Ruins, cats and elemental wrath

In the final book of Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, the cowboy rancher John Grady Cole falls in love with Magdalena, an epileptic Mexican prostitute. He knows his love is ill-fated, mirrored as it is by the proprietor of the whorehouse Eduardo, who is never going to let that which exists between John Grady and Magdalena flourish. Nonetheless John Grady pursues it, accepting that which is inevitably to come in his pursuit of that which he desires.

It is this acceptance of fate and inexorable looming suffering and doom that a man must confront when he plans to tour significant chunks of Turkey and in order to save time is to face three overnight buses in nine days. 

Fording the river at Olympus

Further peril threatens given that on such a tight schedule, one must weather the vicissitudes of the elements and persevere in order to accomplish that which one plans. So as John Grady defiantly did all he could to extricate his love from the thrall of a nasty and brutish existence, the Potato, Aaron, Mimi and I braved a night bus and inclement conditions such that we could sleep in a tree house and explore the Roman ruins of Olympus.

A night bus to Antalya turned into a dolmus to Olympus, followed by another dolmus down the 11km stretch to the hostel that was a stone’s throw from the Mediterranean. A slightly overcast day, we nonetheless succumbed to Potato Mike’s beach lust and hustled down in order to take a dip in the brisk, but still enjoyable water. Ogled by winter jacket-clad Spaniards who strode the cobbled shore hooting at one another and skipping stones, we swam and dined on oranges foraged from the veritable orchard that existed between the tree houses that made up the accommodation at the hostel.

Celebrating Potato Mike

 Tree house, however, conjures an image not entirely reflective of the reality of a wooden hut slightly elevated off the ground, but they are a legal necessity given that non-wooden structures are not allowed to be built in the national park that provides such a prime location for Roman ruins and summer beaching.

In the rainy off-season it is a ghost town, with the hostel at which we were staying ostensibly the only one still open and with an occupancy—beyond our little group—of two. On the plus side, included in the price were breakfast and a superb dinner, so staying here was incredibly cheap as the interim meals could be filled with oranges and wandering around and swimming was basically free.

D'aww

The evening of our arrival the heavens opened. Biblically.

The run from the common room—and its robust heater—to the dorms was fraught with the peril of unknowably deep puddles and slippery rotting oranges, and the rain did not relent the next morning. Finally, after lounging around all day there was some small abating of the elemental fury after midday, but the previously empty riverbed was swollen and chaotic. Given that the ruins we had hoped to visit were on the opposite side of said riverbed, it was troublesome. We bravely forded it at a low point, only to discover we couldn’t walk down that side to where we wanted to end up, so we had to cross back over and attempt to switch banks at the beach, where the river usually ended in a large pool separated from the ocean by the sand.

The beach at Olympus

Today this was not so. The overflow had churned a channel through the sand and into the ocean, turning the usually crystalline water of the Mediterranean into a murky mess of sediment and currents. This channel proved too deep and strong to cross. Stupidly I decided to try going for a swim to see how hard it would be to get across through the ocean.

See, in the ocean there is a shallow entry before a sharp drop off that is usually quite pleasant for swimming as it means you don’t have to head out too far before you can float with impunity. Today, with the tide higher than usual and some winds, it meant that the usually tranquil foreshore now produced some nasty waves which sure enough upended and almost depantsed me as I tried to brave them.

Walking the flats at Pamukkale

Having watched and filmed my dramatic entry and exit of the waves, one of two Spanish men, clearly needing to match my display of machismo, decided to have a swim too. This was a manly swim session filmed intimately by his companion, replete with cutaway shots to our huddled and incredulous group.

Defeated, we retired to the hostel for some dinner and, with the power down due to the storm, wiled the night away watching movies and drinking.

The ruins, once we finally got to see them, were quite spectacular if only because this is the only time I have seen ruins almost unadulterated in situ and without oodles of touristy signs and the other attendant shenanigans of money making.  One simply walked off the riverbank and followed the loosely perceivable paths through the forest until you hit stone relic.

Entrance to the forum, Ephesus

The next overnight bus was to Selcuk, but not before a tragic scene was to unfold: Potato Mike was going home. At the bus station at Antalya we had a tearful parting, commemorating the Potato’s leaving in the same fashion as we had celebrated his being with us: by taking a series of unflattering photos of him.

As the Potato moved irrevocably away, Casablancaesque, Aaron, Mimi and I continued onwards to more ruins at both Pamukkale and Ephesus. We arrived at Selcuk in the wee hours of the morn and managed to grab one hour of sleep before it was time for a three-hour train ride to Pamukkale through some driving rain.

 

Gotta shit, mate

 Holding out against hope for the rain to end at some stage, it duly didn’t. Looking to catch a taxi or Dolmus up to the entry point to the ruins both to save time and preserve our precious dryness for a few more moments, we responded to a call from the bus office. It was here that we were fleeced, the scurrilous man who claimed to be the brother of the owner of the hostel we were staying at—a kind and helpful man, unlike this man entire—charging us 30 lira for a taxi ride the distance he claimed would otherwise take us 90 minutes to walk. Further, he said that this was a necessary evil as the ruins themselves would take hours to traverse. With only 4 hours of sunlight, we agreed this sounded necessary.

