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Day 17, June 17th , Thursday: Sunny and warm
BOLVADİN - ÇAY
On the way out of town I see a large mud brick structure in what I recognize a huge kiln, for pottery production. It is square and has the one door on the side from where we come. Next to it is a heap of broken pots and sherds as a sign for the spotter's activity. The fire-room's door is on the left side, below the ground level. Inside the kiln a floor with holes can be seen, but it is too dark inside for taking a photo. Outside however there is too much light from the wrong side, so that a tree's shadow makes the photos too dark. Our activities are observed by a village guard, this means a man with an old police cap on his head. He looks but doesn't interfere.
Further on we see many tuğla factories, this is a brick type that at the moment is in use everywhere in Turkey. These bricks are hollow and segmented for insulation.
One workplace is very different and we stop for photos.
It is an old fashioned brick production place, here solid bricks are made. The process looks very much like mud brick production, but goes one step further, the firing stage.
While mud brick is usually a domestic production, here we have an industrial production process.
The first step is that clay is mixed with water. Here a horse is doing the heavy work. It pulls a long beam around a barrel in which a device is made that mixes the clay with water. The clay is thrown in from the top by a man standing a muddy pit that is formed around the barrel. The mixed clay comes out at the bottom of the barrel. It is dug by spade in wheelbarrow by a second man. As the wheelbarrow is full he carries it to raised platform. Here it is dumped, so that it is easy to handle for the men around the platform. Two men work here, one makes the moulds wet and clean. The moulds contain the shapes for four bricks at a time. After cleaning, a hand full sand is thrown into the mould, so that the new bricks will not stick to the wooden walls. The next man fills the mould with the muddy clay and cuts the excessive clay off with a knife, so that the bricks are flat. Other men walk up and down with the full moulds and place them in rows. They hit them to the ground so that the wet bricks come free. The ground's surface is also sandy, so that the new bricks will not stick to the underground. After drying, the bricks are pilled up in open columns of ten bricks, two on two every time turned 90 degree to the under lying bricks.
The percentage of breakage is quite high as I see it. The final fired bricks are not very strong and break easily. The boss of this work tells that they only work in summer and that they export these bricks also to England. They are not very regular bricks they differ in shape and color and can be used for decorative purposes, better then for real construction.
The reason for all these potters and brick makers to be active here is that between BOLVADİN and ÇAY lies the EBERGÖLÜ, an about 17 x 12 kilometer large lake, on the east side of the road. This lake is like many other lakes in the region, slowly drying out and the borders of the lake area provide very good clay reserves for all kind of ceramic and brick production.
We can't see the lake from the road, but after a break in a petrol station, we go over the bridge that crosses the railway track. From the top of the bridge some silver glitter can be seen in the far east.
Soon we are in Çay, where my wife has a brother called Yusuf, who works in the Ziraat bank. We had this bank name given to most of the parents of the boys to send more money. The trip, with the use of the teacher houses and the restaurants, becomes more expensive then planned. Douwe is totally at the bottom after his 'border run' although most of the expenses were paid by Gürkan, who is now himself also at the bottom line of his finances. I too have not much in the pocket anymore and have also asked for financial support.
Soon we find the bank. This is not the bank I know, since two years ago an earthquake has damaged the old building so much that it has to be restored. Better would be to replace it. Many other houses have collapsed or were badly damaged.
Yusuf is at work and it is very busy but he immediately comes to greet us all and takes a few hours off. First he helps us to take the money from the bank and then we walk to his house. Here we see his wife Filiz and son Taha. We walk with Yusaf and Taha to a restaurant in town where he had ordered a lunch for us. We eat Adana Kebab and drink ayran. After lunch we go to the bank again because Anil's money came later then the rest.
Then we start to walk and look for old houses. The boys want to do other things and Anil and I are soon alone. We visit the old han that is now restored and became a luxury shopping center.
Other old houses and remains of houses are photographed. Next to the han is a birahane. They sell only Tuborg, but we need a cool drink now. In the 'bar' are only a few men. The toilet is behind a curtain. The curtain is behind me! The beer although the wrong brand is wonderful! We feel almost guilty towards the rest who are probably sitting in a teagarden. We go to find the rest and they are really in a large tea garden in the center. Not many people seem to work in Cay! The garden is full nothing doing men. We tell the boys that we went to a han, not a birahan! We drink here in the garden tea with Taha and a friend of his. I let my boots being polished, the first time ever in 14 years Turkey! But they need it very much. The polish is no crème but paint and makes the boots hard instead of soft and oily. Also Burak and Gürkan let their boots been polished by the same man.
After that I suggest to go to a birahane. Taha and friend seem not to keen to visit a birahane, first of all they are too young and everybody knows them here in town. And I don't want to be the bad guy in the family, so I am happy as they themselves suggest to leave us. They are going to play basketball in the school's garden.
We end up in the same street as the Tuborg place but a bit further is a Efes birahane. We go there because we don't want to be greeted as good old friends!
