Mosque fatigue is not a thing.

Turkey has been on my mind forever, and after two weeks roaming around Morocco (and here's the sequel), I knew I wanted to do a similar trek. 

So I flew into Ataturk for five days in Istanbul, rode an overnight bus to spend two days hiking the moonscapes of Cappadocia and to snore in a cave, another overnight bus to splash around the cotton candy castles of Pamukkale, and a final overnighter back to the Asian side of Istanbul. 

A guy talks to me about goat milk ice cream so thick you eat it with fork and knife, causing me to miss my metro stop towards Sultanahmet. It's fun playing the usual game of reading the bus displays in my head since Turkish is pretty blunt in its phonetics, even with those dotless i's and silent time-slowing g's.

As soon as I hop off the bus, I'm on the plaza between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. Crossing that area never got old the entire time, just everyone and me beaming and smiling at those twinned monoliths with their slender minarets. 

I throw down my bag onto the hostel bunk, and I immediately meet a friendly girl named Zora from Slovakia. We head off to have a late dinner, flitting by the tourist traps with nightly dervishes whirling, horns blaring.

We settle on a place that allegedly invented kofte, and I'm already eyeing the giant ramekins of rice pudding.

The next morning starts with a Turkish breakfast of bread, olives, jam, and hardboiled eggs and chatting about archery and corn syrup processing.

The Hagia Sofia is glorious, and in its domed heights, gulls and pigeons stir dust into the light.

Iznik tiles make their first appearance in the Blue Mosque, which has six minarets to rival Mecca. 

Sightseeing is thirsty business, and we zone out on the rooftop of hostel with an Efes pint facing the Aegean sea.

As the day cools, we stroll to the bazaar quarter for a glass of boza, a winter drink from the 4th century made of bulgur, chickpeas, cinnamon, and sugar. Kemal Atatürk's glass from 1937 is shielded here in a glass dome. 

We walk along the Valens Aqueduct that brought water to Istanbul for 1500 years, draining from the dark forests a hundred miles away. Men play backgammon in tea houses, and we're avoiding massive potholes filled with water (snies!). 

The pide from Fatih Karadeniz Pidecisi is hot and fresh, ground beef and roast onions with a perfect steamed egg barely in solid form. A yellow wedge of butter to lube up the crust before it goes down the hatch. 

Even Turkish kitteh is in awe of the Hagia Sophia

Constantine's column is an odd eyesore of banded metal, but entombed in the base are allegedly the axe that Noah used for the Ark, Mary Magdalene's flask of oil to anoint Jesus, and the leftover loaves from his food multiplying miracle. 

If you believe any of those three, I own a flat on the African side of Istanbul that you may be interested in purchasing.

We duck the midday sun and enter the Basilica Cistern with giant carp nibbling away at detritus and ominous signs pointing out the medusa heads around the next bend.

The whole place gives me a Diablo dungeon vibe, and I'm looking around for chests to open. 

Shorts can't get you into the mosque, and every woman is in a baby blue headwrap. 

Topkapi Palace's harem is ridiculous, and it's amazing how at a base level our motivations are still the same. 

Who hasn't thrown gold coins at the new concubines, and had a thousand women from across the far reaches of the Ottoman empire vying for your affection in a tiled fantasy world of your own creation, all guarded by black eunuchs and the scheming queen mother?

The circumcision pavilion is open, but the second biggest collection of East Asian ceramics after China is not.

After the Grand Bazaar and spice market with Zora in the morning, we pop into Şehzade Mosque in time for the midday call to prayer. The mosques are such beautiful places that I'm always in awe and I want to believe in something incredible. 

We head up to the roof again, chatting away the sunset with cups of rakı and just enjoying the Sea of Marmora and the sun. Darren and I walk back to Fatih for another cup of boza, a lamb buried in a fire pit, black turnip juice, lentil soup, and warm bread.

We walk back to the hostel through the deserted grand bazaar and join Benjamin and some other hostel folks for a walk across Galata bridge to a hookah bar in Beyoğlu.

I have a crazy night of dreams where I’ve been put in charge of filling spaceships with refugees, which is a job I will not be applying for because that shit is stressful, even if it’s astronaut-adjacent employment.


Apologies to all twenty of my bunkmates if I did any sleep-yelling. GET ON THE ROCKET, MA'AM!

We cross Galata Bridge again, with just a brief session with a psychic baby rabbit eking out a living telling fortunes. Lunch settles us down as the call to prayer echoes across the  golden horn. Sea bream for three and it's a perfectly fried fresh fish with a delicious face. Mm, digging out the sweet nugget of cheek meat. 

Fisherman are hauling more biomass out of the ocean, and before we spiral up Galata Tower, a Lincolnshire man tells us about voting for the Tories. We go the wrong way at the narrow viewing platform, a German man yells at us like we are children, so this makes us committed to going against the tide like salmon. Take that!

The Bosphorus and the Golden Horn reunite here and all the minarets of the city glow like shadow puppet theater. Istanbul is gorgeous and a woman in a princess gown is getting married down in the street below. 

We let ourselves get swept along with the hip Turks roaming down İstiklâl Caddesi towards Taksim Squre. The local menfolk have impressive beard action, but also ultra dense back hair. 

Apple çay, rice pudding, and a chicken breast dessert (tavuk göğsü) is perfect for refueling after a day of walking in the heat. We try on awful euro trash shirts, learn that ekmek means male and that as usual, clothing for dudes is always on the tippy top floor or the basement. 

The way back is easier, downhill back to Sultanahnmet. We stop by the New Mosque, people praying as we snap some photos. 

A simit pretzel before a quick nap, and then the final cultural night at the Fatih Belediyesi stage. Hand dancing, stern knee to floor touching, knife fights, and then a silent parable dance to always shoot the eagle before it kills your ducks. 

After hand dancing a bit down the street ourselves, we hole up in an upstairs room and attack some kebabs with our faces.

Slow morning as we wait for Sam to get to the hostel from Taksim. We wander down to the waterfront of the Golden Horn, and I run off to get funnel cake rounds, and I have two midye dolma on the street. So delicious and then we are on the boat towards Eyüp, red tiled roofs floating by. 

We buy the cheapest and tastiest pide I've come across and wander through the graves to a restaurant at the tip of the hill overlooking our watery route home. We race back down with a minute to spare, and I say bye to the hostel crew: Darren, Patricia the epic archer, Ben, Sam, and of course Zora before the two hour shuttle to the bus station.

I still speak enough Spanish to have a very basic conservation with five Peruvian moms about Islanbul, the fact that Turkish has two letter i's, and the fact that one of them is in my window seat for the eleven hour ride to Goreme. I'm also the only reason they made it back onto the bus after the 1 am pit stop where Hediyelik Eşyalar (gift things) are sold. Señora Maquiñana would be proud of me.

View of the Hagia Sofia from the hostel terrace

Such awful traffic but I have just enough time to run into a ocakbaşı for a decent adana kebap before getting ready to sleep on the night bus to Cappadocia. 

Turks are obsessed with Nutella. And on the bus, there is a skinny and serious guy in his twenties with a skinny and serious tie whose job is to serve water, offer you Nutella-filled cookies, and ply you with tea and coffee every hour or so. 

I'm seated next to a deaf Turkish cub in a great suit, and he offers me a clove to chew, and we make do with really bad pantomime to communicate before everyone tips into Slumberland..