First ride

Friday afternoon we took our first ride.  It was only an hour, a short ride out and back to the ranch, so that we can release all our built-up nervous anticipation of a fortnight ride, and to get acquainted with our horses and their dynamic together, and our own dynamic as a group.  We are riding English.  I’m pleased with my horse, Kelebek.  She’s smart, sweet-mannered and sensitive.  She hardly needs any leg; I can steer her just with neck rein and shifting my weight.  Towards the end of the ride she slipped, or was bitten by a horsefly and startled, or something.  Her rear leg buckled and she swung her head sharply around to the left and half-collapsed.  It was all in a split-second and was the kind of situation where a rider can come off a horse, but I was pleased to be told by one of the other riders that I was “a natural” for staying on.

Avanos

On the afternoon of my arrival, the team of us stopped into an open-air market in the small town of Avanos, where we are staying before we commence on the ride proper.  In all my travels, I have never been to a more authentic place than that market. 

Avanos is off the tourist circuit.  No tourists come here, which means the locals have no tourism hangover, no cynicism of travellers.  These are townsfolk in rural Turkey simply buying their food at the dusty market.  There are bright red tomatoes – some torn open so you can see their quality – yellow melons, pale green squashes, strawberries, two kinds of cherries, cucumbers, corn, beans, on and on, all straight from the farms of Cappadocia.  Row after row of fresh produce gives way, oddly, to shoes.  Hundreds of kinds of shoes.  Then sacks of rustic orange and turmeric yellow spices, nuts, seeds, sheafs of dried herbs and tea.  Leatherwork.  Toys.  Barrows of twisted, glazed breads.

But the most memorable part is the people.  They are mildly curious about the presence of a tourist, but they go about their business with polite indifference.  They smile when you say merhaba – hello – and are happy to oblige when I ask to take their photo (by smiling and shaking the camera at them with raised eyebrows – such is the sophistication of my Turkish).  And the children are hilarious.  There’s no learned trepidation over strangers, here; they are wholly children, cheeky and innocent.  One little boy stopped and smiled at the white guy with the camera gear and I snapped his photo before he ran off.  Two precocious eight-year-old girls spoke English very well and playfully posed for photos by our group.  It was a really lovely, authentic thing.

Alright, I’m going!

Observations from the Sydney airport…

I’ve been a little wistful lately about leaving, but when I tried to dawdle through the Sydney airport I was abused with bad adult contemporary saxophone à la Kenny G from the loudspeakers as if the city was driving me out.  I am going on record to say it is my most hated genre of music.  How is it that saxophone can be simultaneously so John-Coltrane-good and so Kenny-G-bad?

Meet the team

I arrived in Nevşehir on Friday morning and met everyone who will be on the ride.  There are a dozen of us in total, five of whom are the organising team.  Of the rest of us, four have limited experience on a horse, so I’m feeling a lot better about being a total novice.

We’ve been getting acquainted with each other and the group is already gelling well, an important thing when you’re going to be camping and riding together for two weeks.  We’re a mixed bag: there’s a 28-year-old ex-US Navy student, a sculptor and painter, a documentary film-maker, a retiree who’s been swimming her way through the Mediterranean, and a veterinarian turned venture capitalist.

The ride organiser, Alexander, is a character.  He and his mate Marc, the team photographer, play off each other with their jokes.  Marc’s a Frenchman; Alexander is American, and speaks four languages.  The others in the organising team are from the ranch supplying the horses – Ercihan, the Turkish ranch owner, and two ride leaders: South African Susan and Brit Alex.

Noise pollution

When you get an electrician out to fix your faulty kitchen light, he doesn't provide a commentary on the gauge of wire he is using or what size amp fuse he'll break the circuit with. You trust that you hired a qualified technician and he knows what he's doing, and he shuts up and gets on with it.

So why do aircraft pilots insist on giving us updates on the altitude and cruising speed and temperature and head wind and tail wind? Yes? We're in the air, right? You can tell me when we get there, and I'll probably already have a good idea of that anyway.

Damn it!

I'm so stupid. I had a beautiful pocket knife which was a gift. For my flight to Nevşehir to meet the Relief Riders, I forgot to pack it in my check-in luggage and it was confiscated! I'm so unhappy about it.

G'day! F*** you.

I must be careful about hand signals.  One of the first things I did on arriving in Istanbul was give a thumbs-up (one thumb, that is -- Aussie for "good") to the shuttle bus driver collecting me from the airport.  In Greece and some Middle East countries (between which two regions Turkey sits) it means "fuck you."  Istanbul is cosmopolitan enough for it to be safe, but I have to get out of the habit while I'm travelling.  The other Aussie favourite, the forefinger-and-thumb circle for OK, would call a Greek a poofter.

Turkish Airlines

Wow.  Turkish Airlines hands out ear plugs, eye masks and in-flight socks to the passengers.  Who does that anymore? Clearly nobody, as I just got excited over ear plugs, eye masks and in-flight socks.  Shame their seats are garish turquoise and they make their stewardesses wear frumpy tunics.

Half chaps and jodhpurs

Well, this is going to be interesting.

Just picked up some riding gear for the trip: a helmet (mandatory) and some half chaps—zippered gaitors that fit snug around the calves.  I told the bloke at the shop I was going on a two-week horse riding trek and am a complete beginner.  His face said it all: "You sucker city slicker.  You're in for a world of hurt."

I told the bloke I just wanted the cheapest.  This ride is getting more and more expensive (fellow city slickers, don't take up riding if you're saving for a house).  The organiser of the ride suggested bringing jodhpurs (tights for horseback, like bike pants), but I told the bloke at the shop I hoped to just get away with jeans.  "An hour in the saddle—fine," he said.  "All day riding for two weeks?  You're going to lose all the hairs on the inside of your legs, saddle sores, ingrown hairs... mate, you will be ready to trade your eye-teeth for jodhpurs."

Maybe he was motivated to make a sale, or maybe he just wanted to see me in tight pants (this is where I mention the bloke was gay), but I was convinced.  Or afraid.  Anyway, I bought the jodhpurs.

Quanti giorni manca?

II have been inspired to go to Italy.  It wasn't on my original itinerary, but from northern Greece to Puglia it's quite close.  Anyway, my itinerary was so focussed on Eastern Europe that I was needing some Romance.  Italy will do  nicely.  I've deliberately left my plans open, so maybe I'll drop Romania (which was in question anyway for time) and do southern Italy properly.  Why not?  Lecce.  Napoli.  And Pompeii!  It's an adventure.