RANSVESTIA

in a step that is a cross between the German goose step and the British stamping kind of walking. I should think they would pound their arches flat on those flagstones hour after hour. In any case it is really impressive.

We now embarked on a long day's ride by bus from Ankara through the middle of the country to the area known as Capodocchia ending up in the little town of Goreme. But we had a bit of an incident on the way. Our bus broke down-the transmission gave out even though it was a big modern, and not too old, vehicle. Over there the bus is driven by the driver but he is always accompanied by another man who helps out whenever necessary, such as backing up in tight places, etc. Well, after we had been parked by the side of the road for about an hour, while the driver, the assistant, our guide and any of the men (and occasionally me) who had any ideas tried to figure out what was wrong or what to do, the driver finally decided to flag a ride into the next town, which he did. About 45 minutes later he returned down the road in a new (different) bus and we all piled in. All but the young man who was the assistant. He stayed with the bus.

Goreme and other towns in this area are amazing places. While they are made up of more modern buildings and market places now, their fame and interest rests in the fact that during the Middle Ages and up to not too many years back everyone lived in houses literally carved out of the soft volcanic tuff which formed most of the hills of the region. Be- cause it was soft it was easily eroded into canyons, but that left not only the sides but pinnacles of considerable size standing isolated from the canyon wall. Each of these became a house. It was hollowed out inside and became home. During earlier times considerable numbers of people lived in the area and were early Christians and quite religious. Thus there are any number of little chapels carved out of the rock too. Many of these were decorated by murals in very interesting fashion. I got a big laugh out of one of the women who was really quite a devout Catholic - she knelt, crossed herself and prayed at every church we entered. But in this case she stood and studied intently a mural showing the birth of Jesus. Joseph and Mary were in it, of course, and the wise men too. But she kept looking at Joseph and finally in a tone of amazement and disbelief she said half to herself, "Golly, he looks like he was thinking to himself, 'Well I'll be damned - and I never even laid a hand on her."" This broke the rest of us up, but she was right-that's exactly how he looked.

As you can see from one of the accompanying pictures this is a very sexy part of the country. It proved to be quite embarrassing to some of

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