 |
 |
TurkeyAfter a near collision with a mad Turkish taxi driver (or Taksi as it is here), an unexpected 100m detour into Asia and a small disagreement between us about directions (this only seems to happen in big cities) we finally parked M for the night – in secure parking, guarded 24 hours a day – wise as the rear door that was forced in Mostar is still knackered.
We failed to find a hostel or any of the accommodation in our guide book so wondered into a hotel, who gave us a rate of less than half their room rate – only €35 for the night. We found out later that evening that it probably wasn’t due to being off peak season, but more likely due to the rather loud Karaoke booming through from the hostel next door… After a good feed we had to listen to various Aussies and Kiwis absolutely murder some classics… We didn’t have time for much in Istanbul the next day, after Lucile’s tat shopping, a quick visit to the Mosque and a good breakfast it was time to head to the airport.
I’m sad to see Lucile go, it’s been a really great three weeks – far more so than I expected… But then I didn’t really know what to expect from the Balkans. When I look back at it now, it seems like an awful lot has happened in a very short space of time, I don’t expect the rest of the trip to be nearly so crazy. Famous last words!
After leaving Lucile I headed back towards Istanbul, but with the rear door still not fixed, and not wanting to pay London parking rates again I headed past and away to the coast, I’ll come back to Istanbul sometime, for now I need to be away from big cities and relaxing somewhere sunny...
I headed away from Istanbul, and with no real desire to see Gallipoli or Troy, I cut off the north western corner of Turkey, instead I drove towards Izmir, hoping to find somewhere to stop before dusk. The city I passed at dusk apparently had two campsites, but neither could be found, upon asking (from what I understood), they may have closed, or at least weren’t open in February to cater for stupid English travellers… So on I pressed, it turned into another long drive, 12 hours in all, I had a lot of time to think about the coming weeks, and travelling on my own (something I’ve never really done before), the first few hours alone were kind of like the feeling I had on my first day of school, nervousness and apprehension, I’ll either love it or hate it… time will tell. I arrived in Izmir at 1am and headed west out to the peninsular looking for a place to pitch the tent, none were found and eventually I fell asleep on the rear seats until a fantastic dawn woke me at around 6:30am.
It’s nice being up so early, and I surprisingly feel refreshed after a four hour sleep, I arrived at the Garden camping site in Selluck at 10am, finding a nice retired English couple in their Winnebago who’ve been travelling for 3 years now, they were off at 11:30, so a brief chat it was then I started on the chores for the day. Lucile would be proud; I managed to do a whole stack of washing, which I must say is back breaking work, especially if you’re 6 foot 6.
I’m slowly settling into travelling on my own, don’t get me wrong I miss Lucile, it would have been great if she’d continued on further, but I’m starting to get an inkling about what it’ll be like travelling on my own for over a month, and I must say I think I’ll quite enjoy it… It’s odd not to be able to share tour thoughts with someone the whole time, about directions, where to go, what to do, there’s only you, and whatever you decide. I had planned to stay two nights here, but apart from Ephesus, the local mosque and castle there isn’t really a lot to do, I’d prefer to be near the sea so around lunchtime, after my laundry dried I packed up the tent and left the slightly overpriced but well facilitated “Garden Campsite” stopping for three hours at the Ephesus ruins.
They really are quite impressive to see, but even though I have a far greater appreciation for history and archaeological sites than I ever did, (childhood visits like this were torture), they still don’t appear to be as magical to me as they are to others. I get the feeling that most people don’t have the passion that I see in some when viewing sites such as this – for most of the tourists here today, it’s just an opportunity for a good photo, one for the album, one that will spark many a drab conversation: “that was when we visited Turkey in 2007, wasn’t it expensive dear, not like it used to be, and I’m sure it was warmer than it should have been for February. Remember? You had the squid that gave you a funny tummy for a good week”. That nights camping was an odd event, there are no campsites in Bodrum itself, the first I found was one I passed on the way in, a good hours drive earlier, it wasn’t open, but the owner Raffa, a man in his 60’s, with a fantastically animated face opened his gates for the first time this year. I don’t think he’d opened the toilet block up since the previous season however and things were, to put it mildly absolutely disgusting… Not good as I’m feeling a little sick myself, this certainly didn’t help… The next day I left, trying to push from my mind the visions of Raffa’s facilities. The situation reminded me of a trip I took to Mexico with a friend a few years ago, he had a similar experience, this picture of Jim (taken just a few minutes after his visit) sums up quite well how I was feeling.
So I planned my next leg (from the picture, very well camouflaged) and was on my way.
Bodrum is mostly a tourist destination for English and German’s; it’s free however from both in the winter months. It’s nice to see such places without the hoards of tourists, to see how life is enjoyed by the townsfolk before the three month summer mayhem. I stopped to get my haircut, which wasn’t half as bad as I’d expected, but still fairly severe, had a good lunch and visited the castle and Museum.
