Back in Asia

 

On Saturday I flew to Trabzon on the Black Sea. There is a monastery there that was built right into the side of a mountain. Here is a clip of the monastery. It’s situated in the middle of a beautiful forest with streams and waterfalls below. Here’s a quick clip. Notice how high this mountain is!

 


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Yesterday I flew from Istanbul to here, Cappadocia, which is in central Turkey. I had arrived here expecting rather cold weather but in the middle of the day it has been perfect! Just jeans and a long sleeve shirt has been enough. Although once the sun goes away it IS rather cold. So I was glad to be wearing my flannel lined jeans this morning when I got out there at 5 a.m. catch the sunrise! The landscape here in Cappadocia is amazing. In some places it feels almost like a moonscape or even alien! It will be a 5:30 a.m. call tomorrow for another sunrise shoot that I hope to do a little bit of extended hiking into the various canyons. Mike shot this clip this morning; notice the whooa momment at the end when he almost falls over trying to get the 360!

 


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The image below are of two soldiers I met at a tourist site who were assigned to oversee an area called Uchisar. I had gotten off the main path and gone hiking down into a canyon to get some pictures. As I ascended back out I noticed these two guys watching me from above. There were a couple of other tourists who had decended as well but not nearly as far as I had; so I was feeling a little bit uneasy. So when I reached the top and they had not said anything to me I figured all was okie dokie so I asked if they would stand for a picture and of course they were more than happy to! As a matter of fact they were so happy with my picture taking they kept on asking if there was anything they could do for me! They even offered to allow me to climb up their 4 story guard house to get a better picture of the landscape! Like I said in an earlier post, the people here really are very friendly. And overall the number of people harassing us to buy things like postcards and trinkets have been all but non-exsistent.