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Day 3, June 3rd, Thursday: Sunny
BEYLER - ELMACIK
After waking up at 05.00 we manage to get away at 07.00 something that start to irritate my impatient soul already. It is again the two couples that are too slow.
We follow the muddy road and seem to have been very lucky to ask for a camp last night. The road goes up, high above the river valley, with no places to make camp. After a few breaks we come to a bridge over a side river and have a break again. Douwe wants to find more cherries and walks to a seemingly abandoned house. As he passes it he shouts: "it is burned out!" I walk to the house and look inside through the burned and broken window. A man lays on a kind of bed and is looking at me. I say: "Good morning" to him and retreat quickly. He comes out and goes to Douwe. He comes back with him and sits with us on the bridge asking the standard questions like, who are you, what are you doing, why, where do you come from etc.
A passing truck brings us Alper, Sarp and Duygu, they were far behind. Behind is no reason to cheat! The second time for Sarp and Duygu.
An hour’s walk brings us around 10.30 in DOKUZLAR, a place just at the foot of the mountains. Here we have breakfast on the central square, under a large tree. Afterwards we drink tea in the teahouse. During our rest a heavy rain falls down.
This rest drags on till about 12.00 when we continue south in the direction of ÇEVRIK. While entering this place a new rain starts and we run to a building with a large open space in the middle. It is a dry but windy place to sit. A woman who lives upstairs asks us to come in, but we kindly refuse. As the rain continues the woman continues to ask and she gives pillows and blankets to sit on. After a while she asked the girls to come up and in no time we have more to eat in the kitchen of the house. This seems an ordinary modern kitchen, except that there is no furniture in it, no table or chairs or anything. So we sit on the ground and drink our tea and eat out bread with cheese, olives etc. During this 2nd lunch the rain stops, not to be un-polite we do not go out immediately. When we finally go on, the rains resumes again.
This time we step in the down pour, because we cannot loose more time. Very wet we come in the center where we buy tins with tuna fish and other things like beans, cheese and sweets.
In a long row we walk out of town and reach the E 5 at 15.29. This is the old highway Ankara - Istanbul. I recommended it as a place to leave us if you do not like it or if you have difficulties. This seems to be not the case. While the group assembles the rain stops again. We turn left to SELAMLAR where we cross the road and walk through the village. I take photos still without the film being connected.
Outside the village we reach to our surprise soon to the totally new highway or TEM (Trans Europe Motorway) which has changed the landscape completely. We cross this TEM over a bridge and are in the village of ELMACIK. After asking a few persons, we are shown a field next to the local shooting range. The field is in fact a football field. (GPS) 36 330502 4521566. Here we dry our wet items. Rado hangs the wet sleeping bag out. It will be not dry before the night....
Anil and I go to the shop in the village and drink a few ayran and buy food, sausages, butter and eggs. Later we go to the teahouse next to the football field. This is in a bush and is made of old ship containers. One container is the teahouse, the other one the toilet block. A good place for some personal washing and to have two Nescafe.
Back in the camp I have to do some blister treatment. Alper's foot has a really huge blister under it and it is cracked, but looked horrible, 'a female foot' and it is difficult to imagine that he can walk much longer like this. During the treatment of Sarp's 'water-containers' a visitor comes by. This is the local muhtar who was not in the village when we arrived.
As we want to sleep a few young men start a fire on the other side of the field. They make noise and shout all kind of bad things about us. The group becomes finally 9 men. At some point two come in our camp and when I suddenly open de zipper of my tent they run away. I dress fully and have the machete ready and wait. They continue their foolishness until 23.20 and finally leave.
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statistics
from starting-point = 27.3 km
to end-point = 441 km
walked this day = 20.1 km
total km = 38.0 km
groupmembers = 11
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Day 4, June 4th , Friday: Sunny- very hot
ELMACIK - HAMAMÜSTÜ
04.30: the alarm clock goes off. I made it half an hour earlier because we leave every day too late. It makes things not faster but at 06.30 we can start to walk.
