A very full day planned that would end in the Nemrut area. But first, we’d drive until lunch, visit the Karakus Tumulus, Cendere bridge, finally continuing to Karadut where our hotel will be for two nights. First driving sight of the day was through a small town where even here, women were wearing purple headscarfs…View image, and wool hung drying over apartment balconies…View image….

This was followed by an interesting stop along the road where a family was picking pistachio nuts. The entire crop had already been picked with the exception of a few trees that hadn’t ripened enough. Whatever I knew about pistachio nuts could be condensed into five words: grocery store…bags…salted…roasted. Pistachio nut orchards take approximately 7-10 years to reach significant production. They don’t need a lot of water, are fairly hardy, like a sunny position and well-drained soil. Besides Turkey, these small trees are native in some regions of Syria, Iran, Greece, Turkmenistan, and Pakistan. Archaeological evidence in Turkey shows that these nuts were being used for food as early as 7000 B.C. Introduced into the United States in 1854, Pistachios are grown in California.
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Each of these farms is owned by one person whose entire family will share the income. There are two ways of selling the pistachios. Either to intermediaries who make rounds along the road or directly to the factory. A total surprise to discover that the pink color was the outside of the nut. The pink covers the Pistachio shell with the kernel inside.

The group stood in the field for quite a while watching a man high in a tree…View image, throwing the nuts down onto a tarp where it was bagged, tasting the raw nut. (Give me roasted and salted any day.) Oz sequed into a short talk about what a tough life women in Anatolia lead. A woman lives with her husband’s family, takes care of his mother and/or father, the children, the house. And if that isn’t enough, works and tends the fields while her husband is usually off working in a city or town to make a living.

Isn’t is fascinating what a person can learn while traveling?