Adventures in driving, etc.

A couple of Serkan's friends went to Nepal for a month or so, and they let us borrow their car while we are here. It's a good thing because we are staying in a little mountain hut sans electricity. However, it's been a long time since I've driven. And I don't think I've ever driven a diesel. It's a huge heavy mother of a car, a '79 Mercedes. 30 years old. It would be awesome to say that it's older than me... but alas, that is no longer true. My first attempts to drive it out of the driveway resulted in several stalls, mostly because I couldn't get the gears in reverse. Hoo boy. Now I'm a regular pro with the super hippie mobile, though. I only tried to go the wrong way down a one way street off of one of those damned roundabouts once... and that was on the first day of driving. Now I'm three days in and doing much much better. Just don't test me on my parallel parking skills... or my navigation... or my Turkçe for that matter.

It's almost too hot during the day to climb, but there are a few places in the shade, plus a cave, where we climbed this morning. I totally bit it though and fell in the worst amateur way possible: upside down. Hoo boy. This is starting to sound like my super blonde blog entry...

Gateway to Dawn

The moon has been following us from it's newness on into its waxing. As a witness to our love, Serkan will say, and we'll laugh, because it's true. It feels like our moon, even though every one across the Earth is seeing the same phase of the moon, at slightly differing hours, taking time zones into account. But not everybody is seeing the moon. Either they don't look or, in Patagonia for example, clouds cloak the moon or it's too damn cold to frollick around outside all day in a bikini. I can't remember the last time I was so aware of what shape the moon was in, every day, every night. We're outdoors all the time and the sky always near cloudless clear. In the afternoon I point it out: there she is. At night risen higher in the sky, it lights our night walks to the beach or to the Chimera natural fires always aflame in the mountains outside Olympus.

I am sitting crosslegged in the matins on a huge deck of a climber's bungalow in Geyibayiri, outside Antalya. (It sounds like Gateway to me... though that's not exactly right. The canyon is wide, but in some places you can see both sides of it simultaneously and view how, one day long ago, the cliffs fit together. There are hundreds of climbing routes only a stone's throw away and no other houses for acres. The bungalow sits among olive trees, citrus and green plums. Pomegranate trees blossom red blooms for springtime. In a few more months, during the climbing season, climbers will take pomegranate breaks.

The moon is already hidden in rotation, so that the stars actually pop. They all seem to be moving and sending their thousands-year old messages, which only the crickets can decode. But they decipher it all in cricket language, and I don't speak cricket. As the night softens into dawn, an owl scatters its coos across the valley. Somewhere a river rushes and the limestone cliffs blush with the coming sun. The crickets give way to noisy birdsong and flies like aeroplanes have already begun to jet around my head.

The Greek gods knew where to kick it.

We arrived to Olympus on my birthday. Home of Zeus. Ancient city ruins, rocky beaches with calm waters to swim in, climbing routes galore (even for beginners like me), pine forests, orange and pomegranate trees, all kinds of fruit trees, really. It's a beautiful place, all the buildings made of wood. The hostel-slash-restaurants-bars all call themselves treehouses. Before I arrived I imagined that they would be little abodes up in the pine trees, you know, like real treehouses. It's not exactly that, just some rustic rooms among the trees and limestone walls that jut up from the sea level land. Still lovely, blending in well with the landscape.

The bday was pretty low-key, mostly traveling to get here from Fetihye. Once we arrived, we showered and headed for the beach. It was already getting a bit chilly, so I didn't swim, but we walked the rocky shore and bought beers and watched the shadow of the sunset on the water. Dinner included at the hostel, another walk through town to buy some wine. Also I tried my first bubble pipe, apple flavored and relaxing.

Today we met up with a big group of Serkan's friends. Good listening to Turkish time for me. It always makes me nervous, though I wish upon wish it didn´t. But today, we drove to a nearby, less ship-crowded beach called Adrasan where we swam and sunned ourselves with breaks beneath the straw beach umbrellas. After lunch we drove back to Olympus and walked a quick five minutes into a narrow canyon to climb. At sundown we walked through the ruins of the ancient city to the Olympus beach and watched the stars come out. So nice to see the big dipper again. You don't get the big dipper in the southern hem, just the Southern Cross. Equally cool, but one feels closer to home than the other.

On the way to saltwater sun

Listening to Yellow Ledbetter in the overnight bus on the way to Marmaris from Istanbul is just as good as in the car on the way to the bars in California with Tim and Danielle. I still can't hear this song without thinking about Danielle calling the radio station and asking OMG what was that song with the supercool guitar riff. Eddie Vedder. Tomorrow morning we will wake up having arrived to sunny, calm-watered Mediterranean beaches. Sunscreen, bikinis, my elementary Turkish book, and there's not much more to say...

Istanbul Highlights...

There are so many things to see in Istanbul alone. The spice bazaars, fisherman fishing off the bridges and paved edges into the Golden Horn or Bosphorus, museums and ruins from Byzantine and Ottoman times. Serkan has been the best guide ever, and it's so much nicer to travel with someone than alone. I can't say one way is better than the other. But sharing what you see with someone rocks, and I like it more. Happy that we are traveling together. Some highlights so far...

The Basilica Cistern may have been one of my favorite spots if it weren't for the hordes of school children who entered, only about 10 minutes after we did, chatting and laughing so loudly, especially for a museum field trip, and smithereening the peace with the echoes of their yells. Teachers? Parents? They were there but apparently unable to stop the mini-riot. The Basilica is a huge underground vault held up by 336 columns. You walk down into it to the sound and echo of dripping water and holy music. It was laid out under Justinian I around 532 AD. The Ottomans hadn't discovered it for like a century after they took over, until supposedly people started collecting water and sometimes fish by lowering buckets from their basements.

Ayasofia, also amazing. Sheep friezes outside from ¨recent¨excavation. The building itself burned down twice. Originally it was a Christian church, then the Ottomans turned it into a mosque. Most of the old mosaics have fallen down and the cross tops etched in the stone have been scratched over. It´s a hodge podge of religion and now a museum, which incidentally houses the largest chandelier in the world. That wasn't on display for us, however, because the edifice is undergoing some pretty major restoration.

I think my favorite museum was the Archaeological museum with some amazing Egyptian statues, doors, pieces of wall, mini sphinxes and a ton of sarcophagi. In fact the museum´s original purpose was to house sarcophagi. Also some amazing artifacts from Sumeria, the birth of writing at its finest. Best receipt ever, carved into a tiny stone tablet: sale of four sheep and some corn in exchange for an exorcism. They evidently wrote receipts for everything. In Turkey, you don´t really get a receipt for anything so far, and since I'm not so good with the numbers, that can be troublesome. I guess it is kind of nice to receive receipts for every piddly thing in Chile, but nobody´s receipts can rival that of the Sumerians, nor will they be around for as long.