We were explained a shortcut that would save us many kilometers! However the locals know the road and forget that we don't know what to choose when we come to a fork that has three roads starting. This happens a few times and the paths are very muddy, slippery and steep. According to the GPS we come never closer to the south and after an hour I decide to go straight south through the forest and down hill. In the near distance we can hear a dog bark, what usually means that a house or village is close by. Half way down we hit a footpath that runs along the hill and here we rest. In 1 hour we walked only 0.7 km and did not go a single meter in the right direction. We go more down and come to a stream that we follow towards the east. We arrive in SARIDERE. At a bakkal more sweets and ice-creams are bought, the owner gives us each a bottle of Link. We speak about the route and he knows a short cut! But this time he will walk most of it with us, so we cannot go wrong. It is a short cut with many very narrow paths that are almost hidden and cannot be found if you are an outsider. It goes through a very deep erosion gully and ends on a track that runs easily in the right direction. We thank the man and come soon to the asphalt road that brings us to GÖLYAKA, strange enough this place is shown on the map as GÖLKAYA. As we walk in the town we pass a school and all the children run to the fence to see us. Before they can start with: "Hello, what is your name?" we start to sing a Dutch song and pass the school before they can ask something.
While walking a Jandarma van is passing and they see the sergeant chevrons on Anil's T-shirt. They think we are a group of passing soldiers. When they discover we are not, they want to see my Ikamet. To make things simpler: I'm the only foreigner in the group, Douwe and Rado are already at a safe distance. The sergeant asks if I took permission of the Vali or the Jandarma and my answer is: "of course not!". Anil has to phone to the commander in town and after a while we are allowed to continue our walk.
In the center of GÖLYAKA we find a lokanta where I eat chicken with rice and I ask the owner if I can have a metal spoon. Sarp tells here that he does not want to climb the high mountain that is now lying in front of us. He wants to stay here with Duygu. Selen and Taylan have the same idea. We arrange that they come at the end of the next day to a place on the south side of the mountain. There is someone who wants us to perform on the local TV but the preparations take too long, so we leave with our now limited group. After HACIYAKUP I give a break again, but the boys aren't pleased with the site. It is on the road next to a dump of smelly cow dung and no shadow. This happens if you insist of not walking more than one hour (60 minutes).
The funny thing is that when we continue we pass in 100 meters a teahouse!
We find the starting point of the road to HAMAMÜSTÜ where a man has stories about the 'DUZCE Earthquake', in November 1999 that had done most of the damage. He told that on the break-line the ground sunk 3 meter deep. Some houses are still half broken off.
As we climb the road it becomes very, very hot and we don't do very well. Only Douwe and Alper, who is now in his natural element, seem to go fast up ahead of us.
We stop many times and drink lots of water. I come in HAMAMÜSTÜ and had enough of it, my lungs hang on my boots and I'm totally soaked with sweat. A man comes from a house and asked me to come in. He promises me ayran and gives me already a glass while I'm still outside looking for the box with Becel that became very oily and soft. I give it to him and he shouts for his wife who places it in the fridge. Sitting on the balcony, eating small mountain strawberries and drinking tea, I can see Rado coming up, very red and overheated in the polar and in great need for a rest. Sitting the two of us on the balcony and taking off my shoes and socks and after eating and drinking I start to feel much better. Also as time passes it gets 'slightly cooler'. After more time Anil, Gürkan and Burak come totally overheated uphill. They also come on the balcony to rest and we drink more tea. At some point we have to go again and we walk with a man who has to go in the same direction. A long walk over a long way up goes to a waterfall, a tourist attraction. We can take a short cut but since Douwe, with the bag with maps, is far ahead we cannot take that option, otherwise we might never see him and the maps again. We eat lots of sweet like 'Stars' to keep going. We pass many yayla houses on the way.
The waterfall belongs to the Ministry of Forestry and we have to pay 4.000.000 TL for a tent per night. In the large toilet I give myself a nice cold shower with a small water container and feel soon much better.
The place has a bufe where al kinds of sweets and cookies can be found but also they have a kitchen with trout, chicken and köfte. That costs also 4.000.000 TL and there we eat. However the portions are very small and not very good. We are there and it is dark already, thousands of flying things are around and on us while Alper asks for the 'easy shortcut' to the other side of the mountain. Two different persons show almost the same drawing and we are going to try this way.
In the tent I write my day-notes when Ahmet phones me. Sleeping after placing crème on the reddest spots......
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statistics
from starting-point = 39.2 km
to end-point = 430 km
walked this day = 16 km
total km = 54 km
group members = walking 7 - driving 4
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GPS Coordinates of places and archaeological sites in Turkey
