MELAS VALLEY______Coffee House Lodgers Day 9___Mentesbey-Akseki-Antalya

Happiness!

Three mountaineers on the beach

Volkan Balik, highly recommended

Our first beers hold a special place in our hearts

Our breakfast spot at Akseki

Last day of the tour was going to be spent with bus and plane rides, but we made sure to leave some room in between for the end of journey celebrations. Going first to Akseki, and taking another bus from there to Antalya, there was an unspoken aggreement about what we were going to do once we set foot in Antalya. We took a seat at the very first bar we came across and ordered cold beers. We had been fasting from alcohol for the last 8 days, both because of the difficulty of finding it along the way, and also to let our bodies recuperate, but after those 8 long days we had deserved every sip of that nice cold beer. We had a toast honoring the beautiful look of the Mediterranean, and found the sea inviting us in. We couldn’t possible turn that invitation down, therefore went straight down to the beach. When we went into a private beach run by a hotel with our huge backpacks and mountain outfits looking quite shabby, all the heads of tourists laying in their swimsuits on beach chairs turned toward us naturally. Much like Superman, we went into changing cabinets with our mountain outfits and came out with swimsuits. We were overjoyed from both concluding a journey filled with beautiful memories, and swimming in the sea. We had completed the sea and beer session but not yet the celebration. Because throughout the hardest moments of the journey when we thought we couldn’t go any further, thinking that it all was a big mistake coming there, and was feeling like screaming out to the mountains in protest there was one thing that kept us strong, the tought of which alone kept us going: Raki & Fish! (a combination with an immense cultural background in Turkish society). There was a casual but pleasant raki&fish place I remembered from my days living in Antalya a few years ago. I led the way to the restaurant, but found it closed since it was still quite early in the day for such serious drinking. But finding it closed was actually a favor the universe was doing us, as it took us to another restaurant just down the street that turned out to be even better. In the heavenly garden of a restaurant named Volkan Balik we had the freshest fish and the tastiest mezes (Turkish tapas), while filling our lungs with the anise seed smell of raki. Now the mission was complete, we could return to our homes happy and content…

MELAS VALLEY______Coffee House Lodgers Day 8___Aksahap-Mentesbey

Breakfast at Teacher Vahit's

Via Sebaste

When the village gets within the eyesight Bambina gives "that was a piece of cake too" look

Getting our share from a prosperous pomegranate tree

A beautifully renovated house at Mentesbey

Mentesbey guest house

We woke up in the best of the spiritS the next morning, because we were invited to teacher Vahit’s house for breakfast. After spending many days on the road without a shower and covered in mud, we tried to minimalise the sharp odor radiating from our bodies into the atmosphere by changing into the cleanest clothes we had. Teacher Vahit had prepared a complete breakfast table with piles of food including eggs, which we hadn’t had for the past week, had toasted all the bread and brewed tea. Since we were all well educated and well behaved people we supressed our wild instincts to stuff our mouths with the food and slowly started eating. Whoever finished their plate went on to fill it with more food with such grace and nobleness. Finally we finished everything found on the table down to the last piece of olive and were feeling full and content. Teacher Vahit, Uncle Kemal, and Mr. Erdener accompanied us through the village and we said our farewells hoping to see these nice people again. When we had climbed half way up on the slope we could still see them down below on the road. After waving each other one last time we heard Teacher Vahit’s voice telling us “Don’t get scared, don’t get scared!”. First we couldn’t make anything out of what he was saying but the sound of gunfire revealed what he meant. Hunting crazy Teacher Vahit had brought his rifle along with him and wanted to fire it in our honor, but thought it would be better to warn us city kids beforehand so that we wouldn’t piss our pants. After this warm farewell we headed over to Mentesbey village, which was going to be our last leg due to our days running out, even though there were still more to complete the whole route. When we reached the village we had the first parting from the group. Ali and Asena caught a ride to Akseki to return home. The rest three of us decided to spend the evening at the village and get on the return journey the next day.

Mentesbey village was no different than the other villages with its quiteness, but had a much finer and elegant look thanks to a recent renovation done by a wealthy family on many of the old houses, which used to be famous for housing many judges in the Ottoman period.  After a unfruitfull walk in the village to get ourselves invited to a house for dinner, we returned to the guest house to eat whatever was left in our backpacks. We first were happy to find a stove and gas cylinder in the house, and started preparing soup and tea, but soon the whole kitchen was smelling of gas that was leaking from somewhere we couldn’t quite figure out where. A person of average intelligence would immediately turn the stove off and cut off all the connections with the gas cylinder, but I had a stubbornness ten times my intelligence, so insisted on getting that tea brewed. When I finally gave in to the pleas of Benoit and Gamze going over to turn the stove off, the tea that I almost gave my life for was already brewed. (e.g. “to go bananas!”)

