A Story of Turkey
For Merav and Ami
KEEPING THE MEMORY GREEN
By The Outdoor Neophyte
© 2002 Elizabeth Rassiga
Sept./Oct. 2001
“A princess she was not, nor he a prince. Yet, together, they appeared a charmed couple, adventuring across an enchanted place.”
The Taurus Mountains rise across the southern part of Turkey and swing inland above the rural, central Anatolian plain. Three distinct ranges compose the Taurus, the Aladaglar being the highest and most dramatic. Hidden behind lesser mountains, one is easily deceived that they have arrived when the sacred, dormant volcanic mountain, Hasan Dagi, begins to appear in the distance. It soon recedes, however, in the rear view mirror. Over an hour later, after passing the town of Camardi, the first small peaks of the Aladag come into sight. Then suddenly, the massive Demirkazik (rising 12,322 feet) demands ones undivided attention. Formed of karstic limestone, the Aladag Range presents a jagged, intimidating and forbidding appearance, which changes, each new morning and each day’s end, to a seductive warmth, when the sun’s rays touch the lifeless stone and paint its golden-red image onto the peaks. The Turks ask the question, “Who stole the color from the sun?” Their answer is: “The Aladag.”
John Ruskin said, “Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.” It is, however, impossible to know the character of a mountain from just surveying its scenery. To gain a true sense, it is necessary to tread upon its massive bulk, to quietly perch and watch the eagles, buzzards and griffon vultures swoop off lofty crags, to discover the secret places where it hides its water, to inhale its different scents, and to run your eyes and fingers over tiny, vividly colored blossoms rooted among the harsh rock. The Emli Valley in the Aladag is the beginning point of just such a journey.
Marev, who lives in Israel,
first appeared late one afternoon in the Emli Valley which is located on the
southern end of the range. Our paths crossed, briefly, from opposite directions.
She had just entered the Valley through its narrow neck. I was returning from
a solo hike to the upper Valley where it ends in a box canyon.
The campsite, no wider than a football field, offers the widest and flattest
place in the entire canyon. Ismet, my guide had pitched the tent for two nights.
We shared the space with the last nomad Shepard to leave the high country pastures
for the season. Three sheepdogs, a flock of 500 fluffy-coated sheep and a few
goats accompanied him. All the other nomads, with their flocks, had already
migrated onto the plains. They were busy working as itinerate field hands harvesting
crops of apples, potatoes, sugar beets, sunflower seeds and gourds of every
size and shape.
The canyon walls rise sharply from the basin, anywhere from a few hundred to a couple of thousand feet. This time of year, no water, of any significance, flows through the Valley. If a single word could characterize the Aladag, it would be arid. High, on the south face of the opposite canyon wall were three caves; the Shepard man had taken up residence in the middle cave. The rocks surrounding the cave opening were variegated shades of ash and honey-beige, until, of course, the sun kissed them, each day, into a deep blush. Scraggly cedar and spruce trees clung tenaciously to the naked rock, their roots inching into stingy, limestone fissures. A primitive ladder of cedar trunks rose to the Shepard’s cave entrance, his laundry spread out to dry, in colorful patches, marked his temporary dwelling. Ismet recalled, “In other years when I came this way, the Shepard used a rope to get inside the cave, now he has a ladder.”
Below
and to the right of the cave, a V-shaped space in the rock, gave the flock a
shady place to rest in the heat of day. The sheep, each marked with a bright
orange splotch on its rump, wedged into the area. Goats, looking like attentive
sentries, stood high above the sheep. The true guardians, however, were the
ferocious sheep dogs, who lazed along the perimeter. Of the three dogs, two
were support dogs; the large, sandy-colored lead dog, wore a two-inch steel
collar with four-inch metal spikes around his neck to protect him from the gray
mountain wolves that prey upon the sheep
Emli Valley remained quiet while the sheep stood. When the flock moved to graze or to water, 200 or 300 brass bells would begin a Turkish melody of the mountains, unchanged from time out of memory.
I was dressed, as always, head to toe. Marev, on the other hand, wore hiking shorts, which made her white knee brace conspicuous. She carried an old tree limb for a walking stick as she ambled towards me. When we came within speaking distance I commented, “Looks like you are not going to let that knee keep you out of these mountains." Her face brightened with a smile and she replied, “So far, it never has.”
Probably because I was traveling alone, it did not strike me strangely that she was alone, in fact, it never occurred to me at the time. We passed; she walked on and disappeared up Valley.
That night, I was awakened by the sound of the approaching bells. The sheep, who had spent the day trying to stay cool, were now busy grazing. The ringing grew louder, and I realized that the entire flock was headed for my tent. I’d enjoyed watching them across the narrow valley all day, now they’d come to visit. After a while, my tent became totally engulfed by the sheep. I grabbed my tape recorder and placed it on the ground to record their music, set my camera to flash and unzipped the tent flap. I’d become part of the flock!
