Trek: Day 3

Around the highest elevation we reached the whole trek... hiking towards what was to be our last campsite.

Bryan on the terrace with another Oren family eating popcorn

We continued to walk through town, winding among various farm animals (I had to help Bryan get by the donkey) until we heard a call. Looking up, there was a woman on her 2nd floor porch calling to us, "Gel! Gel!" (come! come!). So we smiled, said okay, struggled out of our boots and packs and spent almost an hour sitting on the porch of the house built by the family with a breathtaking view of a mountain canyon. The grandmother spent the entire time we were there grinding corn on a stone mortar and pestle while one mother air popped popcorn over a wood fire.

When we finally left that family - the mother insisted on giving us the rest of the popcorn - as well as a bag of olives and ANOTHER bag of yufka! (needless to say - we ate a lot of yufka the next few days).

Two sons and their grandfather, who has lived in this town his entire life. His daughter gave us an entire bag full of yufka (a really thin long-life bread).

Due to a series of events during the first days of our trek, by the third day we had decided that unless we obtained more food, we would have to bail from the trek to find something to eat. The only problem with this is we were days worth of hiking away from the next place where we could buy food.

We finally arrived at the town of Oren around 2 in the afternoon (population: mmmmaybe 50). We walked into town and were greeted by this elderly Turk standing outside his home. During the course of our conversation, his daughter went into the house and came out with a bag full of yufka, and her little boys ran shyly up to us and gave it to us. In exchange for candy, they posed for Bryan's camera. They were so friendly!

Walking up one of the main public roads in Oren

A view hiking along towards the village of Ören (Haskızılören)

Bryan at a spring refilling our water bottles

Bryan with the family, our first "major cultural encounter"

We started hiking the next day - uphill, of course - and after a few hours we started hearing what sounded like cow bells. We finally figured out the sounds came from goats. The trail lead right through the mountainside pasture of a goatherd and his family who were up for a few weeks while the kids had some time from school off. They said they don't normally come up in the winter but the weather waas mild so they drove all 120 goats up the mountian from their village in the valley, so lucky for us, they were around!

The father and son were planting peach trees, and took time off to talk with us while the mum and sister made tea - and a whole delicious meal of vegetables from their garden (at this point we'd been eating nothing but noodles and rice for a few days so we were really, really happy to see the tomatoes and onions!). The whole time they were talking to us I could understand about half of what they were saying, but despite the language difference they were still super friendly and welcoming. We left that family in very high spirits.

Trek: Day 2

Bryan making dinner during sunset, night 2.

Bryan walking along a ridge through Belen (tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny village) made of old stone and wood houses and housing lots of goats and yappy dogs. We talked with one woman who lived there and was hacking down trees on our way in with a blunt machete. I think we were probably the strangest thing she'd seen in a long while.

A cow and mountains viewed from the mahalle of Belen. Bryan dubbed the area 'the Squamish of Turkey' after hiking for a few hours longer he changed his view, saying 'Squamish is the Southern Turkey of B.C.'

Bryan walking through another unnamed tiny village with lots of olive trees and goats.

I bought a new sleeping bag recently, and I was so happy to be warm and cozy down to 0 degrees Celsius (especially in the future).

A Roman cistern (a giant rock lined hole in the ground filled with fresh water)

Part of the trail was on an ancient piece of Roman road.

Day 2 we got up and set out - continuing to gain elevation steadily until we got to the ruins of an old Roman town, complete with walls, gates, arches and eventually to a huge old cistern. We were particularly glad to find the cistern because somewhere in the ruins we got lost and ended up bushwacking through manzanita on a scree slope to find it. This was the 2nd time we had to whip out our GPS after completely losing the waypoints.

The first time was about half an hour before this when the directions in the book said, "go along an olive grove until you turn left at the large tree." This was all well and good except there were at least half a dozen olive groves.

Day 2 was our most GPS intensive day - we had to whip it out a few more times before we finally stopped for the night 6 hours after we started hiking. We only went a few miles that day because of detours, getting lost, and lots of elevation gain; the weather was still clear though!

Trek: Day 1

Uçan 1 waterfall

In the beginning: dry, clean, and (almost) smelling good.

The first waymark! (over an hour in hiking)

After a short trip to Cappadoccia we finally were ready to hit the trail. We spent all night getting to Antalya on the bus (11 hours) to find that the bus we were supposed to catch didn't exist, so we traveled by taxi and a few dolmush to finally get dropped off in a guy's driveway.

Fortunately the driveway was within a couple kilometers of where we were actually supposed to be so we finally ended up in the right river valley and started hiking. After an hour of hiking we finally came across our first waymark. These red and white stripes would come to be our best friend for the next week. We appologize to anyone now if we happen to exclaim any time we find a similar looking mark of paint, it's hard to break habits.

We only hiked a few hours the first day, because a dog adopted us for the last hour of our hike so we had to hike back and tie him up so we wouldn't have a permanent new companion. His owners didn't seem like the friendliest bunch so after a quick retreat we discreetly camped away from the trail, but still within hearing distance of the shotguns.

The Trek: Prep

My living room pre-trek

Bryan came to visit, and since he was going to be here in Turkey for so long, we needed an activity that was cheap and would last a long time. This didn't happen in the end, but before we knew that we decided to take a long trek in the south of Turkey.

