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Day 9, June 9th , Wednesday: sunny and warm
FAKILAR - OSMANKÖY
I wake up while the rest is still sleeping. In the toilet I wash some of my underwear and socks. I hang them to dry in front of the house. Not exactly the welcome flags you want to see, but I cannot help it.
The family wakes up and the woman start to work on the breakfast. I wake up the rest with my 'Good morning call'. Metin comes in and start to speak again. After breakfast Metin, Anil and I go for a photo-session in the village. The first we meet is the father with his grandchild on a donkey I take some photos next to the house of a pile of mud bricks and a view of the village. On the way down to the village center we find a altar-type stone standing against a house wall. Many interesting details can be seen from a past period in which wood was a more important material then now. Wooden hooks on the walls for bags and wooden standards for lamps still hang on the walls. Old ploughs and other tools made of wood stand or lay in the village. The skull of a boar hangs in a tree, as a warning? Primitive hinges made of wood can be seen in barns, a wooden pointed stick carries the door and the points of both sides of the stick turn in round holes in the doorframe. Also the locking systems are made of wood. We meet a woman on the street who has a loom in her house and we are going to visited it. It is a large loom that just fits in the room. The woman shows different types of cloth made by her on this machine. But also the trousers she wears are made by herself and that is of much finer fabric. It is made on a smaller machine and with many fine strings. To produce enough meters for a dress takes only a week or two. They use the looms only for their own needs and don't want to sell anything. Anil gets a small piece of fabric to show his mother who is interested in these things.
After we come back to Metin's house; he opens his barn and takes out all kind of tools that were used in the past but are now rotting away or are eaten by the woodworms.
Back in the house I see in the kitchen a few boxes with caterpillars, these are the ones that produce in the end silk. One cocoon is made of more then a kilometer silk threat, you only have to unwrap it carefully. The animals don't stand the sun and die easily. That is why they did not want to bring one of the boxes outside for my photo. But the guest is holy.
We cannot leave without a group-photo with the male members of the family, the women were already at work. Metin shows two books on with is wisdom is based: one is a primary school book and the other the Koran. The second is a nice old one with hand painted pages. We say goodbye to him and walk the long road down hill. It must be possible to see the dam area from here but we don't see anything. On the way down we pass the first 100 km from the staring point. In general we are not doing well, it goes too slow and if this is the trend for the rest of the walk we will never finish in time. A photo is taken of the group standing on this road with a wide landscape behind them.
We have a second rest in OZANKÖY. This place is again almost empty. We find the teahouse but it is closed. Opposite it is a wooden table standing in the shadow of a large tree. Here we make with my petrol burner water warm for the tea. On the other side of the street we dry some clothes over the chairs of the teahouse. We see some very old people walking to the well to fill their jars and tanks with water. A younger man comes to speak with us but for the rest it is silent in town.
After sometime we have to go and walk towards ÇAMALAN a place not too far away. Here the houses are made with thick tree-trunks in flat roofs with earth layers as waterproof covers. We enter here clearly a more Central Anatolian sphere: the buildings are made with mud bricks and timber framework. There are farmhouses made in the village center with the ambars at the ground floor. They are visible as large solid wooden boxes, without doors and windows.
We go to the central square: teahouses, mosque and a few shops. There are here some more elegant buildings with wood cut decoration around the window frames. The bakkal is closed for lunch and the owner will be back soon. It takes almost one hour. In that hour I walk around the place and take many photos of houses. There are still lots of old buildings, most of them still in use. Here is a street with old shops, at the time of our visit all closed down.
We try to get contact with Sarp and Duygu but there is no network for our mobile phones. Today we were supposed to be at the bridge near the baraj, but we are clearly still far away.
The men at the square are all old or older and are waiting for the next prayer. Some like to speak and if there is one who knows German, then I happily give him over to Douwe who seems to enjoy that language more then I do.
As the shop finally opens we order tost, but there is no bread so we have to wait till also that is found. One of the oldies tells us the best way to the next village, a shortcut. The other road is much longer. We have to follow a road until the water-channel and then go up toward the 'White Rock' from there we go down and see KAVAK.
