Karacahisar Carpet Village

  The final installment of our road trip to Milas, Bodrum and Karacahisar.  Tomorrow we start on a new adventure, to Datca.  Tomorrow the Sox will return to their winning ways (I hope!)

Ru

DoraMac

Milas and Bodrum by Motorbike – Karacahisar Carpet Village

At the tourist office in Milas we had been given a small booklet about Milas which mentioned nearby villages where carpets were made. The photo on one page showed a woman from the village of Karacahisar spinning yarn that would be used to weave the carpets. Karacahisar is 12 miles from Milas so on our way home we decided to make the side trip. Milas is on the road we had to take from Bodrum back to Marmaris, so Karacahisar wasn’t really so far out of our way. Visiting Karacahisar was a treat!

Half way to Karacahisar we passed a round stone building. I have seen several since we’ve been in Turkey and was curious so we stopped to look. Unfortunately this one is covered with graffiti; I quite like them but have no idea what they are.

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Inside was very dark and only looking through my camera and taking flash photos show what it looks like. I threw a rock in and when it splashed, that’s how I knew there was water though I’m not sure how deep or where it comes from. The domed ceiling was stone.

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A local man, a welder, stopped to chat ‘motorbikes” with Randal. You can see the Turkish flag we received from Onurhan and his mom. You can also see that Randal and I are about the only motor-bikers in Turkey who wear helmets.

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There little traffic and great scenery but Randal was on a carpet mission so we didn’t stop as often as I would have liked to take photos.

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Karacahisar ahead

We arrived in Karacahisar with the same feelings of anticipation and excitement as our arrival in Milas and Bodrum and the same cluelessness as to where to go actually see carpets. The fact that Karacahisar was a tiny remote village on a hillside made it even more of a challenge. I fell in love with the stone buildings and the gardens, with the man leading his saddled mule and the lady leading her cows through town. Country-boy Randal felt less comfortable stopping to take photos so I have less to show than I would like. Finally I said, STOP! Let me off!!! And he did and I walked along a bit taking photos

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Randal had stopped and was waiting for me at the very center of the tiny village. A man came along and said “Bodrum?" to ask if we were trying to find the road to Bodrum. We said no, so he went on his way. But other men came and the lady with the cows. One man took charge of figuring out what we wanted. He may have understood some English but spoke none. Randal showed him the booklet with the picture of the woman from Karacahisar and pointed to the carpet. The man smiled, nodded, motioned for us to park the bike and follow him. We walked past a tractor loaded with hay which Randal needed to stop and examine and discuss with our leader. Our destination was the home of a woman who wove carpets for sale.

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Our guide motioned for me to take a photo, but first I asked “grandma” before I did.

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The woman on the right is the carpet weaver and this is her home and maybe her mom and maybe one of her carpets being used as the work area to make bread.

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This room was her work space with the loom and balls of hanging yarn and her pattern. There is a carpet in progress on the loom. They also unrolled two completed carpets for us to see.

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The borders, center and corner design are typical of Karacahisar carpets.

In the Milas tourism office we were given a lovely calendar with pictures of different Milas carpets for each month. November is the Karacahisar carpet. The two thin borders and one thick border are characteristic of Karacahisar carpets as are the decorative corners and the large center pattern. Red or white are often used as the filler color around the design. It is wonderful to see traditions continued and to start to understand and appreciate the different traditions.

The experience of going to the village and meeting a “weaver” was special. Carpets really are still handmade, if you go to the right place though most of them are probably sold by the carpet dealers such as we’ve met in our travels. We biked back to Milas and stopped for lunch. We still haven’t mastered ordering and got two double orders of cheese bread instead of one double order to share. We took one order home in a to-go box and ate it for dinner! The weather started to look threatening as we were leaving Milas heading to the mountain road that was under construction. Luckily for us when we got there, the rain had passed and the traffic wasn’t bad. But the temperature had dropped considerably and I was really cold but not freezing. Once out of the mountains and into the sun and it was much better.

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Almost home but not quite: the last mountain road before we get into Marmaris.

Most roads we travel are quite good and so far not the least bit crowded. There are very few trucks but lots of buses on the main highway between bigger destinations points like Bodrum, Mugla, and Marmaris. There was road construction, but nothing as annoying and ever-present as in Pennsylvania. Interesting cars on the road. At one point we were in line behind a Porsche and then a Mercedes and then an Audi! The posted speed limit was 50 kilometers (30 mph) though no one went that speed except for maybe us. No one road our tail or honked or tried to run us off the road. It felt much safer than in Malaysia.  We arrived back at the boat about 5 pm several hours before sunset.  We were tired but it had been a great trip!