A trip to the capital for a visa

Erin on the citadel walls, overlooking Ankara.
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We finally caught our overnight train to Ankara, and were quite happy to find such nice accommodations. Our conductor took good care of us, after first quizzing us on which US presidents we liked. He explained in broken English: "America good with me, but not so good with other Turkish in this car. On this train you are Canadian." That was fine with us, we had learned on the rigs that you don't enter into talks on politics and religion with strangers when you are trapped with the them for long periods of time.

Salt lake on the way to Cappadocia
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Ankara is not such a hot tourist destination, but we had business we had to attend to: obtaining an Indian visa. We were hit with the bureaucracy quickly. Although the hours for applying for visas at the embassy are from 9 to noon, the official did not arrive til 11. We had to pay US $75 each and print a copy of our bank statements. They would not accept Turkish Lira, Indian Rupees, Euros, or even Pounds because those currencies are not stable enough (little did they know what the dollar was worth). We ran up the hill to a money changer and made it back in time to get the bare essentials submitted. The process would take at least 4 business days, so we decided to make a short trip to Cappadocia during that time.

Michael gets into his book on the train to Ankara
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The rest of the day was spent reaffirming that Turkey has ancient and exciting culture waiting at every turn. We visited the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations which had neato finds staring from before 8000 BC and descriptive captions, including one of a clay figure of the Mother Goddess from before 5500 BC. The building that acted as the museum was a 15th century market vault and has great architectural characteristics itself. It was hard to leave it and all the interesting pieces inside.

Clay sculpture of the mother Goddess, giving birth while astride 2 leopards, in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.
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We moved further up the hill, to the citadel and were very pleased to be confronted by the high walls. At some time, it was decided that the walls were not high enough, and so they were heightened a few times using what ever material was available. There were reclaimed pillars laying on their sides, pillar capitals, decorative marble slabs, flat clay bricks, blocks, marble blocks... bits and pieces and sometimes even 5 foot layers of certain types of materials. An archway showed the true inventiveness of the builders and somehow has managed to survive many earthquakes, although we did not feel confident tempting fate by lingering too long underneath it.

Details of the building materials in the citadel walls. Use whatever is handy!
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We scaled the top of the walls and were rewarded with a good view of the city including the massive Ataturk mausoleum. Back at our hotel we found ourselves beside a Roman theater from 200 BC. It was partially recovered by archaeologists before they must have given up saying, "Just some more Roman architecture, lets dig elsewhere for really ancient stuff." The steps and stage were partially uncovered but overgrown with trees and grass and fenced off. Great pieces of history are everywhere in Turkey!

Ceiling detail from the snazzy museum.
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While dining across the street that night we watched the cook from the restaurant dump some waste from the kitchen through the chain link fence onto the steps of the Roman theater. We told ourselves she was feeding the cats, not just being lazy.

The next morning we went to Ankara's massive bus station with over 80 different counters and booked passage for that day to wondrous Cappadocia. It was a pretty impressive site to see about 20 buses all scheduled to depart at the same time, make it out of the bus terminal in about 5 minutes.  That's coordination!