He brings us to the end of the village and shows us the way from a higher point. However, as ants in the dust who have the choice of many turnings and forks, we take after a short while the wrong turning. We follow the DSI water-channel. It brings us somewhere but where? At some point we turn south, that direction is always correct! We walk up a very steep hill and that goes on for quite a while. We walk through fields but without any sign of persons or houses. As we walk my eye catches again some sherds on the road. I collect some of them, but the rest is already far away so I take a GPS reading of the beginning and the end of the concentration. Again the sherds are of the Hellenistic period. When I see the rest Douwe tells me that he also had found a few sherds.
After a few rests we come in Paradise. Not that we are dead, in that case I would not see it, but the situation in nature, a beautiful group of mountains and a water-well in combination with a short-cut cornfield for camping. It is sunny and it looks too nice to walk on. Although it is still early we decide to make camp, GPS 36 326023 - 4439503, elevation 630 meter. When we set up the tents there is a problem. The corn is cut off short, but not too short and the shafts stand up like spears in the ground. When we place the tents, they penetrate through the groundsheets. It is difficult to flatten them. After a while and 5 holes in the groundsheet, the tent stands. We create a line for the laundry and start to wash our smelly cloths in the well. The well is made up of two concrete tanks next to each other and I use the left one to soak my underwear, socks and T-shirts. Soon they are covered by water-insects, who seem to enjoy the salty flavor of my goods!
After the clothes we wash ourselves in the very cold but very clear and clean water.
We enjoy a simple dinner, makarna and tuna fish, we go to bed.
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statistics
from starting-point = 109 km
to end-point = 359 km
walked this day = 14.7 km
total = 149.7 km
group members = walking 5 = touring 2
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Day 10, June 10th, Thursday: sunny and warm, later cloudy
OSMANKÖY - ÇUKURHİSAR
After packing up the road goes up and through wet corn fields in humid conditions. Anil has a bad start in such an environment.
After the climb we come in a flat area and see two villages in front of us. We walk to the left one. This is OSMANKÖY. At this time of the day there is no one but dogs. On the ground I find the head of a poppet and stick it on the frame of my backpack.
In this village the architecture is completely different then the one in yesterdays place. Some of the houses have roofed balconies above the central doorway.
We find an open shop, but without bread. That problem is soon solved as one of the villagers returns with a plastic bag full bread. We buy sweets and cakes and are stared at by a group of women waiting for a bus to bring them to another town to work.
On the way out we see an electricity post with a large stork nest on top, mother bird and her children on it.
From OSMANKÖY there is no need to walk to KAVAK. We can cross the valley towards EĞRİ. As we walk out of OSMANKÖY we pass the cemetery. Here are some decorated stones from the classical period standing, reused as grave-markers.
We go on a path that dives down in the valley and climbs steep up on the other side again and then we are in EĞRİ. It is a small village with many old houses, made with wood, stone and mud. A man shows us the shortest way through the village. We walk over a narrow dirt path towards the dam. After the next turning you can see it! That we think every coming turning. In the end we see the lake and the dam. İt is a very long lake of almost 50 km, but not so wide. We stand on circa 800 meter high and look down to the dam. Firts we can follow the road but at some point this track is gone. Gürkan and Anil find a long snake on their way. Anil is not happy to see it and Gürkan tells him to throw stones at the animal. The snake, now in a bad position, has only one way out, the same way it came in. It flashed along Anil's legs towards a hole in a stone sidewall of the road and to freedom.
Anil is happy that his heart did not gave up!
We descent the very steep hill. The others are ahead of me. We can see on our side the guard house at the end of the dam, de guard is looking at us. We see the dam but there is no bridge or road as shown on our very old map, consequently there is also no sign of Sarp or Duygu.
While the others are safe inside the fence of the dam area, I have problems going down, I twist my ankle three times and it hurts like hell. I can not trust my right foot anymore and have to go down as a very old man.
Finally I also come in and we sit with the guard, who has made a large pot of tea for us. He explains that it is good we did not came down in the dark. With our semi military clothes and Arabic scarves we look like terrorists and he shows his G3 gun ready to pop us down.