One kilometre later we were unceremoniously ejected from a strange man’s car at the entrance to the ruins, feeling violated. To add insult to injury, the rain continued to pelt down on us for the sub-2-hours it took us to see all the ruins we could appreciate as well as time to have a little sit down and bemoan not as much the money fleeced, but the principle behind it.

Ephesus

Sodden and becoming slightly forlorn at the misfortunes of the day, we were wrenched out of a potential slough of despond by the walk down the calcium flats that are so famous and which cover the front slope of the hill upon which the ruins are situated. The product of the mineral deposits of a hot spring that one can swim in for an unsightly fee, to walk them you must be barefoot and in the blistering chill we scampered as ably as one can from hot pool to hot pool en route on our descent.

About halfway down the hot pools became lukewarm pools, and close to the bottom, cold pools. Pink-toed, drenched to the bone, and with an impenetrable fog setting in, it was a peculiar brand of delirium that saw us attempting to fasten shoes with unresponsive fingers as two dogs emerged from the mists and loitered around us.

Sahlep in and old man teahouse

 After chain eating our way back to the main bus station in Denizli, at last we had a stroke of luck, finding the train to be heated to a most welcome level. So we commandeered a section of it, draping our various accoutrements over all the vents and at last starting to feel warm again. But this reverie was broken as an irate ticket instructor insisted we put our shoes back on for no discernible reason. Like the rebels we are it was an edict unfollowed before the exhaustion of the day saw us pass out.

The good fortune of this restorative train ride followed into the next day and our planned trip to Ephesus. Sunlight and only a ten minute Dolmus were a most pleasant change from the previous day’s effort. More ruins, however, offer little by way of compelling narrative. On the plus side, we did stumble across Ephesus-cat, part of a long series of Aaron’s cat photos around Turkey. Soon, however, it became apparent that what we previously thought to be the sole cat of Ephesus was but one of many. This was not a bad thing, though, as it provided Aaron endless photo opportunities and amusement.

Yes.

 At last it was time for the final overnight bus back to Istanbul. At one stage during this passage Aaron and I awoke to find the bus on a ferry, which was quite unexpected. Apparently we were crossing very close to where the Gallipoli landing took place. Incidental tourism, why not?

Back in the big smoke Aaron and I met up with Andrew of Goreme fame. Following him and his couchsurfing friend, we ferried across to the Asian side of Istanbul to go to a couchsurfing gathering. It was here that I spent the night convincing people that Aaron was a professional surfer nicknamed The Barrel Smasher.

Folks were friendly, one handing out complicated cocktails of vodka, cinnamon and lemon and grapefruit juice to all and sundry, but the boons of generous hosts were soon forgotten as we became privy to the odd Turkish rule that alcohol left in the fridge is up for grabs. So our sequestered beers were liberated by some folks more aware of local custom than us.

Cold-induced delirium

 Also at this gathering took place the following exchange as Aaron and I stood talking and a strange girl walked up to him:

“I know you. We’ve met before.”

“No we haven’t.”

“Yes we have. Maybe in your dreams.”

“Maybe in yours.”

Exeunt

I am still unsure of what took place.

We rounded off our time in Istanbul wandering around Taksim for a couple of days, sampling the last on my checklist of foods. Sahlep, a viscous hot drink like a chai latte but sans milk—instead thickened with orchid tuber flour—and Kokorec, an intestine sandwich, were both funky delights. We also partook in some rice pudding back in Selcuk that was more like custard with a few bits of rice floating in it that jiggled almost obscenely.

Hanging with Ephesus cat

 When we sampled the sahlep Aaron and I at last found ourselves in a quintessential Turkish old man café. The women and children were all in a heated area outside, well quarantined from the old men with their chai and boardgames and own space for man business.

Fatigued from too much kebab and so forth, we did some hostel cookery, putting together huge meals of dahl, raita and various veg, feeding many for gratis and almost convincing one hardened carnivorous hostel worker that vegetarian food can be fun. We also spent one boozy evening celebrating our shared weeks in Turkey at a metal bar that blasted 80s thrash all night.

Finally it was time for the grand parting of ways. Andrew and I were due to catch flights, his to New Zealand and mine to Sweden; Aaron was off to Greece, and Mimi was sticking around for a bit longer before heading to the UK. In the wee hours of the morn it was a tearful farewell before I was gone.

Exploring ruins at Olympus

With discarded cigarettes smoking like flares against the nascent day’s starless darkness, I waited on the bus in the persistent drizzle to get to the airport. The man in front of me had a Rorschach balding pattern that reminded me of an anteater.

My only recollection of the three-hour flight, through most of which I slept, was peering out the window during the descent and seeing a lone cabin in a forest of identical snow-clad trees.

In the airport the bathrooms smelled like IKEA.