travel lightly and carry a big stick

The Da'Pigeon Code

The overnight bus pulled into Goreme at 6am. We stepped off groggy, and feeling slightly nauseus due to lack of sleep. The air was much colder and dryer in Goreme than it had been on the south coast, more like Tibet than the Med. Rather than immediately marching around the village banging on pension doors ( I felt that my hard ball haggling tecniques would be less than welcome at 6.30) we climbed up the steep side of the valley in which Goreme nestles. Fifteen minutes later with the sky starting to brighten we were standing on a cliff edge overlooking several of the wide canyon-like valleys which typify the area. On our right a squadron of hot air ballons lifted hesitently into the air and behind them the sun. The village was in front of us, consisting partly of new buildings and partly of conical 'fairy chimneys' of stone - several stories high and hollowed out to contain rooms and windows. To the left was the dramatic rocky outcrop of Uchisar, a Byzantine fortress carved out of solid rock and the highest point in the region.

The Cappadocia region in the centre of Turkey is no doubt the most memorable part to date. The land which was once flat has been spit open by water erosion creating a network of canyons and weird rock formations. Above the valleys the land is sparsely vegetated, just vinyards and occational scrubby trees but in the valleys are green pasture, fruit and tall poplar trees. For 4000 years people have burrowed into the rocks and 'fairy chimneys' creating homes, underground cities and dove cots. Millions of dove cots. Cut into cliff faces 50 foot up and high rocky outcrops. They went to great trouble to accomodate their pidgeons, even giving the fronts a nice white wash to attract the birds' attention. 'Why did they do this?' I asked every local that I could get my hands on (to Liz's increasing irritation), I just couldn't accept the answer people kept giving me, which was a shrug of the shoulders and 'they liked pidgeons'. I was incredulous, people for thousands of years built elaborate houses for pidgeons in hard to reach places because 'they liked them' !?!!?! I think not, no fad lasts that long.

It was when we were exploring one of the ancient monestries that early christians built in the area, (the area was predominately orthodox christian until the Greek - Turkish population exchanges of the 1920's) , that I got my answer. The monestry's numerous chapels are on the interior reminicent of dark gothic churches, with arched ceilings and stone pillars - only that the walls and ceilings are adorned with (now rather faded) frescos painted 900 years ago. In one of the frescos the artist had dipicted one of the monk's beloved pigeons. Ah Ha! ever the wannabe Dan Brown I'd cracked the first part of the mystery - religous symbolism! The doves weren't just 'liked' by the locals but clearly had some kind of spiritual significance. Genius. Right?

Well actually, just to prove that art is by its nature subjective, I later discover that the answer was not religion but in fact faeces and, perhaps improbably, alcohol. Yes, those clever monks shoveled guano off of the floor of their cavernous dove cots in industrial quantities to use as fertilizer on their vines. And this is how they made the region famous for its fine wine. Simple!

posted by justplainnigel @ 7:16 AM 1 comments

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 2 comments