October 2019: Liquidation, Labneh, and Honey Bees

Poof

We started off the month with a bit of a surprise. Our flight from Ireland to Turkey, which was at that time less than a week away, no longer existed. Why, you might ask? Well, Thomas Cook, the airline who operated it, had also turned to dust.

This was a cold, hard lesson that the world is set up for business, and they really can do whatever they want. It turns out that airlines like Thomas Cook are allowed to charge you up front for services they’ll never render if they happen to go belly up. They don’t exist anymore so no sweat off their backs. And apparently they don’t have to get insurance for that either.

Thankfully, our lovely bank Charles Schwab (who doesn’t sponsor us but really should because we would tell everyone we know to use their services if we could) paid us back for the non-existent flight. And we were able to get a relatively cheap replacement a couple days later with Ryanair.

The Secret Life of Turkish Honeybees

Did you know that Turkey produces a TON of honey? With the amount of baklava we had there, I guess we should have realized. But, we didn’t, until we started walking the Lycian Way.

The trail is a very famous long-distance ramble and, to be honest, it’s a bit underwhelming. Turkey was hot in October, and the seaside had been so built up for Russian tourists that it hardly seemed serene anymore.

And don’t get us started on the bees. The trail consisted of footpaths connected by dirt roads. On many of those roads were bee farms. At first, we were excited about the prospect of local honey. “We love bees,” we gushed! We still do, but not in such close quarters. By some horrible luck, Stefan got stung 3 times and Tori 7!

Turkey also happened to mobilize troops into northern Syria while we were there. Thankfully, we were in touristy Antalya when this happened and nothing went awry. But it was certainly unsettling. We saw many a machine-gun wielding soldiers - most of them no more than 20 years old.

The Mediterranean is beautiful, and we never felt in danger. But Turkey’s tourism numbers have dropped off for a reason.

Welcome to Jordan!

After Turkey, we took a short flight to Jordan. We had been lured by promises of a beautiful new Jordan trail that stretched across the entire country. But, tired of hiking in the heat, we decided to shorten our trip and check out some of the cultural hotspots.

Don’t get us wrong, Jordan is beautiful. Petra, a wonder of the world, is as spectacular in person as in Indian Jones. The deserts are vast and the slot canyons sheer.

However, there are a lot of problems with Jordan, too. To us, it felt a lot like Chile. It’s overpriced, for one. And that’s not just talking as the cheap backpackers we are. Inequality is rampant. There is just no way to live comfortably on the wages most people are making. You can see this too in the trash everywhere and the carefully crafted tourist itineraries.

That being said, Jordanian people are great. We hitchhiked almost everywhere, and the welcome we received was unfathomable. “Welcome to Jordan!” was the mantra. And people really mean it.

The food wasn’t too shabby, either. Though we may have eaten enough hummus for the next ten years.

♡ Stef and Tor