MELAS VALLEY______Coffee House Lodgers Day 7___Uzumdere-Aksahap

Aksahap village

Two artists together, Uncle Kemal and Bambina 

Wooden artwork of Uncle Kemal

A stone sculpture by Uncle Kemal 

Coffee house committee, from left to right: Teacher Vahit, Retiree Erdener, Mountain man, Uncle Kemal, Tea-man, Halil

Sunlight was not only waking up the earth that morning, but also the warrior woman laying deep inside of Gamze. Maybe not her knee but her determination was replenished by the morning as she decided to continue with us. (I feel that I owe you dear readers an explanation about this treacly language I’m using. It’s all the fault of Emrah Ozkok, the author of the book Melas Canyon. Even though the book was very instrumental in bringing us on this trip and guiding us through it, small articles he wrote in between each section of the book, titled “From Guide’s Eye”, cracked us all up every night during our reading out loud sessions, and with its super sentimental, heavy literary language, left deep marks in our souls and minds.)  After celebrating Bambina’s decision with a happy dance, she and I took on the responsibility of bringing bread to the table this time and went for a walk. After not recieving any response from the only house in the whole village with some noise coming from it we were returning to the teashop in dissappointment when a sweet old lady stuck out her head from a door and told us that she couldn’t recognize us. After explaining her our holy mission, we brought the subject to some bread and tried to get a feel of her stash. She told us she only had two loaves of bread, but we weren’t going to settle for that much of course, we wanted it all. After grilling her a little we were finally assured that she really didn’t have any more. Along with some tomatoes she put in the bag she send us our way with all her charm and sweetness.

We spent the day walking from Uzumdere to Aksahap. Despite the splendor of nature lifting our souls throughtout the journey everyone’s except for our youngest member Benoit’s knee was hurting, making it difficult to continue. We were exploring new walking styles to put the least pressure on our knees, trying everything from acrobatics to ballet. Finally our experiments were fruitful and Ali discovered a walking style that he named “penguin walk”.  On the final stretch to the village we were doing our penguin walk, laughing hard, and thinking of what the villagers may think of us when they see us arriving in such a way. Luckily the person greeting us when we arrived was someone who wouldn’t judge us by our walking style. This pure hearted young man’s name was Halil and he probably was the happiest person I have ever seen in my life. His mental disability didn’t stop him from spreading joy around him and sharing one story after another. Along with reenactments he was performing, he was living the stories over and over again. When I call it a story, don’t take it as a made up one. He was telling us about a true event that took place in the village the day before. There was a murder in the town and when the cops came to arrest the murderer Halil was caught up in the middle of all the action and naturally was deeply affected. The second person we met in the village was a retired man, who had been living and working in Istanbul most of his life, but now together with his aging mother was spending his retirement traveling between Aksahap, Istanbul and Antalya. He took on the responsibility of being our guide in the village. With him leading the way, our operations manager Asena, Ali and I went first to the tiny grocery store and empied the shelves, then stopped by Mr. Erdener’s house to complete a few missing items we needed before returning to the tea house where we were to spend the evening. While we were gone Halil had kept on telling stories, but by this time his attention focusing more on Gamze, he was performing various tricks to show off his strength to impress Gamze in a very sweet and naive way. Before we came on this trip a friend of Gamze’s had read her fortune from coffee grounds (a very popular and common thing in Turkey) and had told her about a potential lover she would meet on this trip. First we thought it could be Ozkaynak Mustafa, who had left a message on Susuzsahap facebook page requesting a nightclub in the village, but now seemed like it could be Halil that was destined for Gamze…

After settling in at the tea house, Asena prepared a delicious bulgur dish for us. She made it so tasty and abundantly that everyone went for the seconds and for the first time on this trip we were truely feeling full. While we were having dinner the grocer’s son stopped by and kept talking about the mushrooms he got poisoned from a few days ago and almost died, his school and village life. We finally were getting all the attention and care we had been craving for all throughout this trip. Off course one has to be careful about what one wishes for. The visits that started with Halil and grocer’s son Metin continued with the city man Erdener, retired teacher Mr. Vahit, artist Uncle Kemal, hunter Duran, the reeve and a few others that I couldn’t catch the name or occupation of. With so many visitors I took charge of the tea house, serving everyone their tea. I got so wrapped up in being the tea guy that I was about to start charging people for the drinks when we figured some fresh air might help to bring me back to my senses. We walked over to Uncle Kemal’s house to take a look at his artwork.  Instead of playing rummikub at the tea house all day, Uncle Kemal was spending his retirement days by creating wooden and stone sculptures. His artistic soul was reflecting off of his talk and work, which came as a pleasant surprise to find in this distant small village. Once the committee consisting of the villagers and us returned to the tea house, seeing how sleepy we were and having mercy on us, the villagers kindly took leave and let us rest. 

