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| 4th week: from Çakraz to Çamlıhemşin |
[Susanne writing ...] Our itinerary takes us from Çakraz along the coast. Our
travel books talk about an area “with no guarantee for sunshine”, “cloudy” and
“rain certain even in the summer”, but none of this seems true, the heat and
endless sun keep us sweating and looking for places to swim wherever we can.
The beaches are wild, usually no hotels; nor beach-chairs or sun-umbrellas,
usually it is just a bay, surrounded by rocks where we jump in the water. Landscape
changes rapidly: different rock formations, sand beaches, stony beaches, HIGH waves,
calm water – not all of them where made for vacation leaflets, but most of them
had something of paradise. Mostly locals and a few tourists from all over
Turkey can be found here, but almost no one from abroad. Though the whole list
of German license plates from the Ruhrpott can be found on the streets, GE
(Gelsenkirchen!), BO (Bochum), DU (Duisburg) etc, you name a city from the Ruhr-area
I am sure we have seen it somewhere on the road: Turkish families coming to
Turkey in the summer to visit their families, all of whom we meet very friendly
and helpful.
[Begin of Torsten's include]
... and all of it's sudden at one of the lovely beaches Antonia learned to swim! ;)
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| She does really great after 2 years of water absence. |
When travelling the Black Sea Coast
so far a dream was born: we should do it again by boat. Johann loves this idea
and we keep on dreaming together ….
[End of Torsten's include]
When we approach a beach I always check the bathingwear of
the women present: Burkinis (a kind of ful body sportsuit with always matching
chique headscarf) can be found beside women in bikini or swimsuit. I want to
make sure not to be offensive with my European swimsuit, but all fine, enough
non-conservative-local people are always present and I can join with my
red-white-dots-swimsuite all the time. The water is crystal clear and warm, a
real pleasure. In the meantime we have developed a sort of routine with our
solar-black-bag-shower, to wash off the salt. Sunsets in the evening are
spectacular.
As family on tour we are getting more and more into a
routine. In the morning we have breakfast, wash the dishes, clean the floor,
get everything ready for departure, everyone doing his or her share. Ok,
sometimes there are discussions, but usually this part of the day goes well.
Paul has adapted to the new situation, nights are getting calmer, except when
mosquitos keep us busy. He is still very impressed by singing Muezzins from the
Mosques and he starts imitating them. Sitting on one of the windows he shouts
“Allaaaaaaahhhh” and the rest of the crew is rolling on the ground!
We start checking in the evening to find a place far from a
mosque since the early morning singings can be really disturbing. Funny thing:
usually all singings are taped, starting with beep-beep-beep as if the Muezzin
has to log-in somewhere and at the end there is again the beep-beep-beep and a
hanging-up-the-phone-sound and we know: it’s over. Antonia requests that they
should return to real people singing.
Torsten drives the narrow slopes (barely wider than a car –
and no, we are not a car) over some hundreds kilometers on the coast, around
every corner there is another marvelous view. This ends in
Sinop from where the
road changes into a four to six-lane highway directly built at the coast;
sometimes even passing water left and right hand. Unbelievable how all the beaches
and nature that must have been there where whipped away for road construction.
Sinop is a nice old town on a peninsula, as the most
northern city on the coast line it was used by US-military during cold war to
scan Soviet radio transmissions. Some 50.000 people live here, most of them in their
vacation apartments. We stay for the night at the coast as usual but find out
pretty quick that there is already someone living here: thousands of mosquitos.
Johann gets eaten up so terribly, that his whole back is covered with bites …
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| @Sinop: poor Johann! |
We decide to get our bed sheets washed in Sinop. After
almost four weeks of sleep in pretty warm nights they need some soap&water…
With the help of some locals we find a laundry shop where we are told via
google translate to be back seven hours later to pick up our stuff. In the
evening when we arrive we find the owner of the laundry writing music notes on a
paper on his desk and asking him he points to his
Bağlama hanging at the
wall. Eventually he starts to play the old traditional instrument for us.
