Bathe, shave, dine and swim

Everyone on the ride had their favourite campsites, and the Bayramhaci camp at the lake was popular.  Ercihan, the outfitter and head horseman, told us we had no permission to swim in the dam but after a five-hour ride in the 30°C+ sun he couldn’t keep a number of us out.  The water was so cool and refreshing I felt reborn.

That evening Ercihan surprised us when his friend Tenzil, a barber in Avanos, arrived at the camp with his straight razor and strong hands.  Turkish barbers are also masseurs, and a Turkish barber experience is essential to know Turkey.  Everyone had a shoulder, neck and head rub and the blokes had a straight razor shave, all with fragrant oils and aftershave like mango and lemon.  Marc, the French Relief Riders photographer, was talked into shaving his head.

We had another beautiful dinner of fresh salads and barbecued lamb with beer and bottles of wine on a terrace with a view of the sunset over the valley lake.  Though it’s only a short walk up the hill from the camp, we were driven up in one of the support vehicles, a minivan.  The terrace sits above hot spring swimming pools, and after dinner we all went for a swim.

After towelling off and returning to the van we learned it wouldn’t start.  We strolled back to the camp in the dark.

It was the eve of Black Wednesday.

How not to panic

Backpacking is at times controlled panic.  Sometimes you’re running to catch a train on time or worried you’ve missed the right bus stop, but most commonly it’s the small and frequent moments when you open your pack and can’t find your mobile phone or your journal of meticulous notes.  Before rifling through your pack with adrenaline surging you have to take a deep breath and trust that you just put your passport in the wrong pocket or your wallet has sunk to the bottom.  Nine times out of ten it’s there.

On the tenth time, panic.

40 years old today

Hm.

Bayramhaci camp

We broke camp and set out at 8.30am in the hot sun.  Along the Red River we had shade, riding through farmland of wheat, squash and melons, of olives and grapes, and the rain from the days before we arrived in Cappadocia settled the dust.  To get to Bayramhaci we had to ride into the hills and over the high ground outside Saridir, a steep climb into grassland and wildflowers: red poppies, white morning glory, yellow euphorbia and blue cornflowers.  I sat tall in the saddle up the slopes and leaned forward, holding Kelebek’s mane.

Descending the mountain was equally steep, and I felt like Tom Burlinson in a tame version of that climactic scene in The Man From Snowy River, leaning back with one hand up for balance as my horse nosed her way down.

We arrived at camp on the shores of a dam-flooded valley lake after five hours.  The hard-working outfitter’s crew had already set up the tents and lunch was under way in the kitchen of the custom-made caravan. 

Via emetic

I hate Turkish roads!

Here I am again on a long bus trip – five hours from Istanbul to Gallipoli – and I am feeling sick from the constant kidney-pounding turbulence.  I generally travel well and never get car-sick, which should give you some insight into the state of these roads.  It makes me wonder how I would ever fare in a place like India or Guatemala.  Surely I’m not a travel wuss?  If I’m going to call myself a travel writer I better man up.

Relief Riders: dental camps

Relief Riders is bringing dental expertise to rural Cappadocian towns and villages.  Medical care in Turkey is quite good, but dental is not.  Announcements in the towns are played for two weeks on the radio, and word is spread through the haj, or imam, and the muhtar, the elected mayor. 

We have with us one dentist from Avanos in Cappadocia who conducts screening, and at a later date the patients will travel to Avanos to receive the treatment.  Our role as Relief Riders is to register the patients as they arrive, then usher them to a waiting room and call them as their turn comes. 

In between we socialise with them in our broken phrase-book Turkish and hand signals.  Often the children speak a bit of English.  We also have an invaluable translator with us, Cihat, a young man of 25 from the Turkish-Georgian border who studied English in İzmir and spent a year in Kansas City, USA.

We set up the dental centres in clinics or municipal offices, or whatever space the muhtar finds for us.  On this maiden Turkish tour our “fearless leader” Alexander, the founder, chairman and CEO of Relief Riders, wants to start out small and scale up in subsequent years.  In India, where Relief Riders has been operating since 2003 and treatment such as gynaecological and opthalmic care is provided in camp, staff see 200-300 people in a day.  In one record session they treated 869 people.  At our first dental camp in Saridir we saw 38 patients.

Examination

I wasn't in Istanbul today. I was in my cramped, windowless, internet-patchy hotel room studying for and taking my journalism subediting exam. I romanced a bottle of wine over dinner when I finished. Seems to be a favourite pastime.

Off to Gallipoli tomorrow, and a week on the Turkish coast.

Turks

Turks are friendly, generous, helpful people. They are even more so in the tourist parts of Istanbul because they (i.e., the shop owners) understand better than any other Europeans that tourists equal business, though it is not so cynical as that. They still draw upon their natural hospitality.
As a photographer I'm pleased at how open Turks are to having their photo taken. I generally ask first, and the answer ranges from a shrugging "of course, why not?" to welcoming eagerness.
Most refreshing of all is that there are no hang-ups about shooting kids. The innocence of children makes them great subjects, but in the West (outside Europe, anyway) there is a paranoid politically-correct protectiveness. Once, on a shooting excursion in Sydney's Hyde Park, a group of photography students and I were accosted by a father whose children, some hundred metres away, happened to fall in the range of our lenses. We were so taken aback and uncomprehending that he thought we were an organised group of voyeur paedophiles that nobody had the wherewithal to tell him to go fuck himself before he disappeared.

Buses

I hate buses, but I heard that the ones in Turkey are good.  Sure they are.  But the roads drive you insane.

I caught a bus from Nevşehir to Ankara (the ride having ended yesterday), a four-plus-hour trip, and it was like a mini-airplane: seating is allocated and ushered, there’s a toilet on board, the reclining seats have televisions, and a steward serves water, tea or coffee, and cake.  Very civilised.

The road, however, is far from polished.  It is re-patched instead of resurfaced and there is literally constant turbulence.  I have to sit in my horse-riding posture or the convulsions of the seat kill my kidneys.  The idea of a drink holder on my seat tray is absurd – my hot tea roils like it’s boiling.  It doesn’t exactly make writing easy, either!  I’m trying to recall travelling on a worse highway.  200km of this gets old fast.

A special entry for all my Relief Rider friends

Farewell my friends!  I’ve just been dropped at the bus station and am on my own for the first time since meeting you all two weeks ago.  I’m so sad to have said goodbye to everyone, but so pleased to have made such good friends.  I am suddenly missing you, but the end of one adventure marks the beginning of another.

You’ll see, of course, that I’m quite behind on my ride updates (come on Ercihan – hot showers in camp are all well and good, but where’s the Wi-Fi?!)  All subsequent RRI posts are dedicated to you all.