MELAS VALLEY______Coffee House Lodgers Day 6___Emerya-Uzumdere

Emerya village

Old school classroom at Emerya

Still smiling, not knowing what's waiting for her ahead

Suspension bridge leading to Uzumdere village

Don't be fooled by the smiles, the game is boring to death

In the morning we were eager to leave that place as quickly as possible, but as armies don’t march on empty stomachs we needed to have breakfast first. We had run out of our most important food item, the holy bread, so Asena volunteered to go out and hunt for some. We were trusting her warm smile and sweet words but it was Emerya we were faced with, therefore an unspoken uneasiness was apparent in the air. She came back shortly afterwards with bread, but told us that it was no easy task. She first got turned down by the woman she came accross asking for some bread, and not having success with her sweet words she decided to bring out her secret weapon of words of fire, scolding the woman for leaving us starving, and finally achieving success on bringing bread to the table. We figured it must be the full moon the night before, wrong positioning of Saturn and Mars, and the radioactive waves radiating from the sun interfering with the magnetic balance of the world that caused all this mishap we experienced at Emerya, so we left the village only to return someday and embrace each other with the villagers feeling nothing but love.

We had another tough leg ahead of us. Our next destination Uzumdere wasn’t very far off, but we were to climb up and down some very steep hills, and even though we were going to be able to cope with uphill climbing with small breaks here and there, steep downhill walks with heavy backpacks were going to take their toll on our knees and put the rest of the journey in danger.

Getting close to Uzumdere there was just one last hill we needed to climb to reach the village situated on the higher part of a mountain side. No matter how difficult the walk might be, once the village gets within the eyesight range the rest feels much easier. With an extra boost of energy, we started climbing straight towards the village and by the time we realized that we had swerved from the marked road, the village seemed so close.  Therefore even Benoit, who always had been very particular about following the marked road, said “screw it”, and just as we almost reached the village all in a sudden we found ourselves looping around it and climbing even higher to a fortress sitting on the very top. When we reached the top cursing about our mistake, the view we found made it all worthwhile: high, lush green mountains resembling the ones found in Easthern Black Sea area surrounding the valley, an impetous river running through it and a village nestled on a slope. Gamze got teary eyed mainly from the spectacular view, but also a little from the pain on her knee. We were deeply affected as well, so sat on a bench put on the roadside and savored the moment and the view. Walking down to the village we met with Asena and Ali (they were a little behind of us on the trail and had followed the correct road, reaching the village before us), and started looking for the reeve. Even though in a typical village in Turkey all the townspeople would be willing to host, feed, and meet any other needs of any guest, because of the few aging people left living in the villages we passed by, we had to deal with the reeves for our needs. The reeve arranged the tea house for us to stay in. On top of meeting our basic needs of a heater and a kitchen, it also was furnished with such luxury items as an LCD television and a rummikub set. After dinner we decided to play rummikub to liven up the calm village night. Learning and playing rummikub, which Benoit hadn’t done yet, was the final and most crucial step in the asimilation process of him into the Turkish culture. Already a Turk more than the rest of us with his raki drinking, belly dancing, and heavy smoking before he quit, he quickly adopted into the game and started a showdown. We were playing our second hand only, which to us seemed like the 20th, when the reeve stopped by to see if everything was fine. His eyes brightened up when he saw us playing rummikub. I sensed that he wanted to join when I noticed him making comments about everyone’s hand, his fingers itching to be touching the pieces and his whole body wiggling with excitement. When I stood up to serve some tea he accepted my offer before I even put the question mark at the end of the sentence. He wanted to show us how it is supposed to be done by slamming the pieces hard on the table. After a game or two even the reeve’s desire waned off from our absolete boredom with the game. As he left the place we immediately left the game. Meanwhile Gamze decided to leave us the next day to go back to Istanbul due to her knee pain getting worse in the evening. She had made a decision, but she wasn’t aware of the amazon woman living within her yet…

MELAS VALLEY______Coffee House Lodgers Day 5___Susuzsahap-Cevizli-Emerya

Our breakfast consisting of fresh quince, pastrami, olives, cheese with herbs and soup

Handy Benoit at work

Woke up to a misty morning at Susuzsahap

Nature was on our side, directing us the right way

Our mushroom expert Gamze photographed all the mushrooms from the smallest to the largest

Rivers were wild, forests were dense, but none of it could hold us back

so that's what getting enlightened means!