We walk into the oldest Hammam of town, an oriental bath,
like a sauna. It is still being used by the locals but we are allowed to have a
look since no one is there at the moment. What a nice experience to see the old
marble massage “bed” in the heat, the kids are impressed, but we all leave the
place very quickly. The heat outside suddenly feels very cool… ;-)
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| @Sinop: peninsula at night |
We leave Sinop in the dark heading further east and find
after passing some dirt roads a nice place directly on the beach with a nice
view of the illuminated Sinop peninsula. We don’t get far with our pajamas when
we see police arriving with blue-red-light-flashing. Armed with some machine
guns they ask for our passports and after some friendly google-translate discussions
they escorted us back (sill with blue-red-light-flashing) to the next village
kindly asking us to park for the night in the middle of the market. The officers
were very friendly explaining that legally we could stay, but they do not
advise since the place is a known place for “drinking parties” and therefore
dangerous (at eleven at night no one was there…), none of them spoke English,
but my impression was that they just did not know what to do with us, we did
not fit into any of the categories of usual suspects. For us that meant to keep
on driving, by that time we were all pretty tired. We found finally a place
close to a restaurant with a big wedding party going on. Maybe the son of the
mayor got married there, whole families on tractors arrived to join the party.
We didn’t mind, being too tired to be bothered …
J.
The music created a lovely sphere to fall asleep.
Sometime later we visited Samsun; what an interesting visit
at a historical place of Turkey! In Samsum Kemal Atatürk declared the war of
independence on 19
th May 1919 and later the new Republic of Turkey.
Samsun perishes this past with a theme park at the coast, where wax figures of
all people having been important in the fight for independence can be seen as
they leave the ship “Bandirma” with which they had arrived in Samsun that day.
In the Atatürk-Museum we can see a fully furnished office; sleeping and living
room of Atatürk even the bathroom with the original toilet paper makes part of
the museum! And photos of Atatürk everywhere, even in the streets. We learn and
read about this man and I must be honest it is very impressing to see what he
achieved in such a short time and what deep cultural change he brought to the
Turks. I am touched by pictures where Atatürk poses with young women at a
University, all of them looking so brave and convinced into the camera.
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| @Samsun: Wax figures showing the arrival of Kemal Atatürk |
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| @Samun: Kemal Wall |
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@Samsun: "For everything in the world, for civilisation, for life,
for success, the true guide is science.
Seeking a guide apart from science means ignorance,
illiteracy and unconsciousness."
Gazi Mustafa Kemal, Sept. 22 1924 |
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| @Samsun: Picture in the Museum, where women celebrate Kemal Atatürk |
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| @Samsun: Workplace of Kemal Atatürk, when he arrived at Samsun |
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| @Samsun: Toilet of Kemal Atatürk |
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| @Samsun: memorial of Kemal Atatürk |
In the evening we visit a copy of the Atatürk-ship Bandirma
and then we have enough of the cult around Atatürk; that place gets with shown
canons and rockets and other weapons a bit too militaristic for my taste.
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| @Samsun: in front of Bandirma-Ship |
The
heat also pushes, so we leave Samsun to find some nice place at the coast to
sleep. We end up in the delta of
Yeşilırmak in
the ancient area of the
Amazons!
Oh gosh, now I know why on drawings they almost wear nothing, the heat and now
joining a humidity of around 80% is almost unbearable. Well, some hundreds of
kilometers further they are growing rize, tobacco and tea (all of it we saw the first time growing) at the coast so we are
trying to get familiar with the thought that this kind of weather is not going
to change anymore until Georgia…
There exists one
MERIAN
booklet about the coast of the Black Sea in German and we have so far followed
almost all hints, tips etc. Other travelbooks give the region only a couple of
pages. In
Giresun Merian
leads us to
Mustafa Patar and his Angels
Hair hazelnut-Baklava that melts on the tongue.
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| @Giresun: tasting Angels hair at Mustafa Patar |
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| @Giresun: the statue in the background caries hazelnuts |
We are back in Nutella-Country,
hazelnut trees wherever they grow. It is almost harvest season and we see tent
camps of Kurdish workers at the outskirts of the villages and cities. Just like
in the textile industry it is the old story of a big industry making a lot of
money with its product and the last in the chain getting the least, working under
indescribable conditions. This year apparently farmers await a good harvest,
the trees are full with nuts – unlike 2014 when a single cold night in the
spring destroyed 50% of the crop.
