travel lightly and carry a big stick

A walking wander

We wandered out of the bush a couple of nights ago. If anyone had been wondering where i was, 2 -3 weeks of sweat, dirt, bush camping, squatting, non-showers, foraging for wild berries and hunting antelope with nothing but my bare hands and a keen sense of smell are now over. We’ve been trekking along the South western coast of Turkey, lugging huge packs in the blazing sun and hoping against hope that around the next corner would be a well without too many rats in it so we could drink freely. As i trudged on the broken rocks in the midday sun with the masochistic tendency that only Enlglishmen, maddogs and a particular Yankee girl can muster i often pictured myself in the shoes of TE Lawrence trudging across the Sinai, head bent forward stumbling in dehydrated semi halucination. That must be about when i wrestled that antelope. My brother Richard and his wife Enmma had joined us for this adventure, although they were mostly miles ahead wondering how far being the ‘hardened travellers’ were, while the hardened travellers wondered how far ahead the beach huts and mango shakes were.

The trail winds its way through the various ruins of the ancient Lycian kingdom that in ancient times existed in this corner of Turkey. It largely follows the coast and thus gives ample oppurtunity for running into the clear blue ocean at the end of the day to cool off. We mostly camped, when we weren’t being invited to stay at the house of a local family or sheltering from huge thunder storms in shepards huts at the top of the tallest point for miles or being chased off of beaches by enraged emaciated organic eating ‘don’t touch me i know yoga’ hippies.

The locals mostly think of walking around a coast with a perfectly adequate bus service as slightly nutty and regailed us with tall stories about the ‘bears and wild boar’ that lived in the forest. Naturally we laughed this off, up until the point that is when a large boar compete with big heavy head, Brown fur and dark main running down its back crashed its way straight out of an Asterix comic onto the forest track in front of us and hammered back into the trees on the otherside. After this the debate changed tone slightly from ‘what if’ to ‘is it beter to jump behind a big tree or climb a large rock when boars charge at you?’, ‘can boars climb?’ and ‘when the hell it boar breeding season anyway and why is our education system so deficient in this regard’

To sum up everything else, we left İstanbul about a month and a week ago now and although most of the time we have been walking we’ve also been to some of Turkeys big tourist sights and spent a week lazing on the deck of a boat on a ‘blue cruise’. We were sharing the boat with four Belgium’s who indulged their passion for mild radiation posioning while we trod on sea enenomies and snorkelled around a sting ray that i was afraid had mistook me for Steve Irwin. I’ve been told that a little and often format for my blog is more appropriate than an essay and ‘who the hell was that Nigel guy anyway?’ arrangement, so i’ll leave it there. Hope everyone is well!!!!

posted by justplainnigel @ 4:35 AM