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| Degirmenlik village |
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| Coffee house owner of Degirmenlik |
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| Access to the mosque is via a bridge over the water |
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| Beautiful fall colors |
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| Happiness of arriving at Susuzsahap village is apparent from our faces |
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| Preparing dinner with sauteed meat and cheese at Susuzsahap guest house |
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| Enjoying thyme and sage tea made from herbs we collected |
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| 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…
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