All Of Monday’s Reasons - 18
18. To Central Anatolia
Map
As we rolled on through the countryside, I noticed that the women worked in the fields while the men sat in village squares. The boys played soldiers while the girls collected water from wells. I was becoming increasingly aware I was in a male-dominated society, and with that, increasingly grateful I was male.
Night fell slowly, bringing with it a cool, moist air and a crescent moon like the one on the Turkish flag.
Rather than spend the night in the train with no food, I got off at Kayseri in Cappadocia. The town lies in the shadow of the huge snow-capped Erciyes Dagi, a mountain which soars to 3916 metres. I stepped out of the station hoping to find a place to eat and a bed for the night for the night when I heard two Frenchmen my age talking. They had rucksacks and were consulting a guidebook.
“Excuse me, are you French?” I asked in French, but like an idiot.
They said they were.
“What is there here?” I asked.
Bertrand and Jean-Luc began telling me of the beautiful landscapes of the region. They told me there were underground villages and caves in the surrounding valleys. They were fairly vague, but they had come to discover for themselves.
“Do you know where you’re going?” They asked me.
“No idea.”
“We’re going to this place in a town called Avanos. There’s a villa and the owner speaks fluent French.”
“How are you getting there?” I asked
“By bus. Come along?”
“Do you mind?”
“No, of course not. Come along.”
We walked to a small bus stop where we took a bus to a bigger bus stop, where we got on a large blue bus. It was empty so I found a seat at the back behind Bertrand and Jean-Luc.
I had no idea where I was going, but I had new companions who did, more or less, which was the next best thing. My head broke into The End by The Doors.
Come on baby take a chance with us… Meet me at the back of the blue bus… The blue bus - is calling us… Driver where you taking us?
Night fell as we rolled on towards our destination, a small village with dusty paved streets and it scraped an income fed by tourism. Avanos seemed to make a bold claim to fame for for its pottery, which was sold at a shop in every street. Despite this, there were very few tourists, and those that there were all French, as we found out when we reached the villa.
We found the address, opened the gate at the front of the house and walked up a wooden staircase into an open-air courtyard where musicians played to guests seated around them on cushions. The fifteen people were clapping along to the rhythmic sound of the baglama, a Turkish lute, and the bongos, joining in for the simple chorus. A Turkish man in his early forties got up from the audience and ran towards us.
“Can I help you?” He said in French. He had dishevelled hair and was badly shaven and he wore loose fitting plain but clean clothes.
“We’d like a room. Two rooms,” answered Jean-Luc.
The man looked painfully apologetic. “I’m afraid we are full. As you can see…” He gestured back to the guests, merrily and noisily enjoying the music with wine glasses and empty plates in front of them. It sounded beautiful.
Three started dancing. The man paused and suggested: “You can sleep on the terrace?”
He looked up at a covered deck behind us, overlooking the courtyard.
“There are carpets up there. It’s pretty cosy. Only trouble is you’ll be up at the crack of dawn. I’ll let you have it for fifteen thousand a night, including breakfast and dinner.”
Like many places in Turkey, the toilets consisted of two porcelain footprints with a hole in the middle, but it had showers and we could wash our clothes, stow our gear and stretch out. Seeing as this was only three pounds, the nights were warm and we were tired, we accepted graciously.
“Alors,” said the man, “my name is Ahmet. Welcome. Leave your bags, please, have something to eat and come back and join us.”
We climbed the ladder to our deck and threw our rucksacks down. We went around the corner to a cafe for pide, a sort of Turkish pizza, and a beer. When we returned to that day’s home, at around midnight, it was quiet. Everyone had gone to bed except Ahmet who appeared at the top of the ladder as we rolled out our sleeping bags.
“If you want, my brother is a guide in this region. He and a driver will show you around tomorrow.”
We needed a local guide to explore the region and it was cheap so we thanked him and agreed.
“Great,” he said, “breakfast at nine.”
“Thanks, mom,” said Bertrand. Merci, maman.
We laughed and we started undressing. Ahmet disappeared and we zipped ourselves into our bags and it went perfectly quiet.
I was back with companions after a hot meal, with the stars over my head and beer inside of it.
It felt good not to be moving and I lay still on my back. I looked up at the night sky.
It was an incredibly clear night - I had never seen so many stars. I remembered the theory of reality which questions whether a place exists once you have left it. I imagined that Athens was no longer there, and I didn’t seem to bother me.
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