, we were close to everything we wanted to see and were able to travel on foot.
Nothing can prepare someone for Ho Chi Minh City traffic. This video pretty much sums it all up.
Traffic in Frenetic HCMC, Vietnam from Rob Whitworth on Vimeo.
I’m sure the Old Faithful Inn and Visitor Info Centre go through periods of boredom and super busy insanity every 45 to 91 minutes. There was mass exodus once the eruption was over. Obviously, it was worth seeing, but not the most spectacular thing we saw in the park.
There is so much to see in the park that is isn’t funny. At each turn of the roadway there is another rock formation, another geothermal feature or another site to see. From Mammoth Hot Springs through to Madison on the 57km section there was a lot going on.
Sheepeater Cliff is a formation of basalt columns that formed over 500,000 years ago. When the lava cooled it formed the columnar joints. You don’t see rock like this just anywhere. There are also Obsidian Cliffs (that we weren’t able to stop for photos at the time) that has loads of actual black obsidian rock all shiny and glistening in the sun, again formed that way when that lava cooled.
As we continued South, we ended up at Emerald Spring and Steamboat Geyser. Emerald Spring is almost 30ft deep. The green colour is due to the high sulphur content. It smells bad, but is quite pretty. Again, be thankful you can’t smell the photo.
Steamboat Geyser was the first actual geyser we saw in the park. I took a little video that would be much better sans commentary provided by the couple beside me that would not stop talking. The next leg of the trip was from Madison to Old Faithful. Ooooo, be excited for upcoming entries!
On the way home from Peru, we had a 2 day stay in Mexico City. There were a few sites I wanted to see, but for some reason I was a little nervous about being there. The Metropolis that is Mexico is home to over 21 million people. It is the largest city in North America, so you can see why it would be a little intimidating! That said, we managed the metro, and navigating the bus system to everything we wanted to see.
Obviously the city is very old which brings along a lot of interesting, dingy, smelly places. The um, how to explain…aroma? of the City was olfactory assault in its highest art form. On certain streets, just walking around brought on an onslaught of odour. Seriously, I can’t even explain it. Surprisingly, the metro system was actually fairly clean. (At least we didn’t see the same amount of human feces on train cars in Mexico as we did in Paris!) There were sanitation people sweeping platforms and stairways 24/7.
The touts were inescapable, but at least humourous on the metro. People would hop on trying to sell literally everything and anything. We were offered crossword puzzle books, ancient computer repair manuals, rulers, CD’s, and my personal favourite–back scratchers.
The Virgin appeared to Juan Diego again, and told him to pick flowers and gather them in his apron. Though it was winter, the flowers grew at his feet, he gathered them and went to the Bishop. An image of the Virgin Mary was imprinted on the apron. Thus, providing the miracle the Bishop wanted and the rest is history.
Now for science: The cloth has been examined with infrared photography, ultraviolet imaging, and stereo-microscopy. The earliest analysis shows that no under-drawing to rough out the image and no over-varnish on the image. The latter 2 show several layers beneath the current painting with all sorts of different pigments consistent with artist’s materials used in the 1500’s. There are also cracks, flaking of paint and sketch lines that would make it seem that the image was sketched before being painted.
Even with all the scientific analysis to create doubts of the miracle, the tilma still has some pretty impressive attributes. Thanks Wikipedia for the info.
The tilma has maintained its structural integrity over nearly 500 years, while replicas normally last only about 15 years before suffering degradation; it repaired itself with no external help after a 1791 ammonia spill that did considerable damage, and in 1926 an anarchist bomb destroyed the altar, but left the icon unharmed.
In 1929 and 1951 photographers found a figure reflected in the Virgin’s eyes; upon inspection they said that the reflection was tripled in what is called the Purkinje effect, commonly found in human eyes. An ophthalmologist, Dr. Jose Aste Tonsmann, later enlarged an image of the Virgin’s eyes by 2500x and found not only the aforementioned single figure, but images of all the witnesses present when the tilma was first revealed before Zumaragga in 1531, plus a small family group of mother, father, and a group of children, in the center of the Virgin’s eyes, fourteen persons in all.
Numerous Catholic websites repeat an unsourced claim that in 1936 biochemist Richard Kuhn analyzed a sample of the fabric and announced that the pigments used were from no known source, whether animal, mineral or vegetable. Dr. Philip Serna Callahan, who photographed the icon under infrared light, discovered from his photographs that portions of the face, hands, robe, and mantle had been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections and no visible brush strokes.
I have no doubt that there is paint on the image–whether the miraculous image itself has been painted upon over the years, or painted completely is debatable, but you have to admit that the eyeball thing is a little bizarre.
ps: Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patron saint of Mexico. Juan Diego was also made a saint in 2002. He’s the first Mexican to achieve sainthood.
We ended up having a couple more days in Lima then we had originally planned. The airline we were flying with to Trujillo rescheduled the flight times and made it 100% impossible to visit Chan Chan. Boo.
Almost 8 million people live in the capital of Peru. Lima is a typical metropolitan area with lots of great things to see and do, but not where we really want to spend a lot of time.
We stayed near the ocean in Miraflores which is the touristy, newer, upscale, aka “safer” part of Lima. There were several parks and a shopping mall within walking distance from the place we were staying. Larcomar overlooks the Pacific Ocean, and is partially outdoors which would never work in Canada. Being able to watch paragliders from the mall was pretty cool though. We wandered from the mall to El Parque del Amor where the famous sculpture ‘El Beso’ is located. The park was a lot smaller than I expected, and not nearly as interesting.
There was only 1 brief moment where I didn’t feel 100% safe in Lima. We were on a very busy touristy street, and there was a 2 person team trying to pick pocket us or something. One was trying to distract Jon with maps etc on the left, and the other was just way too close for comfort on my right. We quickly shut that situation down. I don’t keep stuff in my pockets anyway, so they wouldn’t have gotten anything but lint. Otherwise, Lima seemed fine. Police were everywhere–police on Segways, police with dogs, and police with full riot gear. That dog’s name is Rocco. True story. He can do loads of tricks. His policeman handler was making him pose for photos. Safety first right?
Everyone we’d talked to about Lima along the trip said we had to visit the water park. Approximately 13 million US was used to renovate the park and create the water fountain circuit. (Which is ridiculous given some of the social situations in the country. I suppose the park is a revenue source?) The park is huge, it has the worlds highest water fountain at 80m. It was beautiful, but not as spectacular as I’d hoped. (Seriously, I was more impressed with the water show at the Bellagio.)
Not to be a total downer about Lima, it was just a complete change of pace from everything we’d been doing in Peru. On a positive note, I did enjoy the architecture. Some of the buildings were gorgeous. (ps: the historic district of Lima is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.) Along with beautiful churches, the Plaza Mayor also has the Presidential Palace (the Peruvian White House if you will.) Every day there is a changing of the guard–complete with marching band. Most of the police force with riot gear was out during the marching ceremony.
We visited several of the cathedrals including the San Francisco Monastery and Catacombs. The catacombs were eerie. Thousands of bones were arranged in mass graves. When someone died, their family was not permitted inside the catacombs; only monks were allowed entry. Eventually, the monastery ran out of space, and instead of being honest, they just kept piling people on top of more and more people. The bones are in a pit several meters deep. Pretty creepy really.
Here are a few photos from the city.
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