Earlier in the day, I asked if it would be all right to take a picture of the Shepard. Ismet yelled across the narrow valley. The response, accompanied by generous hand waving, was a good humored. “No, No.” Yet, the Shepard noting my interest, in an act of complete caprice, he decided to serenade me that evening. Overwhelming glee described my reaction to the “Magic Sheep Show.”
Ismet had tutored me on the behavior of sheep dogs. Anything that approaches the flock, from outside, is in peril. I, however, was now at the center of the flock and the dogs would protect me as well. Shepard man, somewhere in the night whistled, called, clicked and smacked sounds, which the sheep understood. He carried his long staff and a flashlight that he intermittently flicked on and off. A thin crescent moon dimly illuminated the sheepscape outside my tent. Extending my hand, I touched the warm, white wool of several sheep, my fingers sinking deeply. Forty-five minutes later, the flock had grazed its way past my tent.
I listened as the bells drifted far up the Valley and wondered, before I fell asleep once more, if the young woman in the knee brace would be lucky enough to hear their song.
Early, the morning we broke camp, I watched the Shepard washing his hands and face in the rock trough that collected water from a tiny mountain spring high above. Shaking droplets from his hands, he walked across the field directly to where I sat (on a rock) drinking my coffee. Without a word, he extended his hand to me, and placed four handsome acorns into my own hand. As he walked away, I looked at his present and thought, “Not all bouquets are made of flowers.”
It took seven hours to climb out of Emli Valley, over the pass to the other side of the mountain and to the next campsite. Just at the ridgeline, Ismet and I stopped to scout around a deserted nomad camp or yayla. Each year the nomads start on one side of the mountains in early spring and begin the slow climb up to the high pastures. Throughout the mountain range, stone sites, identical to this one, mark the route of the nomads and their flocks. Circles of stone with small beehive shaped ovens provide a welcome foundation over which to place their tents each year. Small bits and pieces of “stuff” are left behind as they pack up and move on to the next site: a forgotten coin, a worn-out child’s shoe, an escaped head scarf, short pieces of leather strap.
Not far from the deserted nomad enclave, stood a second stone reservoir. Water being such a scarce resource in the Aladag, we stopped to look and appreciate it. A dead bird floated in the trough. If any image could dispel the need for boiling drinking water, that one certainly would
From there, Ismet and I walked for hours, traversing straight across the mountains at an altitude of 8,000 feet. Eating our lunch of cookies, nuts and an apple, whose core I left for a bird treat, I considered what an audacious thing it was to sit, munch, stare out at the Anatolian plain across which the Greeks, Romans and Hittites, as far back as 7500 B.C., had raced, to gain control of what is now Turkey. In the distance, a particularly sharp pyramid-shaped peak caught my attention. “Oh, that’s a Hittite king’s burial site, we have many of them,” came Ismet’s reply.
About an hour from the next campsite, two figures came into view. Gradually we caught up to them. To my surprise it was Merav, this time she was not alone, but in the company of a very handsome young man named Ami. It had been two days since we first met. They had only one, compelling question for us, “Do you have any water that you could spare?” We both hauled out our bottles, Ismet’s looked clear, mine was an unappetizing shade of yellow from iodine tablets. The couple opted for Ismet’s. “We missed a water source that was marked on our map and have been walking for two days rationing our water supply,” they said. Merav’s knee was causing her a great deal of pain. We had all just walked across an enormous deposit of scree, broken rocks, on steep and unstable slopes. Both she and Ami were carrying huge backpacks loaded with everything they needed for their entire stay in the mountains.
Knowing that we were less than an hour walk from the camp, we filled their bottles and with their assurances that they could make it, we continued. At the campsite, Sobec Travel maintained an oasis in the bleak landscape…a small grassy lawn. The trekking season had ended for this site and only the cook remained to clean and pack up supplies and equipment, which would be stored, until next season, in the village below. For as long as the afternoon sun lasted, I lay on the bare grass, watching the clouds chase each other across the sky with the jagged peaks of the Aladag as their backdrop. The cook, glad for company, chatted in Turkish with Ismet while he stomped sleeping mat covers clean, in a soapy basin, with his bare feet as though he were making wine. Between exchanges, he sang snippets from an old Turkish love song about a young woman who had died: “Fatima, with cheeks like apples, get up, get up.”
After a while, Ami appeared carrying his backpack. Resting against the stonewall, he drank, snacked, and chatted with the men. “I left Merav up there to rest, I’ll go back now, walk with her, and carry her backpack down. See you.” His long legs stepped over the stonewall enclosing the camp, his figure becoming smaller and smaller as he re-traced his steps back to the young woman.
