Day 5, June 5th , Saturday: Cloudy - rainy

HAMAMÜSTÜ - ILICA

After waking up early we start to climb the mountain path. It goes very slow and we do about 1 km in one hour. This goes on for a few hours and finally we come totally soaked of sweat near the forestry station, a location promised by the drawn maps of the people yesterday night. Heavy rain starts to fall. We get tea from the forestry workers and make our own soup and some eat cans with beans. The weather gets better again and we take the next part of the short cut, a stretch closed for all other traffic. The road goes through a wonderful nature, and it is here that I notice that photo 36 of the roll never comes! So I place a new film and say a few ugly things in Dutch. A reddish snake is seen along the roadside, but it escapes between the stones.
With the new film in the camera I take some photos of these mountains and our group-members on the way up.
When we come to one of the bridges promised on the sketch maps, the boys want to wash their clothes. In the river the first used socks and T-shirts are cleaned. Burak is here very slow and washes everything very decent. Just as the cleaning is done the rain starts again and we all take our raincoats and backpack-covers. After a few minutes the rain is over and we have to take the coats off again. In a short time it start raining again and the whole dressing show repeats. Again it is for a short while. I don't care the rain anymore and walk without raincoat, this is much better. Finally at 12.30 the first yayla houses appear; they are made of wood with a cover of plastic sheets. This must be very warm and damp inside. This camp is at GPS 36 331933 - 4502063.
Cleverly I ask a man if we can use his table for lunch and it is OK and he comes with food. This is bread made of corn and a very green slimy substance made of nettles. Rado gets a large part of the green stuff over the trousers. As the tea arrives Anil gives Rado a glass and places it on the table cloth, but the planks of which the table is made are uneven and the glass topples and all the very hot tea ends up in Rado's trousers again. Rado is not pleased and runs away under while shouting strange sounding noises.
The Yayla-house is just re-made, these people come from HAMAMÜSTÜ on the other side of the mountain. They come every year and have always the same location for their 'house'. I walk around the camp and the people are very shy and hide as they see my camera.
We laid out our wet clothes and all the time a few young cows want to eat our possessions or want to lick the sweat from the T-shirts.
The man explains the route, we will go flat and down. At this time Douwe finds his first blister!
When we walk we go up to 1390 meter, in other words not so flat. It is a very nice area and it is very green and full with trees.
Near the highest point is another yayla here we speak again with the locals and take water in our now empty bottles. As a woman and man herd cows the mist comes in very fast and in no time there is nothing to see anymore.
On the south side of the mountain a long and boring path goes fast down. It takes forever since Alper becomes now very slow. Also Anil and Gürkan have some problems. Contact, by cell-phone, is made with the others in the village of ILICA. They have rented a house for one night where we can sleep all together.
The way down takes till about 19.00 and at some point I walk in front and see two water-buffaloes. I take a photo and the woman who is with them becomes very angry and starts to shout. Why is not clear, she is not in view. Douwe and I walk first in the village which is very nice with lots of wooden houses and storage buildings. A heavy rain starts and we take shelter on a balcony of a house. The people of the house bring us on a tractor to the bakkal where the others are already waiting. They have rented the house for 40.000.000 TL, but when the owner, a woman, sees all of us she want much more. Of course we don't want to pay more. Also drinking of beer on the terrace seems not too good but in the end we do it.
When we arrive there is limited time left to go to the hamam. So we hurry and it is for me the fist time in a hamam. It is a very old building of what they say Byzantine times. It has a hot water pool in the middle and many taps around with hot and cold water. It's a bit very hot for me and I stay half an hour and feel very clean. I have a shave too.
Everybody is very tired and Douwe even cannot drink his second beer. We go to our rooms and I sleep in a room with Anil, Burak and Gürkan. I roll myself in a blanket on the ground and sleep immediately.


===============================================statistics
from starting-point = 52 km
to end-point = 416 km
walked this day = 13.8 km
total km = 67 km
group members = walking 7 - driving 4
===============================================

Day 6, June 6th , Sunday: Sunny and warm

ILICA - TABAKLAR

We wake up late and don't leave before 08.00. We walk first over a steep hill and come then in a town that is not on the map. It's the result of the earthquake in 1999. Here we have to leave Alper behind, since he became so slow that we have to wait already after a few hundred meters. He can find a bus from here to Bolu and leaves in great spirit but with a bad foot. 11 of the 13 left. We walk on and live a great moment of group processes, when they want to buy some food in a shop. This simple action takes more then half an hour. We walk along the Mudurnu Çay and take a photo of TOSUCAN and turn south towards CINLER where we find water but nothing else. Here I take some photos of a house and a courtyard. Selen has problems with her feet and during a rest I punch my needle in a few blisters, but it does not get better. A photo of a barn in SAMSAÇAVUS . During a rest, in probably HACIMUSALAR, Selen and Taylan decided to go back to Istanbul. A last photo is taken and we leave now with a smaller group of only 9 persons. When we leave the village I see a water-mill and we ask to see the inside of it. Some local boys open the door and for most its the first time ever that they see such a mill in reality. We go south again in the Direction of TABAKLAR and ÇAMURLUK. Its starts as a nice valley like in the Toros Mountains. Slowly it goes steeper and higher, although its is already around 18.00 it is still very hot. We come to a village that is not shown on the map. The only person we see is the imam. He does not want to be helpful and clearly does not want us in the village. He tells about an abandoned village a few kilometers outside on our route. It is not far and there is plenty of water along the road. The bastard is lying and we can not find the village and we have not much water. We decide to stay on a hill top in the middle of a field. Lost of insects and not much water, we use our extra bottles. We cook, eat and go to bed.

===============================================
statistics
from starting-point = 72.2 km
to end-point = 396 km
walked this day = 23.8 km
total km = 91.6 km
group members = 8
===============================================

Tosunlar

A farmhouse in the tiny village of Cinler.

The afternoon rest in Hacimusalar. Here we lost two more team members.

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A last photo of Taylan and Selen.

The road from Hacimuslar to Tabaklar,easy first but steep in the end.

'The camp of the imam' Thanks to that man we had no water and no good camp site, it was almost dark and there were losts of insekts.

Map Day 5

Photos Day 5

Climbing the mountain road near the Unluktepe. The weather was changing every ten minutes from sunny to rainy and back again.

Our çavuş, Anil Uludağ

Washing the dirty clothes and dry them on the backpack. Don't wash more then you can dry...

A lunch offered by a farmer on a yayla. Rado gets more over the throusers than in the stomage!

Alper and Gürkan walk to the top of the Pürenlitepe. According to the farmer we had to walk down, he didn't count the part to the top as important.

A woman and her cows on the highest point, almost 1400 meter. a few seconds later the fog would cover everything at this yayla.

Two buffalos and a shouting woman in the bush.This happened just a kilometer before Ilica.

Entering the village of Ilica in heavy rain.

Douwe in front of the old Hamam, where most of us cleaned ourselves in the very hot water.

Map Day 6

Photos Day 6

Alper has to leave us, because his blister became too bad. It is the biggest blister of this trip and it became a wound. It slows Alper too much down.