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1 - 28 June 2004
Introduction
The walk from the North coast to the South coast of Turkey is an adventure that not many people will live. To walk 547 km in 28 days with your own possessions on your back, through an unknown landscape, with 25 years old maps that are totally outdated, in temperatures that are daily getting higher, makes you look at things in a different way.
To be a member of a group is not always easy. Especially if the group-members come with different ideas and expectations. Some see it as a few weeks of active holiday for who it does not matter how far they come, while others are very serious and keen in making it to the end.
To be the group leader is not so easy too, students are no soldiers and cannot be treated the same way. They are here voluntary and can leave whenever they have enough of the walk or me. To push them in the right way without becoming 'un-nice'; is not always easy. For example: waking up at a time when it is still dark is not fun for everyone. But the rest of the group is waiting and this type of things starts to irritate soon. Medical problems, mainly blisters and irritation between the legs makes that the mood is sometimes a 'bit' low. The blister problem is the result of no or not enough training or the wrong or too new material (or a combination of the two). The irritations are the fruit of being un-hygienic and maybe, because of the circumstances, unwashed. Also the choice of the clothing is here crucial, for example jeans are thick and narrow: the good health does not last long.
Medical care was in my hands; I was the only one with only two blisters of which one, funny enough, on top of my right foot. Most others had many blisters on the strangest places of their feet. I treated many of them mostly successful, however sometimes with less pleasant results. The 'queen of the blisters' was Zeynep, whose feet were so soft and un-used to walk, that they became in one day full of them. It was difficult to see where one blister finished and the next started. Others like Anil had blisters so deep under the skin that it became hard work to penetrate them without becoming sadistic! An electric drill would have been useful here.
Why this walk? I wanted to do a long distance walk, something, preferable, not done earlier. I walked in the past more long distance walks and have good memories of them.
In Turkey there is not such a walking tradition as in the rest of Europe and it is seen as something strange. Why walk? Often questions like: "Don't you have a car or a bicycle?" "No money for the bus?" or "I can bring you by my car!"
Official footpaths in Turkey are new, there are now only 2 of them: 'the Lycian Way' and the St. Paul's Trail'. The users are usually foreigners.
Some people think that I wanted to proof myself that I can still do this type of activity after my accident and the recovery of it in 1995, in which I broke two legs at three different places. This is not the case, but it crossed my mind as younger and unharmed people, with minor injuries, dropped easily out of the group. My age 47 at the time of the walk, was often seen as very old. In Europe much older people do hiking, up to in their late 60's. However most local males are sportive until they go in the army and after that they marry and soon get fat and lazy. At age 47 they see it as sportive to walk from the house to their car or to the shop on the corner.
The Turks always tell proud how their ancestors came from Central Asia by horse and lived, in tents, on the steppe. The present day Turk has no idea about camping and it is seen as something inferior, gypsy-like or for the very poor.
Camping is not a sign of being poor, some tents are around the 1000 $. All camping equipment is extremely expensive. Our camping equipment however was much cheaper; only 25.000.000 TL for a tent. That is about 16 $ and the result is of course that the tents are not of high quality. If it rained, it rained also inside. It was more to be seen as a large mosquito net, made mostly of closed material for some privacy.
Food is for the hiker important, without it any step can be done. We carried daily food and two days of 'emergency food'. These were usually packets with some macaroni dish. Water was needed for the preparation. The daily food was bought in the local shops or taken/given from the fields. The reality is that the fields had not much to offer. The first part of the trip we ate kilos of cherries, the only fruit available. To buy food in the local bakkal was also a kind of disappointment. First of all not every village had a bakkal. If the village is in a radius of circa 15 km from a large town or larger center, the villagers prefer to go by car to that place and buy their provisions there. That is cheaper and fresher. If the bakkal was there and open, then there was often nothing to buy for the hiker. They have all kind of items you don't want or can use. The most common things we bought were sweets and cakes. Bread is often not there since the villagers bake their own. But in most cases the villagers want to help you and give some of their own bread. There was only one person not helpful and unfriendly during our walk and that was the imam of a village near Tabaklar (see day 6). Places were you can buy almost everything are the better petrol stations. Here one can find almost everything that is needed for a hike. The only problem is that we try to stay away from these main roads and thus also from these petrol stations.
In Central Anatolia we had difficulties to camp, since there were no places to do so. It is an empty landscape with endless fields with wheat or other crops and no fresh water sources. So we had to stay in or near towns or villages. In towns we used one time a, for the summer holiday empty, school and four times an Öğretmen Evi or Teachers House.
Here on the plain the extra water rations were needed what made the backpacks much heavier. We tried to make the packs lighter and we dumped some equipment in the first Öğretmen Evi we used and I took it back a few days after the walk. These items were raincoats, sweaters etc, but also books, a chess-game and a fox-tail.
Of the second group of hikers, those who were supposed to come after the graduation ceremony, only one person came together with a re-entrée. That this number was so low might have been a good thing, since it would be hard for the Black Sea Starters to live this process of new blisters and adaptation again with these fresh starters. The Black Sea Starters were by that time over most of these problems and the general condition of them had improved very much as we noticed ourselves on several occasions.
So, of the almost 40 persons interested: about 20 were due to start, of which only 13 really walked for a longer or shorter period and only 5 made it to the Mediterranean coast.
An unforgettable experience for all, but if asked: "would you do the same route again?" my answer will be certainly: "No thanks!"
I hope you enjoy the report and the photos.
Important notices:
1)
I took my notes during the walk, but they are very basic and represent only my view on the event. The story here is based on these notes, but as seen in the text: 47 is very old, so my memory might be here and there a little wrong. If so forgive me.
2)
Turkey is a country that develops rapidly to a modern country with concrete buildings, often many stories high.
My aim during this walk is not to record this modern architecture, but the old, now fast disappearing building traditions. The materials used for old houses are: mud brick, mud plaster, wood and stones without mortar. This makes that this buildings disintegrate as soon as the buildings are not longer maintained well. This happens when the occupants move to a modern building with more comfort and the old building stands empty or gets a less honorable function as a stable or a barn.
The wrong impression may be given by the choice of my photos that only such old buildings exist and that the country is still at medieval development levels.
Ben Claasz Coockson
LIST OF TURKISH WORDS
used in the text
Ambar = storage building for grain, is completely closed, made of thick wooden planks. Is filled and entered from the top and is usually divided in four compartments.
Ayran = drink made of water, yogurt and salt.
Bakkal = small shop with groceries.
Börek = flaky pastry filled with meat or cheese.
Çavuş = sergeant in the army: in this case it is Anil.
Dolmuş = small mini bus, that fills up along the road and stops everywhere. Cheap way of transportation if you have time enough and not too much money.
Ikamet = residence permit.
İmam = spiritual leader in a village or town, connected to a mosque.
Hamam = bath building.
Jandarma = military police in the role of police outside towns and cities.
Kasarlı-pide = flat bread with cheese from the oven.
Köfte = meatballs, usually small and in many variations.
Lokanta = simple restaurant with limited choice.
Makarna = macaroni.
Muhtar = administrator of a small village unit.
Pınar = spring.
Tandır = oven type which operated from the top.
Tezek = dried cow dung used as fuel.
Tost = bread, cheese and sausage, pressed flat in an electric grill till the cheese melts.
Yayla = mountain pasture only used in the summer.
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GPS Coordinates of places and archaeological sites in Turkey
