
Long Walk to Ephesus
Last winter, when our Egypt trip was re-routed to Istanbul due to the political climate in Cairo, we decided to take a day trip down to Ephesus. After a week of early mornings and late nights exploring Eastern Europe, we took the opportunity to rest up a bit, so we slept the entire bus ride from the Izmir airport to Selçuk. When the driver literally shook us awake, we stumbled off the bus bleary-eyed and disoriented. We decided to just start walking and hope that we were headed in the right direction of the Ephesus archeological site. After about 20 minutes, the sidewalk ended. A few minutes after that, we knew we were lost. We started to get irritated, but then we looked around us and saw all the beautiful scenery that most tourists only see whiz past them from a tour bus window. We suddenly went from "tourists" to "travelers." We were walking (walking a lot) in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul, Cleopatra, Mary, emperors, Alexander the Great, and the people who made up some of the greatest civilizations in our world's history. There were women tending the fields and livestock roaming the pastures all around us. If not for the paved road and the much-needed can of Coke in my hands, it felt like we could have been walking along this not-so-beaten path at any point over the last two millenniums. (Catch! Lost entry!)
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