Kusadasi-Turkey

Kusadasi, Turkey. Walked 7.8 miles. A note about miles walked. I wear a pedometer on my sock, because when it is on my waist it sometimes does not record a step. There is a suspicion that when it is on my sock that it may register twice for some steps, because I often don't believe the number shown. I report it to you, but I am sometimes doubtful about the absolute value. When I walk around the deck, it is accurate, but I don't know how accurate it is when I walk steps or move around a store. The bottom line is that I don't know how to explain such a high number as today's number.

We were in Kusadasi earlier in the cruise. At that time, we took a tour to see Ephesus, which was a fantastic walk though ancient ruins. So today we wanted to walk around the part of town near the port. It ended up being both a "people" day as well as a shopping day. The day started with me walking around the deck numerous times this morning, then we had breakfast. We walked a short distance into Kusadasi, then along the edge of the bay, and out a causeway to an ancient fort on a small island. There is evidence of people living there 5,000 years ago. After walking back to the mainland, we walked up the hill from the bay, along a very narrow, old, side street.

Wow, this is the real Kusadasi. Kind of middle-class neighborhood, with a car mixture that included a BMW and numerous plain cars such as Fiat. There were only multi-story buildings; nice but well-worn. A dog walked with us for a couple of blocks. The cobblestone street was only 1+ cars wide, with no straight or flat sections. It was probably a stone-paved horse trail on the side of a hill. While walking along the street we greeted several people at various points.

A young woman invited us into her small hotel, to see the view of the bay from the other side of the hotel. The hotel, with 20 small rooms, and a nice, but small pool, caters to backpackers. While talking with this woman, with her broken English, we showed her photos of our family and grandchildren, and she showed us a photo of her 15-month old son. After a long, pleasant conversation, with us telling her that we would love to stay at her hotel if we came back to Kusadasi, we continued walking along the street. We finally turned down a side street and went into the downtown area. Again, even these downtown roads are very narrow.

We walked through a bazaar where we eventually arrived at a store where we made a purchase on our prior visit to Kusadasi. On that prior visit, we made a purchase from the owner of the store. I remember that person because of the hard bargaining we did. On this visit to the store, Mary talked with a sales person while I talked with the owner about his ownership of several stores, and how the employees were paid. We eventually bargained hard with him (the reduction in price brought a cute surprised look to the face of the sales woman) and bought several items. While talking with him about how much we like Turkey and its people, I asked him his name. When he asked my name, I told him that "Bob" was my nickname. He smiled and laughed, and told me that was his nickname also. After some more talking, he gave us his business card and a Kusadasi key ring with a $3 Euro price tag. Shopping at his store was a fun, enjoyable, purchase experience.

At every port, as we get ready to leave, there is a list of names read on the speaker, of people that may not be on the ship. When we leave and re-enter the ship, the barcode on our ship ID is read by a scanner. Theoretically the ship's computer knows if we are on or off the ship. Thus, at leaving time, ideally there should be no one off the ship. It may have been possible that a person re-entered the ship with the barcode being inadvertently read twice, thus being shown as being on then off the ship. Usually the list is only a couple of names. Today it was possibly twenty names. The second reading of the list was reduced to only four names, as the other sixteen people must have called the office to say they were on the ship.

All in all an enjoyable day at a nice Turkey port town.

Photo 789 shows part of the town of Kusadasi
Photo 794 is the island with an old fort.