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At 05.00 we wake up. It is cool and dark, heavy clouds are hanging between the mountains. In the far distance is the sound of thunder.
The night was restful; no wild boars came to wake us or to eat our tents. We look to the sky while packing and it gets greyer every minute. Shall we place the backpack cover or not. The question if we have to wear our raincoats is un-necessary, they are in the box in the teacher-house in ÇİFTELER!
We say goodbye to the retired teacher, he stands on his balcony and looks to the clouds...
06.25 We walk out of the gate of the house. During our walk the heavy grey clouds drift towards the east, but no rain. Heavy thunder can be noticed in the south.
As we walk, my GPS shows; that we are entering the last 100 kilometer.
And when we have a have a rest stop near the junction with the road to SERPIL it is even sunny. We have this rest on a bridge. On the other side is a bakkal but that is still closed at this time, 08.30.
As we continue new clouds appear in the west and we try to walk ahead of them. That is not possible and near the junction with the road to YUKARIGÖKDERE the doors of the hell open. Lightning all around us and enormous rainfall is suddenly on top of us. In the distance we see a few small buildings and lots of people. Douwe, Anil, Rado and I run towards these buildings and stay reasonable dry. But Burak, Sevgi and Gürkan walk a bit slower and at the end of our group. They enter the building very wet. The building is a lokanta where they also make pide. We order pide and wait till the rain stops. The wood, the fire in the oven and the material for pide are not there yet since it is too early. They manage to organize it and we soon eat nice kasarlı pide.
The rain takes about one hour and as soon as it is dry we continue to walk. The road is easy, flat in a valley and runs straight south. In KIRINTI it starts to thunder again and some rain falls, we take shelter under a tree. This is usually not recommended to do so, but what choice do we have?
In the village is a bakkal with crates of Efes Bira in front of the door. There we stop and have our lunch. My lunch comes from a bottle...oh that tastes good!
The weather becomes warm again and in combination with the fallen rain water it becomes very humid.
We walk again and go down through a nice valley, the river streams on our left side. It becomes now sunny and warm. We come to a kind of blocked tunnel, part of the old road? Now the road runs around the rock. More down we come to an old Bailey Bridge, that is a type of bridge used in the World War II. It is made of standard elements and can be made into a bridge in a short time, if you have enough manpower.
We are told of a shortcut that will shave us about 15 kilometers. This sounds interesting. We are told that the path starts near a house a little higher up the hill.
We reach a house but it belongs to not to friendly farmers. They explain that we need to go higher up to the next house.
This house has a water source next to it and we fill our bottles again. After this climb they are all empty again.
We come in a very wild but beautiful rocky area. We follow the path and going wrong is not possible, there is only one track here.
The group members get a bit obstinate as we pass a very nice flat grassy field. A wonderful campsite, only it is much too early to do so.
We walk on and come to a junction. Here we have the choice left or right. No way to tell which one to take. We try to walk on the right (not the left one!) path to see where it leads to. After a while we see a bit lower a house standing between the trees. There are also ruins of older houses of which only the foundations now remain.
To get to the house is very difficult there is no clear path to it. We can smell smoke and Anil has seen a person in the doorway. When they come to the building the occupant pretends not to be there.
We climb back and rain starts again. Much rain and heavy thunder, again we stand under a large tree, knowing that it is not a safe place, but the leaves protect us from the rain. However this protection is only a few minutes and then is starts to 'leak' under the tree. Soon we are all soaked and cold.
We decide to make camp near the house on the left track. This house can be seen from below, a red tiled roof can be seen.
The house as we see afer some climbing is not occupied and the door and windows are solidly closed. Normally I would not have much problem to break a building in such cases, like snow, freezing and rain. To be wet in the mountains can be very dangerous and even in mid summer hypothermia can occur. This is a dangerous under-cooling of the body and this can make you die in the worst situation.
There was a barn in a bad state some roof tiles missing and no door and a hole in the side wall.
A field behind to the house is our best choice, the top part has a kind of terrace, while the rest of the field goes steep down. We set up our tents as clouds move in again.
We just have the tents standing as rain starts again. Burak and Douwe go up hill to see if there is a better place.
After a few minutes thunder and lighting come close to us. I bring my back pack to the barn, because I know that my tent is not waterproof. As I walk back and take more equipment I place my backpack cover over my head so it stays more or less dry. With the cover over my eyes I see the lightning in front of me and hear the sound at the same time...this is too close and realizing that I wasn't hit I run to the barn. The others come now also to this place and on my petrol burner I prepare hot water for soup and tea. Rado I gave my half bread with egg.