St Paul Trail was established and waymarked in 2004 and is one of the newest long distance trekking routes around. It's stretches about 500 kilometers from near Antalya and climbs through Turkey's lake district north following (roughly) the path of St Paul through ancient ruins and gaining over 2000 meters by the end.

We can't remember now who came up with the idea first, or where we got the idea from to go on this trek, but it looked interesting, not overly traffiked, through a beautiful area. So we bought the guide book, a new GPS (among other new gear), and started trying to figure out what the heck we were doing. Winter wasn't necessarily the most recommended time to go - but it was extra dry this year, and warm, so we decided to at least try for it.

Kapadokya Kısın or Cappadocia in Winter

On the top of the never ending hill, lounging in the mud after feasting on a leftover bread crust.

On the lookout for bicycle chasing dogs and speeding trucks

We wanted to visit the underground city of Derinkuyu. It's over 30 k away from where we were staying though, and it ended up being our best and cheapest transportation option to just rent bicycles. So we got bicycles, and a map which looked like it was drawn by the most talented 3rd grader at the local school. Anyway, needless to say, we ended up not lost, but definitely taking the long way around through an industrial center, the muddy streets of small villages, and along a rocky highway shoulder next to high velocity traffic. Also, despite biking in a circle, we always were biking uphill. We're not sure how that worked. Anyway - we didn't make it to the underground city, we did get a nice 20 k or so loop of some of rural central Turkey with only a few instances of attacking dogs and strange activites.

It's all mine! (Lucky us walking is free!)

There were many open graves around the old churches and dwellings of the museum. Most of them were empty, however some became temporarily occupied much to the amusement of Asian onlookers.

Overlooking a valley filled with the classic fairy chimneys of Kapadokya

We tried to take a passably decent photograph of the two of us ... this is about as close as we got.

This is just to show that it was cold when we were here - there was snow on the ground and temperatures stayed around freezing most of the time. The heat in our pansiyon was on though, which was handy, and many restaurants had wood stoves we sat next to while we ate, staying just far away enough to keep from completely melting our clothes off.

A two story church cut into the rock, complete with columns and painting and over 900 years old!

Bryan smiling it up in a window between underground rooms in the Göreme Outdoor Museum

Staring down an ancient wall in an 11th century underground church.

Bryan and I left Istanbul at 9 or 10 pm on the bus, and only 10 hours and a few 3 am stops later we arrived in Göreme, the backpacking capital of Kapadokya. Kapadokya is a region of Turkey famous for its strange rock formations referred to in English as fairy chimneys. The area was used as a hiding spot for Christians from persecution during the 11th to 13th centuries or so, and is filled with all their old dwellings, which were carved out of the rock. A few are even still used today by Turks still living here.

We finally found a pansiyon that was open (a lot closes down for the winter) and then we went exploring. We went to the outdoor museum, which has over a dozen churches carved into the rock and lots of other rooms and things, still in pretty good shape that you can wander around in. The next day we rented bicycles and did a small bicycle tour of the area.

Bryan had some photos a friend had given him that she had taken 12 years ago of a wedding party in Göreme. She had never managed to give the photos to the people they were of, so gave them to Bryan. We brought them with us, and in the course of our hour long conversation with the rental guy figured out that he knew some of the people in the photos, and so he delivered them to the family that was in them. Pretty cool!

More of Istanbul in January

We stopped in Ortaköy to grab some kumpir and a kiss on the docks.

We went bowling with Alex and his sister Mary. We finally found the bowling place, and it was the sketchiest looking entrance to a bowling alley we'd ever seen, but it opened up into a nice place. We were just a little skeptical at first of the creepy-back-alley entryway.

Peppers and tomatoes in a vegetable display at the morning market next to school that we frequented after my hideous environmental exam. It's on a tiny, winding cobblestone street with each side lined with vendors. A truck was trying to back up down the space between the stalls and got massively stuck and huge cabbages were escaping from the back of it and rolling down hill among the feet and legs on the hill.

Sunrise breaking over Asia and the Bosphorus as we walked up the hill on the way up to Etiler.

Istanbul

Playstation as a spectator sport.

mmmm taco

Only in Bebek can you get a waffle with REAL toppings (white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, candied fruit, karamel, sprinkles, nuts, fresh fruit, and anything else that contains sugar)

Funny looking tourists.

Bryan really doesn't know what he's excited about...he's just really good at following directions.

Bryan in the Aya Sofya. They almost didn't let him in because of his hair.

View of the Bosphorus from the living room bright and early in the morning.

Guy and Olivia checking out Bryan's SWEET birthday cake! It's fun buying a cake in Turkey, you never really know what you're going to find inside.

Izmir and Ephesus

Selçuk kids re-enacting last years world cup. Bryan got the part of Beckham (farthest right figure). The game included frequent and random team changes, as well as a flock of chickens, two horses, and a goat.

Bryan eating gözleme.

Us in front of the library.

Bryan dropping a pin in the theatre to see if it could be heard from the top level. (it could).

Bryan in the Odeon.

Ephesus near the top gate.

Bryan taking the view picture.

A view of Izmir from a hill on our walk.

Bryan and I took a quick 2 day trip down to Izmir and Selçuk to go visit the ruins of Ephesus.