Karadut
I'd travelled to the car park beneath Mt Nemru by bus. I'm sure this was just as well. It's a 12km walk from Karadut Pension and my body's not what it was. Actually, my body was never much but you know what I mean. For my return journey I decided to walk and regretted it immediately. Still, I couldn't brıng myself to stick my thumb out for a lift. Carrying on, there was only one occasion when I could cut off the head of one of those looping arches roads make when they travel up and down mountains. It's great decapitating such meanders, getting one over the wheel beasts, although this tıme I had a tough job not falling over as I edged steeply downwards over loose stones and flint.
My lying down on the side of the road after 90 minutes might have raised a few eyebrows if I'd been awake enough to notice. After my forty minute snooze I continued to a pension where I rested over a Turkish breakfast and, yet again, more bread than a non-masochist could eat. The final stretch took another hour, and three hours after leaving the mountain I was 'home'. As usual the triumphant feeling of having achieved something commendable, which I often have after completing semi-serious exercise, did not last as long as I'd have liked but was nice in any case. My legs would thanks me in coming days for the stress inflicted on them by my sustaıned knee-jarring descent. Following another snooze I had to wash my clothes by hand for the first time this trip. Memorıes of performing this awkward and regrettable experience, in South America and India, kept me company as I scrambled around on my knees and got myself and the floor very wet. As only the timing of the non-fictional could contrive, it then proceeded to rain for the first time in my seven week trip hours minutes after I hung up my clothes.
The rest of the day I just relaxed. Ambling through the village, learning some token Turkish, talking to the pleasant Aussie couple whose names I never knew. They didnt ask mine, nor I theirs and for some reason it didn't matter. Or did we ask and forget at the beginning? I forget. They were both from Melbourne and in him I at last found someone who knew where 'Stead Street' was, the street where I spent a week with my my ex-girlfriend in 1991. As an electrician he also wisely stopped me opening up my broken DVD player. It played DVD's fine but the headphone socket was broken and rattling around inside. He explained why this also had the illogical effect, well, illogical to a layman like me, of shutting off the external speakers. He told me I'd need a soldering Iron to fix it. As I was on the point of throwing the heavy contraption away, he suggested I might find an elctrician somewhere who could do the job. OK, so I'd give it one more chance. Otherwise I needed the room and it would be history.
Just like in Goreme, records were either casually taken, or not taken at all, of whatever beers and drinks I had drunk. After totting up as honestly as I could what I owed, I went to bed and prepared for the next day's departure; for Diyabakir, perhaps the best claimant to be the unofficial capital of the unoffical Kurdish nation.
My lying down on the side of the road after 90 minutes might have raised a few eyebrows if I'd been awake enough to notice. After my forty minute snooze I continued to a pension where I rested over a Turkish breakfast and, yet again, more bread than a non-masochist could eat. The final stretch took another hour, and three hours after leaving the mountain I was 'home'. As usual the triumphant feeling of having achieved something commendable, which I often have after completing semi-serious exercise, did not last as long as I'd have liked but was nice in any case. My legs would thanks me in coming days for the stress inflicted on them by my sustaıned knee-jarring descent. Following another snooze I had to wash my clothes by hand for the first time this trip. Memorıes of performing this awkward and regrettable experience, in South America and India, kept me company as I scrambled around on my knees and got myself and the floor very wet. As only the timing of the non-fictional could contrive, it then proceeded to rain for the first time in my seven week trip hours minutes after I hung up my clothes.
The rest of the day I just relaxed. Ambling through the village, learning some token Turkish, talking to the pleasant Aussie couple whose names I never knew. They didnt ask mine, nor I theirs and for some reason it didn't matter. Or did we ask and forget at the beginning? I forget. They were both from Melbourne and in him I at last found someone who knew where 'Stead Street' was, the street where I spent a week with my my ex-girlfriend in 1991. As an electrician he also wisely stopped me opening up my broken DVD player. It played DVD's fine but the headphone socket was broken and rattling around inside. He explained why this also had the illogical effect, well, illogical to a layman like me, of shutting off the external speakers. He told me I'd need a soldering Iron to fix it. As I was on the point of throwing the heavy contraption away, he suggested I might find an elctrician somewhere who could do the job. OK, so I'd give it one more chance. Otherwise I needed the room and it would be history.
Just like in Goreme, records were either casually taken, or not taken at all, of whatever beers and drinks I had drunk. After totting up as honestly as I could what I owed, I went to bed and prepared for the next day's departure; for Diyabakir, perhaps the best claimant to be the unofficial capital of the unoffical Kurdish nation.
1 comment:
Hi Jonathan!
It seems that you cannot stop travelling (and enjoying it). Thanks for keeping us informed: in a way, we are travelling with you.
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