I hope this painting of a fruit market in Istanbul looks good enough to eat. Istanbul was the first stop of our three-week guided tour of Turkey in 2012. The city is overflowing with amazing tourist sites such as the Blue Mosque, the Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar. Istanbul is the only city in the world that sits in two continents. The Kadikoy Market we visited is on the Asian side of the city a half hour ferry ride from the European side. There we found food shops, spice shops, and fish shops. Walking through the markets made us so hungry! Luckily, we finished our visit by heading for a delicious lunch and a stop for tea at Camlica Hill, one of the highest spots in the city.
I’ve traveled to 64 countries. The most interesting trip Bill and I took was a visit to a hunter-gatherer village on the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea in the year 2,000. Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea located in the Pacific north of Australia. Its capital is Port Moresby. Headhunting was long a cultural practice in this area. In order to come of age, young men had to take a head. Michael Rockefeller, son of the late vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, disappeared in this area in 1961 and was rumored to have been the victim of headhunters. While not all headhunters were cannibals, it was popular because villagers believed that eating enemies’ brains empowered warriors. Scarification is still practiced in coming-of-age ceremonies.