This place has windows with a dark film over it so that people on the street can't see what happens or who is inside. The beer is fine again and we eat a few bags of chips with it.
Douwe goes out to phone his family in Holland. We buy our food for the next days. I buy a bag with mantı, but have of course no yogurt or nane.
We stay a few hours in the house of Yusuf in that time we wash some clothes and hang them on the small balcony on the street side. We watch TV while Burak and Douwe play basket ball with Taha and friends.
At some point Yusuf and Filiz come home and they organize a place for us in the local Öğretmen Evi. We become regulars in these houses. We walk with Yusuf through the town towards the teacher house. It is a modern building but after it was finished no money was available to maintain it and the result is clear. A lot of teachers sit in the garden and we speak about our university and schools and the walk etc. We show the maps what we did and what still is to come.
I return with Yusuf to their house to speak more about the family and that sort of things. At 20.30 I'm back in the OE with the boys who still didn't eat anything. Douwe goes out to buy bread and we eat in our room.
The toilet and shower are 'not so good' and one of us runs in the wrong room with a man lying on his bed watching TV.
There is nothing else to do then to sleep.
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statistics
from starting point = 276 km
to endpoint = 192 km
walked today = 12.2 km
total = 303.7 km
group members = 5
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Day 18, June 18th , Friday: Cloudy and a few times rain
ÇAY - KOÇBEY/ KARAMİK BATAKLIĞI
We left the teacher's house at 07.00. We can't go straight south because there are three peaks of 2082, 2311 and 2500 meter high and ÇAY's own elevation is about 1000 meter. So we walk to the west, next to and on the new road that is being build at this time.
The first rest-place is in front of a wall near CUMHURİYET. During this morning's walk the distance to the endpoint becomes more again instead of less!
After the village we take the road to İSPARTA. The weather, although cloudy, is warm and there is a lot of air pressure.
We use lots of water again and have two more rests. We pass an enormous factory complex. The factory is closed for ever and the buildings are abandoned, like you see in American crime films. The fence around this factory is endless long.
We come to the village that we want to reach. It shows as AKHARIM on the map. These days the name has changed to AKKONAK. As we pass a field with cherry trees and see people who are picking the fruit. They call us and we get large plastic bag full cherries. Happily we eat our bellies full with this variation on our menu.
In the center of the village is a market. We stop here and sit in front of the teahouse. We have a table and want to eat our lunch here. I walk over the market but buy nothing. Rain starts to fall. In seconds it changes in a real downpour. We move into the teahouse and ask if we can eat here? It is OK to the owner and Anil and I go out to buy bread and cheese. We drink more tea and eat all the cheese and the bread. Our knives attract again some attention of the local boys, who are wearing T-shirts with Turkish army commando drawings.
The rain stops and we want to go, but Burak and Gürkan insist on their 2 hour midday rest. I argue that it only counts when it is very warm and sunny, something it clearly isn't!
It comes so far that we leave without them. On the way out of AKKONAK I take photos of some old houses.
We walk through wet and cool fields. At a well Anil wants to ask the road to a man in the gate of a field, but he is carrying a gun without obvious reason and isn't too helpful, but he is very suspicious. Strange...
In the village of ORMANİYE I take one photo of a house.
The road runs now straight to KARAMİK unlike what is shown on the map. Here I take a few photos in the village.
On the street stands a group of people and it looks like a wedding party or a circumcision ceremony. But in reality it is a farewell party for two family members who are now just a minute on their way to Germany to work there. At the same time it is a welcomes party for the father of the house who just returned from two months in jail. They invite us to come in and sit with them and we do so.
We get glasses with ayran and the man starts to explain that he made a traffic accident in which someone died. He had to stay in jail as long as the process took place. In prison every guard needed to be bribed for everything and there are many more unpleasant aspects of being there! He told them all.
The whole family had red eyes, but not from emotion, but probably more from a few bottles Rakı.
When we sit there in the garden the two other team members join us. Also more rain starts for a short period of time.
New guests arrive and we take the chance to escape and walk on towards KOÇBEY. On this long road Gürkan shows signs of the bad effect of irritation between the legs and I give him a spray: called Oceral. I tell him to spray generous. He stands on the side of the road and opens his trousers and sprays. I forgot to tell him that it bites and burns like hell, but not immediately! So after a very short while, he jumps up and down saying bad things about me! But brother it will help you! The others have powders with the same effect but less dramatic. He also 'powers his nose' and walks on.
On the way a car stops and we are invited for a circumcision party. He writes a note to the imam, with as text something like: "fill them with food" Good intentions but we don't go there.
KOÇBEY at the foot of the Palazlının Tepe, seems to be one of the poorest places we have been to so far. The buildings are simple and bad, walls of gardens with reed and stones. Lots of tezek is drying on the ground. Thousands of children are in the streets. People come out to the street to see the strangers (us).
We are invited to come in the teahouse. This is a building with a door and two windows and a gable roof of reed and mud. It remind me very much of the houses I lived in during my Syrian excavation campaigns.