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| Machine to do somethin with hazelnuts ... |
In Ordu we reach 100% humidity as we experience the first
rain drops for a couple minutes on our journey. It cools a bit and we hang out
in our Emma, to play a bit and sleep a bit.
In the evening we leave the city to find a place to park
directly at a beach with the kind help of a grocery owner named Hakan. He speaks
no English; but I am so lucky that at the moment when I come in to buy some
bread a neighbor can help out with his English. And another lucky thing: after
days I find the first beer in a refrigerator in the shop, it is cold, expensive
and a real treat after a hot day. We have seen so far no restaurant that served
beer since we left Bulgaria, we are getting used to drinking Ayran all the
time… ;)
Further driving on the coast we reach Trabzon. Since we
don’t find a place to stay for the night we drive on into the mountains and
park on a camping near the
Monastery Sumela. On
the campground we meet three brave Australians in a little 56hp-Nissan Micra,
with the plan to drive this car in a rally to Mongolia. We have nice chats and
take cool pictures with our expedition cars. ;) Please support the good cause they are driving for
here!
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| Team of Hop Skip Jump @ Mongolia Ralley (Please support them here) |
From now on we are alone with (and part of) the crazy
people: less and less western-european tourists by car are on the streets, it
is just too far to drive for a vacation. If we meet Europeans they usually
drive four-wheelers packed for a world tour ;-)
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| we are not teh only ones: passing guys from Poland |
The monastery of Sumela is an old Greek building hanging on
the shore of a mountain, with great view. Since 1923 it is empty. Back then the
Greek monks had to leave and migrate to Greece in the
big
exchange of people between Greece and Turkey that was decided after
Turkish
Independence War. So the buildings and paintings have suffered quite a bit,
today the place is used as a meeting place of religions, but overall it is a
nice day-tour for all Turks being on vacation in the area. Literally traffic
jams queue towards the parking place. We take the steep hike and enjoy a great
meal at the shore back at the river afterwards.
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| Monastary of Sumela |
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| Monastary of Sumela |
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| Monastary of Sumela: happy campers |
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| Monastary of Sumela: destroyed fresques |
We have read that in the little village of Hamsiköy they
serve the best rice-pudding in whole Turkey due to the Alpine-Cow-Milk. So we
decide to go there, arriving at a height of around 1300 m. It’s a bit like in
the Alps, green grass and farms tucked to the steep mountains all around. This
reminds a bit of Switzerland and funny thing: here it is reality what scares
the hell out of Swiss right wings: mountains, farms and in between everywhere
the minarets of the mosques… ;) Just like a poster of the anti-minaret-campaign in Switzerland a couple of
years ago.
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| @Hamsiköy: like Switzerland, just with minarets |
Back at the coast we travel on to
Rize being excited about the tea
that is grown there and we are not disappointed: tea, tea, tea until the last heights.
Not knowing where to park we decide to drive up the steep (!) mountains and eventually
find a little village to park for the night. What a great experience it became
in the end! We ended up driving up winding small streets, Torsten doing its
best driving. Everywhere at the side of the road big bags with the green leaves
of the tea waiting to be picked by a Çaykur-truck.
Çaykur is the state-run fabrication of tea
in Turkey, they roast the tea and sell it.
We knock on the door of the house next to the parking and
look into the faces of three women, one older two young, apparently mother and
daughters, kids are also around. We thank Allah for google translate and feed
the thing with our questions, then pass it to the ladies to type their answers.
After some doubts they are convinced that we can stay and eventually end up
visiting the inside of our car with the rest of the village. ;) Sometime later a pickup
arrives and like in a minion movie, young people jump off the car storm around
the caravan and wait loudly chatting in front of our door, apparently our hosts
had told them that there is a caravan to visit.
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| @Rize: nightly visits at Emma |
There is a lot of laughter when
they all come in, Pauli cuddling and some English. It turns out to be a great
evening of Gastfreundschaft! Later on our hosts bring us a plate with delicious
(!) food that is gone in a minute.
