For years Cappadocia has been a fundamental trading post along the famous ‘silk route’ where traders from East and West have met to sell various goods. Silk, was an obvious trade good but just as importantly was textiles. In the fairy chimney town of Goreme we heard how textiles (carpets) use to act as a type of currency. When a woman married she was given a handmade carpet from her mother, which acted like a dowry. Generally these carpets were stored in a metal container and the woman knew that what ever happened i.e. whether her husband died or in case of a rainy day she could exchange the carpet for money, so if you see a Persian carpet and it looks brand new it could have been stored away for years and have just been cashed in to buy the latest flat screen TV? It was also expected than women would generally make four carpets in her life. Quite an impressive task when you consider how intricate the carpets are and that she would have to make them in between doing the cleaning, tending to the land, cooking or looking after her children.
Goreme was a magical place and to us it felt like the ‘Over-Landers Cross Roads’. We waited nearly a week in one campsite waiting for a package from the UK where we met several other over-landers. We met
Nick & Joanne, who had just travelled up from Cape Town in their Toyota and AJ, Rosa, Asha, Aiden and Portia – a family who are completing the same African overland challenge. All great people and we hope we can meet them again in the future!
In preparation for the next stretch of our journey i.e. Iran and the ‘Stans’ Chrissy stocked up with supplies and only bought 16 (BIG) boxes of cereal!
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