I eventually came to call Ami, “Ambulance Man.” By the time the couple arrived, Ami was much restored. Both were smiling. Ami, at one point, in a loud voice, pointed his long finger at the two backpacks and said, “I hate those things, really, really hate those things.” Ismet made the wise suggestion that he make arrangements for a pack animal to be sent up from the village below to carry the heavy packs. Turkish cell phones are great! In the late afternoon, a horseman with a chestnut brown horse appeared at the camp.
Before
the couple left the next morning, I chatted with Merav. She was rested and
ready for the very strenuous climb, up the mountain to Seven Lakes, which are
glacier lakes. For the better part of an hour, I watched the couple climb,
carrying only their light day packs. Meanwhile, the good natured animal tender
was loading the horse outfitted with blankets and a wooden saddle. Their progress,
up the mountain, was less than impressive. The load kept slipping sideways on
the horse, necessitating many stops to readjust the load. It was not clear
to me if the horse and man even knew each other. They were certainly not what
anyone would call a team.
It was another two days before we all met again. This time, like the nomads leaving the high pastures for the winter, we joined the last group of organized trekkers for the season; they were from Germany. Another Sobec cook and his assistants played host and were quite lavish with their remaining supplies, preparing a feast, in place of the usual good supper. Ami and Merav, traveling unguided, were the happy recipient of bowls of delicious hot soup. But there, the generosity ended. Ismet had worked with these men many times before. They were all good friends; we were treated to anything they had. Seated on a stump, with a cardboard box for a table, I happily listened to German being spoken at the trekker’s table in one ear and Turkish being spoken at the staff’s table with the other ear.
Realizing that the cook would only go so far sharing food with Ami and Merav, I piled my plate high with lots of everything, and once everybody was busy eating, spirited away to where their tent was pitched.
“I
brought you food. Would you like something hot to eat?” Merav looked satisfied
with her hot soup, but Ambulance Man said, “I can eat that, thank you.” Glad
to share, I caught a glimpse of Ami happily scanning the plate’s contents as
I walked away.
Later that evening the two came to visit. We three scrunched up inside my two-man tent and exchanged surface details of our lives. Arranged across the back of the tent, was an array of zip-loc baggies with everything anyone could possibly need on a trek. Ami made the comment, “I see you travel light.” I asked them if there was anything they needed. Sure enough, Merav needed sunscreen, which was the only thing I did not have.
In
the course of chatting, Ami said that his grandmother came to Israel from Uzbekistan.
Proving his point that I “travel light” I admitted that in my North Face bag,
I had a wedding dress and coat from Uzbekistan, which I had bought in an antique
shop in Urgup. I asked Marev, “Would it be fun to take pictures tomorrow morning,
in the outfit, with mountains and the beautiful light in the background?” She
laughed and said, “Sure.”
The next morning, for breakfast, I graduated from the stump and the box to the stump and the table with the German trekkers. Hard-boiled eggs, toast, butter, jelly, goat cheese, black olives, tomatoes, tea and coffee rounded out the menu. Then, it was photo time. Both of the young people were gorgeous: Merav with half-light sparking through her short copper curls and Ami with his penetrating blue eyes.
What fun we had in the middle of that isolated, inhospitable landscape playing dress up!
Finally it was time to pack up and begin the walk off the mountain.
For hours, on the way down, we talked about everything. The chestnut horse wandered off into the trees, which became thicker as we descended. The horseman would run to chase him down before he got to the point of no return. Along the way, Ami extended his arm and in a sweeping motion said, “This looks exactly like the area where Jesus was born.” Sitting on a rock, for a rest, Ismet translated for us, that the horseman was going to be married in a week. Ami bounded off the rock and threw his arms around the houseman with congratulations. Merav demonstrated better than anyone I’ve ever seen, how someone with a bad knee gets off a big mountain. She sidestepped long areas, which were particularly steep using another old tree limb for support.
Descending the mountain was delightful. Dusty apples and drying figs awaited us in the village of Barazama below. Once we arrived in the village, I was ushered up hand-hewn steps onto the wooden porch of the Headman’s house. Seated on a small wood stool, the mother handed me an antique brass pitcher filled with cool, spring water to pour over my feet. Mary Magdalene popped into my head. Although I had shouted for Ami and Marev to join us, the hospitality was extended only to me. Suddenly, they were gone…
I wish they could have spent the afternoon sitting there, watching the women take turns weaving at the carpet loom, and eating delicious olives and flat breads. But they were on to further adventures. By the time the jeep arrived to pick us up from the Headman’s house, my load was two-small-carpets heavier. Unbeknownst to me, the driver had proudly stretched one of the carpets over the back seat. When I got to the Jeep, he smiled and in his very halting English, pointed and said, “Magic Carpet, Elizabeth, Magic Carpet!”
Merav and Ami, today we meet again! Now, you can see what I saw on the mountain. If, anyone were to ask me, “Who stole the color from the sun?” I would reply, “The beautiful young people from Israel.”
Cheers,
Elizabeth