Loggerhead Sea Turtle Protection Project in Fethiye

This is something from the last summer, when we went to Fethiye for holiday. Everything was great, but the most interesting part was conservation project that is based there. Its target to protect the hatchlings of loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) from moving in a wrong direction right after hatching. 

The Çalış beach in Fethiye is a nesting spot for these endangered species, but it's also a popular tourist destination with lots of cafes, shops and restaurants right along the seafront, which means lots of light and lots of potential danger for newly hatched turtles. The instinct tell them to move towards the sparkling light of the sea, which worked just fine in those day when the moonlit sea was the brightest thing in the vicinity of nests. 

Unfortunately, with all the lights on the shore, ancient instict doesn't help the hatchlings anymore. They often crawl in the opposite direction from the sea and die without water. 

The Sea Turtle Protection Project focuses on locating the turtle nests and putting protective barrier around them in order to intercept the hatchlings, collect them and put right into the sea. We often saw voluteers going with buckets along the beach late at night and checking the nests to see if there were some newcomers there. Also, there was an information desk with volunteers ready to answer your questions about turtles and the project. As far as I understood, it is tun by the Pamukkale University Sea Turtle Research Centre. Their website has some useful information, and on Dekamer facebook page you can find some old and recent photos. 

And this is our own small hatchling from Fethiye.

Horse Chamfron from Istanbul Military Museum

Well, what can I say? I actually had to google for the name of this thing. I saw it in the Istanbul Military Museum (Askeri Muzesi). It looked a bit out of place among all the swords, pistols, cannons and uniforms, and immediately attracts your attention. It's called chamfron, or faceplate, and cheek pieces, and it's a part of a horse armour used during the Ottoman period.

Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the little explanation plate that was right in front of the exhibit. For some reason I was positive that this was a part of a camel armour, but anatomy didn't seem to match, and all the search results bring only horse armour pictures. So, no, definitely not a camel armour. A quick research showed, though, that camels were actually used in the battlefield. Firstly, it made sense in the places where horses were less common and less accustomed to the evironment, such as deserts. Secondly, the camels' smell is repulsive to the horses, and the mere presence of large number of camels may be enough to confuse the enemy's cavalry. Neat.

The Istanbul Toy Museum and Titanic Teddy Bears

The Istanbul Toy Museum itself is pretty small and devilishly hard to find, but it's definitely worth visiting. If you are ever in Istanbul, make sure to drop by, preferably by taxi, because we spent, like, an hour searching for it. It's in a nice and quiet neighbourhood on the Asian side, and can be easily recognized by the gigantic giraffe right in front of the entrance. Anyway, it's small, but filled with all sorts of toys arranged into collections accoring to the topic or the era or the country they were manufactured in.

For example, antique Turkish puppets Karagöz and Hacivat.

Cowboys and Indians toys from America.

Aviation toys with tiny parachuters here and there.

Aquatic themed toys

     

I especially like the crafty metal whale here swallowing the smaller fish. 

And tons of space toys with a real feel of the era - note the Gagarin Time cover.

By the time you come up the tiny winding stairs to the third floor, you think that you've seen all the toys in the world and will never be interested in them ever again. And that's exactly the place where you find yourself face to face with the Teddy Bear room.

So, alright, teddy bears, most of them not as cuddly as the ones we are used to. That's alright. But then you see these two little numbers: black, wonky and grave.

These are the Titanic Teddy Bears, or the Mourning Teddy Bears, manufactured specifically to commemorate the Titanic disaster and to provide some sort of comfort to the families of those who didn't survive it. The original party consisted of only 600 bears, which I find quite strange compared with the number of mourning families. And, by the way, they are going to recreate them this year.

Turkish pumpkin in a Greek house

It's cold again here in Urgup, so I decided to post some of the summer photos just to remind myself that summer actually happens in this place. It definitely did last year, and it's one of the sunniest proofs that I have. Basically, it's a pumpkin growing on a wall. I didn't know it was possible for a pumpkin to reach such heights, but here it is. Oh, and notice the faint blue paint on the wall. It's there because the house belonged to the wealthy Greeks, who  used to live in Mustafapaşa before the population exchange of 1923. 

I will certainly write more about the population exchange between Turkey and Greece some time later, as it is connected directly to Mustafapaşa, which used to be known by the name of Sinasos and had a largely Greek population. Right now, lots of Greek mansions remind of those times, and  most of them have various elements painted in this exact shade of blue. And one of them has a pumpkin growing on its wall..

Winter Urgup

Some pictures of winter Urgup. It was chilly gloomy day at the end on January, but we just couldn't stay in anymore, and so we took a little walk off the beaten path. And here's what we saw.

The great thing about this town is that is has lots of hidden features. On the outside it's a typical small tourist place full of rocks, family-run hotels and cafes, but if you walk through it in winter months, when it looks cold and deserted, you can find a different sort of attractions there. 

It has a sort of tranquility that seeps through you and makes you slow down, and look around to see stuff.  You'll never get a feeling like this in Istanbul or Ankara, or any of the other cities full of light and noise. It's a feeling that you actually run your life, or more like walk through your life, taking your time to see things around you.

Dragon/Horse Sculture in Mustafapasha

This beautiful remnant rests in the garden which belongs to Cappadocia Vocational College in Mustafapasha village. It seems very symbolic to me, because the name Cappadocia means "the land of beautiful horses", and also because the college provides horse training among other programmes. 

To be honest, the first time I saw it, I thought it was a dragon. The mane looks very much like a ridge going down its neck. There are almost no signs of ears, and the outline of head resembles that of the dragons as portrayed in European tradition. Yep, it still looks like a docile little dragon to me.

Kangal Dogs of Cappadocia

The famous Turkish Sivas Kangal. You wouldn't believe it looking at this little puppy, but it's going to grow into  an 80 kilo monster in a couple of years. They are very common here in Cappadocia. The pure-bred ones and the mongrels alike. Mongrels are simply all over the place, you can see half a dozen of them just walking for half an hour on the street. They tend to stick to butcher's shops, as the butchers throw huge bones to them at the end of every day.
Today we saw one of them being led on a leash by a lad barely able to keep up with the monster! It really was HUGE, with brindled coat and cropped ears. They crop their ears, as the wolves tend to attack this part of them first - it's especially vulnerable for some reason. Unfortunately, there's no picture of that monster, as it really was a brief encounter.

Fun fact: Kangal dogs are six-toed. It is thought that this particular feature allows them to be steadier in a fight.