We are not allowed to walk over the dam and the solution is that we wait until the guard's lunch is brought by a minibus. Till that time we sit and speak with the guard. The heavy metal doors are for emergency only and are only once opened in the 70's. The water-pressure was that high, that a hole was blown in the opposite mountain side. Since that day they never tried it again. It reminds me of the 'Dam-Dusters' the British bombers under command of Guy Gibson, who bombed the Ruhr-dams in Germany and destroyed the industry but also drowned thousands of people.
The minibus comes and we make a tour along all the manned positions on the dam. On the other side we leave the bus in a village specially made for the water work workers. It is well organized and about everything is there, including a large shop. We buy bread, cheese and fish and have a nice lunch in the pick nick area of the settlement. Some men come to speak with us and it seems that Sarp and Duygu were here a day ago but took later a train to Eskişehire. Now they are not here.
Later the dam people bring us out of the area on top of the opposite mountain.
We walk a long road that goes straight south and slowly down. When we have a rest near SÖĞÜTCÜK, I try the telephone and have network. The first message that comes in is from Sarp saying: "we waited so long and now we took the train to Mardin!" Well, that is exit Sarp and Duygu! No camera for Douwe and no sunglass of Rado, who left anyway, and a few more things that were ordered.
Now there are really only 5 of us left.
The landscape is now flat with some mountains in the far distance. A long road lies ahead. We pass a tumulus that we can see from kilometers away.
A Jandarma car stops and they only ask who we are and what we do and with a smile they continue their road.
We have a rest and walk on. After circa 4 km Gürkan noticed that his field bottle is missing. We continue while Burak and Gürkan go back to the rest place to find the bottle. Since we came out of the mountains we see and hear fighter jets circle and dive down, making an attack run on a for us invisible target. This goes on and on till we hear suddenly an enormous noise as the plane start to fire life ammunition at the target.
Opposite the shooting range is a large village ÇUKURHİSAR. This is the end-point for today. We plan to go to the teahouse and ask the muhtar for help. On the way in we see many abandoned and half collapsed houses. I advise Douwe to change his trousers from shorts to long ones, this is only to zip the lower part on to it. We are now in Central Anatolia!
In the teahouse is only a boy serving us but no one else. While drinking tea the people come slowly in. Finally a man comes in who is the muhtar. We ask him for a place to camp and he starts to think deeply. In the end he offers us a place in a newly renovated building next to the mosque. That was the Koran-school in the past but became now the building like a morgue, where they wash the corpses before the funeral ceremony.
There is a place to shower, but the heater for the water is not tried before. Everything is very new. A few men are going to test the installation. We sit and talk to the muhtar.
After some time the men come to take us to the guest-house. They are still working but in another room but we can lay out our sleeping-bags and start to cook some food. The work on the heater finished and it works, but it needs time to warm the water. The men invite us to come to the teahouse. So after dinner Anil and I go back for a tea and a social meeting. We meet the imam, a young man and an older man in a nice grey suit. He is retired and spent his time now in his village. The village was founded by the Çerkez, but later also new groups of Tartars came to live here. It is now not possible too differentiate what the influences are in the architecture of the first or the second group of settlers.
Both groups of people come from what is the former Soviet Union and especially from the Caucasus area.
We drink lemonade and speak much more. The imam has not much to say and leaves us after a short while. The old man tells about the situation of the village; the army made the shooting range here and planes of all kind of countries practice here. With board-guns and with bombs they shoot at a small area not to far from the village. It should be safe but the noise and the vibrations are enormous. Sometimes the glass in the windows breaks but there is no way to stop it or to protest against it.
After an hour we say goodbye and return to the morgue. The others had already their showers and there is almost no hot water left. Thanks boys!
I take my shower in the room with the marble table in the middle, with a stone head-support and a sink at the end of the table, next to the table and not on it! That time may come many years later!
Fresh I go to bed and do not get disturbed by the call of the imam, both in the evening and the early morning!
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statistics
from starting-point = 136 km
to end-point = 332 km
walked this day =20.4 km
total km = 170.1 km
group members = 5
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Long empty road with a tumulus in the distance.
A rest along the endless road to Çukurhisar.
A village house in Çukurhisar.
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