In between Cevizli and Emerya

Had to crown our night walk with a selfie

Rain had started again when we woke up in the morning. It was possible to sense a hidden intention of everyone wanting to be lazy and spending a day here taking advantage of the comfortable house. By the time we had a short walk in the village and had breakfast it was already noon, and it was time to make a decision. We either were going to risk it and hope that the rain which had stopped by then wouldn’t start again, or were going to spend yet another day laying around. Don’t know how, but little monsters within us woke up and got us moving. Even though the longest leg of the trip was ahead of us, we decided to go the distance we could, and stay wherever we ended up. After a short walk we reached Cevizli town, which was the largest in the area with its grocery stores, restaurants and gas station. As if they all knew we would be coming (more so because of it being Monday and all the banks and government offices opening) all the reeves and tea-man of all the villages we had passed on the way were there in the town square. Every 10 meters we were running into another one of the reeves, greeting each other warmly and chatting for a little while. Seeing that, townspeople were getting curious about who we were, and were giving us questioning looks. We were tired of eating dry bread and cheese for days and just the sound of a stew or soup was enough to get our hearts beating faster.  Asking around a little, we found a nice restaurant and devoured all they had from green beans to chickpeas. Benoit also liked their rice pudding a lot (and insisted that I mention it here). After a quick consideration we decided that if we moved fast enough we could reach Emerya village just in time before the nightfall.  Even though we ended up crossing a river ten times whereas it was mentioned as crossing it just twice in the book, the leg between Cevizli and Emerya featured the most beautiful scenery of the trip to that point. Worrying about it getting dark we moved quickly without enjoying the view as much as we would have liked. But the night was quicker than us and had already started covering over the 30th East Longitude. We agreed with Benoit stating that no hiking trip is a true one unless there’s at least one night walk, and arming ourselves with headlights we kept on walking while searching for the marks in the dark. Seeing five gleaming heads in the distance, and probably thinking to himself “these stupid city kids got lost again”, we heard the voice of a shepherd calling us and directing us to the main road.  We soon reached the village and called Mr. Duran right away with the expectation of a warm fireplace, pots and pots of delicious food, and a whole lamb getting roasted in the yard all waiting for us. But every word coming out of Mr.Duran’s mouth over the phone felt like another stab in our hearts. He had some business in the city, so wasn’t there, but he was going to be calling the reeve to meet us. We hadn’t lost all our hope yet, perhaps we would need to forget about the lamb roast, but it was obvious that Mr. Duran was an important figure in town, and we would be hosted the best way as his guests. After a 15-20 min of a wait the reeve arrived and without elaborating much, in short he told us that the village didn’t have any facilities for us to stay at, but he could let us in the old school building if we wanted. Trying to hide our tears of despair, we had no choice but to accept the offer. It’s hard to put in words the devastation we felt when we saw the old school building. With its doors and windows broken, a room of bare walls with all kinds of bugs and reptiles roaming around, without any stove or toilet, it resembled more of a prison cell of the 19th century. With his breath smelling sweet with high levels of alcohol he was in a rush to get back to his drinking table, so left us alone (not even offering a drink) with our broken hearts and crushed dreams. We quickly went to sleep, to forget about our unfulfilled hopes and this miserable evening. 

MELAS VALLEY______Coffee House Lodgers Day 4___Suleymaniye-Degirmenlik-Susuzsahap

