Beer, Icky, Ooch!

Osman's first job of the day was to find us some mulberries up this tree.  Bless him, nothing was too difficult for him!

This was Osman's first foray into the 1,2,3 turn and flick pose that guarantees fabulous photos.  More practice is required one thinks.

:-)

Today he was taking us on a 5km hike through the Red and Rose Valleys. The valleys are full of these chiseled out pigeon holes.

This is Osman

And tunneled out rocks.  This was somebody's home once upon a time.

beer, icky, Ooch...... now that's a better one!

We can across this lovely couple who were selling dried fruits and seeds in the middle of nowhere.  They were so friendly and they let us taste everything, so we bought a selection of things to keep us going and to keep the "hungry" at bay.

This was a squat toilet next to the middle of nowhere.  A bit of privacy is always appreciated!

There were a few little stopping points on the hike where you could sit and buy water and trinkets.  This man was the manager of one of them.  He was pretty happy with his own work!

Rob is learning to be patient with our photo opportunities!  And even getting in amongst them when he can.  Well done Rob (sorry, Rol!)

I'm not quite sure what was happening here, but we arrived in an old Greek town after our hike and there was this man just standing on the side of the road with a gramophone.  It's not something you see every day - especially in this specific location!

Next stop on the Osman Tour was to the underground city of Kaymakli.  There are apparently 200 underground cities that are all connected over a massive 

The one we went to was spread over a 4 square kms.  It's 6 stories high, although only the middle 4 are open to the public now because of collapses..... they only tell you this once you're down there!

There were really small tubular tunnels that required you to  double over whilst you walked. A little claustrophobic, but made it through.  

Apparently they were first built in the 4th century to protect the early Christians from persecution.  It was totally amazing what the did down there.  There are grape crushing areas that funnel themselves into a wine catching area - so priorities were in check.  They had separate living areas - lounges bigger than the average Australian home today.  They fashioned bathrooms and there were air vents and even round door tunnel blockers so the enemies couldn't get in.  The story goes that they only stayed down there for 6 months max at a time, so I don't know what the enemies did for the other 6 months?

How's Mrs Nomates there on the right?

All in all - a great day!