Cappadoccia turkey, Konya 10,10-15
		Here in the dead center of Turkey is the land of stone smokestacks, the most muslim city in the country and all around good folk.
		Can you see the folks waving?  We are flying over  in a quarter million dollar hot air balloon and these people will probably have about 1/1000's of that to live on for the next few years.  Makes you think huh?  Beautiful, serene land here.			Here are my new French and Aussie friends taking a break on our hike up from a ruins site just discovered a few months prior.  It was awesome seeing blue mosaic floors, huge baths and to think, only a few other humans have seen the ruins for the last few thousand years.  The local government is trying to get sponsors like Mercedes to chip in money to save the site.  Christophe here and his family have lived in France, China, Abudabi, LA and now Turkey.  There son here translated between French, Turkish and English to help me buy some stuff in town later.
		This is what Colorado or the Southwest US used to look like before we built roads and ski hills.  It's stunning huh, there is great mountain biking, hiking and skiing close by.  Give this place 7 years and it will be on the map.
					Here are my partners in crime in Avanos.  These guys call themselves the Kirkit Mafia and run the rug shops, hotels, travel agency and the like.  Each night we had dinner in their 1000 years old cave on rugs with lots of music and Raki to drink.  If you ever come to Cappadoccia Turkey, stay in Avanos and stay at the Kirkit Pension, they will take care of you, seriously.
		Rick Steves mentioned that we check out the tiny town of Guzelyurt in Cappadoccia but it was a bit small for us.  However, if you don't believe me yet about how nice the people were, check out this story.  We hiked through an  old ravine lined with thousand year old cave dwellings.  At the bottom we here this yell toward us and it turned out that this sweet 10 year old girl wanted us to come and visit us in her cave.  She has ten brothers and sisters, no running water, dirt stone floors and her mother passed away.  Still she offered to show us around and gave us a bunch of grapes.  I mean I can't even get free food at my house.  The people give you a sense of hope here.
					We spent our last morning in Cappadoccia hiking through the 14Km trail through the Ihlara valley.  Beautiful trees, churches built into stone side walls and they even say they filmed a bit of Star Wars here.
		Then we jumped on a bus to make the 4 hour bus ride to Konya, the most Muslim city in Turkey.  I was expecting some serious suppression of anything western but once again I was way wrong. Konya is cosmopolitan, busy and very modern.  Just reminds me to check my assumptions.  On the bus there I met these two cute kids and we shared some names and food.  Akif and Emre (and there mom) were so nice and were having fun taking pictures with my digital camera.
					This is the home of the Whirling Dirvishes the Mevlana museum in Konya, check out the lady praying. Very holy place but some tourists still walk around in shorts and stomp around in their shoes. Aye Carumba.  But this is probably the most peaceful place I went to my whole trip.  They had a piece of the prophet Mohammad's beard here and the rugs, tapestries and  candles were serene.