Degirmenlik village

Coffee house owner of Degirmenlik

Access to the mosque is via a bridge over the water

Beautiful fall colors

Happiness of arriving at Susuzsahap village is apparent from our faces

Preparing dinner with sauteed meat and cheese at Susuzsahap guest house

Enjoying thyme and sage tea made from herbs we collected 

Red is in fashion this year

 After enjoying the goat cheese and tomatoes the reeve had brought, we got on our way to Degirmenlik village following the directions given by him. Just like the lack of a sense for time and distance, villagers’ directions can be quite off as well. Using our common sense, knowledge of constellations, sense of smell and instincts, we soon found our way and reached Degirmenlik in no time. As usual we headed directly to the tea house for a break, and as had been the case all throughout our trip we were greeted warmly by the villagers and treated to all the tea and coffee we drank. An old woman had come in vain from another village to sell her goods because everyone had left the village to take advantage of the sunshine after long rain and pick mushrooms in the forests. The comment she made about us after finding out that we had left all our comforts in the city to come and walk in the mountains with heavy backpacks on our backs put a smile on our faces: “you got all the money, but no brains!”. After leaving the village we had to climb a mountain covered with oak trees on the lower parts and spruce trees on the higher altitudes. We had just reached the top after climbing slowly with breaks in between when Benoit realized that he had lost his glasses.  After a short panic period the two of us decided to go back and look for it, leaving our backpacks behind while the others rested a little. I was to go in front quickly while he followed slowly from behind and searched more carefully. When I went halfway down the mountain I thought I had heard my name echoing in the mountains, but when I got no response to my reply I figured it must have been the high levels of oxygen rushing to my brain making me reach a state of nirvana and hear voices from the universe, so I just kept on walking down the mountain.  After going all the way down in 20 minutes which had taken us an hour and a half to climb, the phone starting ringing and I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or not with the news I got. Benoit had found his glasses and gone back to meet the others, and they were just now able to call me because I had taken Benoit’s phone with me on the way down. While I was climbing up the mountain again the only consolation I could give myself was saying if Sylvester Stallone can still shoot a Rambo movie at the age of 60, I can climb this month twice…

We reached Susuzsahap walking through golden leaves of autumn, and wild horses running around freely with all their beauty. Out of custom we stopped at the tea house and somehow Ali and a villager started a conversation about religion and Islam. Ali’s questions were fueling the villager’s passion, and soon he started slaying all the infidels with his sharper than a sword words. Because of the comments and questions coming from the group he declared Ali a christian, Benoit jewish, and all the villagers of Suleymaniye (our previous stop) converts. Soon he attracted the lightening bolts of Zeus Benoit, and finally left us alone after recieving a lesson of a lifetime answer from Benoit. Luckily we were getting served by a goofy tea-man, and soon were laughing hard once again. After working in textile industry in Istanbul for long years he decides to return to his village and starts operating the tea house in which he has no previous experience. And that inexperience sure showed itself with every single one of our orders arriving wrong at the table, so after a while we just gave up and drank whatever we were served. When the reeve arrived we were taken by surprise at first, because he was not only the youngest person we had come accross all throughout the trip, but also was serving as the reeve of the village. He told us his story about losing his job in the city and moving back to the village, and all the projects he had in his mind for the village, fueled by the dynamism of his youth. His first and foremost project was resolving the water problem of the village, of which the village had earned its name from (first part of the name Susuz means waterless, arid, and the second part means falling star. Arid falling star village!  quite a pretentious name for a village). Leaving the tea shop we came accross a well known personality in the area , Uncle Hese. He had spent all his life hunting in the surrounding mountains, and had stepped his foot on every single inch of them. He was even futured on a documentary made by the state TV station (TRT) about the No Return Mountains (Giden Gelmez Dağları). But now he was of the old age, was having hard time walking and was using a cane. When he told us to walk those mountains in place of him, we accepted his request gladly, feeling a little sorrow. When we arrived at the guest house the place seemed like a mansion to us after our nights in the tent and a deserted school building. We were to stay like kings with a kitchen, bathroom, wood stove and couches in the living room. We fired up the wood stove right away and not realizing our dreams of getting invited to someone’s home for dinner, we cooked ourself a delicious meal on the stove. After the meal, encouraged by the heat radiating from the wood stove, I decided to take a shower with ice cold water after 4 days of being on the road and not showering. But the others were determined on not showering for 8 days (which was going to be hard to endure for those of us clean ones, meaning just me! Just joking of course). Benoit’s phone started ringing just as we were stretching our legs and relaxing, and it was Mr. Dursun on the phone. Benoit had met Dursun, who was living in one of the villages on our way, through the author of the guidebook we were using for the trail. We initially had thought about hiring him as a guide, but then decided we could do it on our own. Mr. Dursun was calling everyday to check how we were doing and where on the trail we were at. We were quite happy with his attentiveness, and were looking forward to be finally hosted in a village home with delicious dishes, and were even thinking that we could finally could have the lamb roast we were dreaming about since the beginning of the journey. Counting sheep jumping over the fence, and then roasting them, we fell into a sweet sleep…