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| @Rize: delicious food from our hosts |
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| @Rize: 5 minutes later. Pauli has eaten it! |
When returning the plate I sit with the
ladies for some tea in their kitchen. We talk about children, being married,
tea, work, skin lotion, whatever we manage to explain to each other. A very
touching evening. Our worlds of living are so far from each other, but being
women, having kids, being married seems to be something universal and always
worth to talk about. ;) And last but not least everywhere we come I am congratulated for being mother
of three kids… And its always Paulis eyes that get a lot of attention.
[Torsten continuing …] Next
morning starts with an unexpected invitation for breakfast. Unbelievable how
many tasty food they put on the table!
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| @Rize: unbelievable breakfast |
Our host escorted us through tea fields
with his car on the hill top and we drank a last cup of tea together. We were
so thankful to meet them!
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| @Rize: view from our rear window over hills covered with tea plants |
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| @Rize: hills covered with tea plants |
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| @Rize: more of it |
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| @Rize: tea farmers harvesting tea |
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| @Rize: view over site from the hill-top |
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| @Rize: harvested tea leafs waiting for transport |
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| @Rize: harvested tea leafs waiting for transport (cont.) |
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| @Rize: harvested tea leafs are put on trucks for fermentation |
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| @Rize: enjoying a tea together with our host on the hill-top over Rize |
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| @Rize: Pauli observing the tea leafs |
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| @Rize: Pauli in action |
After a warm good-bye we headed on along the coast
and used one of the public water taps to refill our water tank and washed some
clothes. A survey of opinions turned out to be slightly in favor of a detour to
Çamlıhemşin.
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| @valley of Çamlıhemşin: typical wooden houses |
In preparation of our journey we saw a
lovely
film about Turkey on
ARTE where a young
guy was shown who continued an old tradition by placing bee houses high up in
the trees. I remembered the name of the village (Yolkıyı Köyü) and we took the chances to find
him. Surprisingly on our first attempt we succeeded. Emma climbed up on a
narrow path for about 600 meters and turning many hairpin-curves we reached some
houses with people, who were quite surprised/impressed by our arrival. The people belong to the
Hemshin. I started to tell the story and
showed on the iPad the documentary which we saw. Believe it or not, after I
mentioned the name one of them took his cell phone and all of its sudden
appeared the Murat, the guy we saw in the film. He kindly welcomed us and a
neighbor from Istanbul spending his vacation here translated for us. They
showed us the bee houses in the tree tops and gave us honey to try. We hiked
and chatted for about 3 hours. Pretty surreal! Johann and Antonia heavily
impressed about the climbing guy.
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| @Yolkıyı Köyü: checking with Murat Duman for docu on ARTE |
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| @Yolkıyı Köyü: do you discover the bee house? Look at the top of teh tree ;) |
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| @Yolkıyı Köyü: heer you go |
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| @Yolkıyı Köyü: like, gold - just tastes better; a lot better! |
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| @Yolkıyı Köyü: chatting about the tree honey |
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| @Yolkıyı Köyü:Pauli gets treatment for mosquito bites |
Even though it was already late we decided to
go down into the valley, since humidity and mosquitos did not invite to stay
for the night. Emma did an incredible job and sometimes had to manage
differences in height of more than 1m (!)
among its wheels (not quite sure how that physically works, but it did)
and the crew did not say a word when our cabin was hanging over a 100m edge,
while I was maneuvering back and forth to get around the hairpin-curves (having
always one eye on the pressure of the brakes). When we arrived in the valley
little Pauli released a breath of relief and continued sucking on his milk
bottle (yes, he still kills enormous amounts of milk and our blood pressure
keeps going up when we do not find any remaining milk carton in our limited
stock :( -
in the meantime he also discovered Bananas, which can only be replaced by
Köfte; I do not feel comfortable
imagining when we come to a place without milk, bananas or Köfte :( :( ).
We started looking for a place
along the river and found one an island. In the dark I used the occasion to
take a bath in the river, which felt simply incredible!
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