The sun’s now beating down and it must be somewhere near 20 degrees. Hopefully this weather will continue for sometime. Not wanting to return to Raffa’s place, I left Bodrum at around 3pm and continued south along the coast.
On my way to Dalyan, I approached a zebra crossing where the traffic lights were red, a police officer standing in front of me (behind the crossing) stood beside his parked patrol car. He waved for me to park next to him, checking first I wasn’t going to run anyone over (the crossing was clear) I did as he asked – going through the lights, he then gave me a ticket for running a red light! Cheeky bugger. I argued as best I could – neither he nor his colleague could speak any English, but at the end of the day what was I going to do, call the police? 81 Lira was the cost, around £30, not breaking the bank but a major annoyance. I was fuming, and took great joy at being able to speak freely without either officer understanding me. The air was quite blue, but they were none the wiser as I smiled whilst cursing away… I arrived in Dalyan at dusk, looking for the highly recommended “Dalyan Camping”, I headed here, vs. other closer destinations as the guide book praised its “clean and comforting showers and toilets”. No such luck. I’m again the first camper of the year, the hot water’s off, and it seems someone has been forgetting to flush. Stories that the nice English couple from Selluc told me of the nasty state of the campsites further south are now bouncing around my head… I’m not going to think twice about bush camping here in future – apparently it’s legal to camp almost anywhere in Turkey, a free hole in the ground is certainly more appealing than paying for this...
Dalyan is famous for its beach, which is home to Carretta carretta, an ancient sea turtle, estimated to be almost 100million years old… In 1986 Dalyan became internationally known for an effort to save the turtle’s habitat from a nearby development... The conservationists succeeded, and Dalyan, a small but pretty river town now thrives as a destination for backpackers and nature lovers. On my first night in Dalyan, I heard the familiar high pitched buzz of a mosquito for the first time in the tent. A battle ensued, 5 minutes of hunting and its: 23rd February I’m going to leave tomorrow, to find a hot shower somewhere… Hopefully I’ll be feeling better, and I’m hoping (although history tells me otherwise) that my back will magically fix itself during the night. 24th February 2007
which is where I headed to setup camp.
25th February 2007 The family, a mother, father, possibly the brother of the father and a young boy were very excited, we couldn’t communicate, until the youngster ran over to me after playing football and no word of a lie said “HELLO! My name is Borat”, I nearly choked on a chicken wing and held back my giggles, and he did actually look a little bit like Sasha’s Kahsak character. So a day well spent, the water system worked first time and I’d been well fed. 26th – 27th February 2007 I did very little for three days, reading, chatting to the travellers passing through the campsite, and relaxing, something I’ve been dreaming of for some time now. I met a Swiss couple who had been travelling on and off for three years, and were just returning from Iran, which from all accounts sounds incredible…
I’d have probably been nervous had I had time to think about what I was doing, but within an hour of making the decision I was being strapped in with my pilot Hakan for my first tandem paraglide… The only time I felt a little apprehensive was about 1 minute before our launch although I wasn’t scared about crashing or thinking about the worst case scenario – the weather was perfect, and these guys do this 5 times a day.
The flight took around 30 – 40 minutes, once we’d found a thermal we climbed to around 2000 feet, the four paragliders in the air dancing around each other in as gracefully as the birds… I didn’t expect to be doing this when I woke up this morning! I’ve never been a big one for pure adrenaline sports – bungee jumping has never really appealed, but with paragliding the benefits are obvious, the views were spectacular, and apart from being slightly numb from the cold I would have been perfectly happy to stay up there all day. I took quite a few video’s and dozens of pictures of the scenery, if you’d like to you can even take a beer or two with you and also smoke… Now that’s doing it in style.
The decent was a gradual one, heading out into the bay, still at around 1000m, as the gentle turns gradually brought us closer to the ground. I could see my campsite below (shown here just above my right boot)
As we descended to around 500m, Hakan asked me “do you want spin?” to which there really was only one answer. The last 2 minutes of the flight were by far the most exhilarating, turning once gently towards the beach then sharply the other way to initiate a heart pounding spin to the beach.
28th February 2007 I spent the day driving along the coast roads, stopping only for water and fuel. That evening I headed north off the coast road into the mountains for a night of bush camping. The tiny mountain road, which is apparently there just to serve a hotel and restaurant at the top of the mountain was being re-surfaced, I was glad to see mud and very dodgy roads (at least for part of the climb). [Mountain Pass.jpg]
1st March 2007
Removing the fly sheet helped, I was able to catch some sleep – secure in the knowledge that the wind couldn’t take the rest of the tent (it’s firmly bolted to the Land Rover), but it did try. When I finally left the tent at 8am I noticed something which I wish I’d seen the previous night – all the trees were leaning at quite an angle towards the sea – this wasn’t a freak occurrence, it probably happens every day.
2nd March 2007 |
|
.