We are making the place ready for a long sit. I try to close the hole in the roof with old roof-tile fragments and a plank.
I prepare a place for a fire as Douwe and Burak return, after about one hour, with the news that there a houses close by.
The man in the first house didn't want us, but the second had a room for us.
So we break off the tents, mine and Rado's are full with water, we never could have slept in them.
We walk the few kilometers up hill to the houses. The house stands on GPS coordinate 36 31085 - 4162383.
There are only two or three of them. We take our muddy shoes and boots off and go in a room. We sit on the ground and start to dry a bit. The old man sits in the corner and has some conversation with the students. There is a TV with a satellite disk and this is only used to watch the Samanyolu, a religious TV station.
After a while tea is brought in the room by a woman. And there is more movement in the house as two women prepare some dinner. We change into drier clothes, I only change from shorts to long trousers. The rest of my clothes is wet or damp but this is the only way to get it dry again.
Around 21.00 a cloth is placed on the floor and the food comes in. the meal exists of: beans, burgul, yoghurt, and tomato-salad.
After dinner there is football on TV: Germany - Techie and the Huns are the loosers! The same evening play Holland and Letland but it is, god-thanks, not shown on TV.
There is a guest and speaking goes on till late. However we don't watch the football to the end and switch the TV off.
As we prepare for the night, camping mats and sleeping bags have to be brought in from the corridor.
I see, in the corner of the room, a blanket of the house-owner. I take it and roll my, still slightly, wet body in it and sleep next to the wall. I sleep in a minute but my companions are less lucky since I seem to have been snoring like hell. Especially Rado got very angry about it and couldn't sleep. Sorry, I can't help it....
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statistics
from the starting-point = 387 km
to the end = point = 82.8 km
walked today = 22.9 km
total km = 424.8 km
group-members 7
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Day 24, June 24th, Thursday: first sunny, later rainy

ASAĞI GÖKDERE - ASAĞI GÖKDERE

I woke up at 06.30. except for the dog there is nobody outside. The dog is happy to see me and doesn't want to leave me alone or to go away.
The sun is shinning and I take my backpack and hang my wet clothes to the wall of the shed.
The tent I spread out on the ground, in the middle of the path.
The others wake up too and soon we all have breakfast on the floor of the room. The man and his wife wave us bye bye ate 08.00, but the dog likes us and runs with us. We walk the way back as we came up the evening before. The dog follows us. The man near the house shouts and we try to push the dog back in the right direction but nothing helps. In the end one of us brings the dog all the way back to the house, while the man just start to drive his tractor to come and take the dog.
We follow the 'right' choice near the junction of yesterday and pass the house again, where they didn't open the door.
A man and wife, with gun, on a motorbike explain us a 'short-cut' to the second electricity central. We follow this for a while but it is the wrong path and we come nowhere, except deeper and steeper. We climb the same way up again and are not happy.
We follow the forest path and this is much longer since we see the central deep below us. And we turn many times before we finally arrive at the gate at 11.30. GPS 36 308236 - 4162476.
We have a rest in the village that lies south of the central. We buy bread and chocolate crème. After the lunch we lay in the sun on our camping mats and sleep a bit.
At the time that we want to leave a heavy rain starts. We take shelter in the shop and wait till about 14.15 for the rain to stop. We are ready to go but we have no idea where Sevgi is. She left her boots in the shop and is gone. It takes a long time before she returns. She visited a woman in the village and stayed in her house, without telling anyone where. That's useful...
We walk over a nice forest road and thunder continues in the distance. At some point a heavy rain got us in the middle of nowhere and we try to hide under a tree. Not much of a tree and we all get wet except Douwe who stands near the trunk, but in the mud.
We walk on and have a rest in a unfinished building next to the road. It is a block with apartments, but only the concrete skeleton is standing and is filled with cow-shit and straw.
Later again we come near a village with the same name as where we started this morning. It is not the same place and near it is a football field. Here we make camp, at 17.00, as the weather gets better and no rain falls anymore.
GPS 36 303787 - 4156941.
We hear traffic driving fast like on a highway. Our map doesn't show such road.
Douwe and Burak go to check the situation. They come back with some tomatoes. The highway to ANTALYA runs just behind the river.
We eat; mantar-soup and makarana! The nearby mosque provides a good set of toilets.
In the evening we make a fire and sit and talk till about 22.00.
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statistics
from the starting-point = 393 km
to the end = point = 78.8 km
walked today = 12.9 km
total km = 458.6 km
group-members 7
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