Market Day in Karacasu

Today, Monday, was market day in Karacasu. This is a small mountain town between Pamukkale/Hieropolis and Selcuk/Ephesus. We had to drive through this town yesterday in a search for lodging, then had to come back through this morning on our way back to Aphrodisias.



What a lucky accident! It was market day and everyone was out and dressed in their most colorful clothes, too! Until today, we have had a very difficult time convincing these modest Turkish women to allow us to photograph them. Today all that changed. It must have been the perfect storm of market day and visitors from another planet, but you would have thought we were the center of the universe. Everyone wanted us to take their photo. Very few people declined. One woman gave us a gift of a little unidentified fruit, another gave us cucumbers, one man gave us an apple, and another couple bought us a traditional Turkish caj (tea served in little glass tulip-shaped cups).



People posed for us, hammed it up, and some just let us take candid shots. It was a noisy, lively festival kind of a day. Lots of activity and everyone seemed in a good mood.


Then, all of a sudden the muzzein began the call to prayer and the racket suddenly stopped and everyone's hands went out in front of them at waist-level, as if cupping water in the palms of their hands. And they all turned toward the mosque. Robert and I suddenly realized that we, too, should stop talking and face the same direction. When the prayer was finished everyone went back to their business and so did we!


We got LOTS of GREAT people pictures, and we also got peppers, figs, mandarin oranges, bread, cucumbers and tomatos for under $2.50. Yum. Just in time for LUNCH!