Drinking tea and speaking about our tour becomes a routine for Anil and me, in that way that I do the drinking and he does the talking. The others don't speak much.
We are advised to go to a well outside town. If we follow the road to ARMUTLU we will pass it. That is the best place for a camp.
The map shows here a KARAMİK BATAKLIĞI, a swamp, something that reminds me of mosquitoes!
We walk out of town under escort of hundreds of children and one with a little bit less well working brain. That particular boy is used to hit the others and shouts very loud. As we walk longer the group gets slowly smaller. Still many of them are left as we reach the well.
We manage to get all the children away and start to set up the tents. We stand here on the bottom of an old lake of which the swamp is still a small remain.
The bottom is as flat as Holland and very hard. A strong wind blows from east to west. Douwe and I set our tents far from each other, but not too far from the well. The others set their tents in a closed formation far away from the road and the well. They have their openings to each other.
New children on a bicycle come and have to be removed again because they come too close to the tents.
Douwe tries to take photos with his new digital camera that since the beginning of the trip did not work properly. In the early mornings he can take sometimes a photo, but a second or third photo are usually out of the question. The small screen only shows lines like in a graphic table. I also take photos of the tents standing in this immense empty space. In the far distance a large herd of cows is passing over the plain.
With Anil I walk to a shephard's house and see the construction of it's roof. Here next to the swamp there is a surplus of reed and that is visible in the roof's construction. Layers of reed are placed over each other under a 90 degree angle.
On the road local traffic is passing, mostly homemade vehicles that have the name 'Taktak'; called after the sound they make. That sound is the result of using a water-pump as the vehicle's engine. These pumps are Italian and are started with a pull-cord. These light vehicles are used for everything between transportation of products of the fields and persons between the towns and villages. The reason for these Taktaks is that they are not official cars and need no number plates and pay no taxes. However they can carry a lot of weight and volume and go pretty fast.
We go back to the tents and place extra lines on the wind side. The tents go now up and down very badly and Anil's tent collapses twice. The extra lines are my extra set of shoestrings that I had advised to every member to bring.
If there are no children and no traffic I wash myself in the well, good cold water makes clean again!
For dinner I want to cook my mantı. That seems not too simple with this wind and the flame is blown from under the pan. I move the 'kitchen' to a place behind a large rock. Next to the burner is a highway of millions of ants carrying grain and other food.
The cooking goes slow and the end product isn't wonderful! The mantı could be cooked a little more and the elements that make manti nice are missing: the yogurt with garlic and nane and pepper.
I block the hole that is the entrance of the ants with a piece of mantı and enjoy the chaos that it creates.
With my pan I sit in front of my tent and do my best to eat as much as possible, but soon it is enough! I walk a distance from the camp and throw the content of the pan on the ground. So, that if animas come to eat it, they will not come too close to the tents.
Anil sit with me and we drink coffee and Tang. Suddenly a man comes running from the hill and shouts that he needs a knife. I have my knife in the tent but I am affright that I will not see it again. Douwe gives his knife and the man disappears. Later he returns, apparently a cow was dying on the hill. And according to the Islamic customs you can't use the meat of an animal that has died by itself. The knife of Douwe wasn't good enough to cut the neck of the beast. We discuss the fact that the cow was dying, means that there was something wrong with it. If you cut it before it dies itself or not: it stays meat of an ill animal with an illness. It is cheating only yourself.
The wind gets stronger and the tents go more and more up and down. Maybe better to be inside that gives extra weight, after all I don't fly away so easily!
When we are just inside, the sound of a Mobilette comes closer. Someone shouts and I think: "go away!" But he doesn't and it is a man who has a fish lokanta a few kilometers further. He has two grilled fishes for us. Anil comes and we eat them together. The others don't bother to come out of their tents. The fish is delicious and we can't decide if it is sea fish or sweet water fish. It doesn't matter much: the fish is gone already!
It is very warm and choking inside the tent. Part of the side wall covers my face, every time the wind blows. The wind makes it also dusty inside. The wind is also too strong for mosquitoes to fly! Too warm to sleep in the sleeping bag. Finally I fall asleep.
I wake up from a flapper sound. The top of my tent, an additional part to keep rain out, has broken off. I take my torch and open the zipper of the door. Half and half outside the tent I try to remove the top part.
From the well comes a shout. I shine the lamp in that direction and a man sits on the water tank. He come closer and isn't friendly. What am I doing here? It is forbidden etc. I tell him that it isn't forbidden and show the other tents. He wants to know if there are women in the group. He is a shepherd with lots of sheep on the hillside. He goes away and I finally sleep again.
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Statistics
from starting-point = 295 km
to end-point = 174 km
walked today = 27.3 km
total = 331.0 km
group members = 5
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The last 100 meter to the Karamık Bataklığı campsite.
View over the old lake bottom towards Koçbey. Over the plain a large herd with cows is passing.
The camp in the plain. The tents are spread in two groups. Left Douwe and Ben, right Gürkan, Anil and Burak.
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GPS Coordinates of places and archaeological sites in Turkey
