Canyoneering in Akseki

Posted on September 5, 2013 by Bryan Keith

A couple of weeks ago I had the fabulous opportunity to join a group of experienced canyoneers for a descent of Ahmetler Canyon (Akseki, Antalya).  We ended up being 10 people.  Six or seven of the folks are members of the Antalya branch of Turkey’s search and rescue group, AKUT.  I loved the way everyone worked well together, and everyone helped everyone else out.  It really was a super group/team.

We were five men (İbrahim, Ömer, Hamit, Kayme (sp?), me) and five women (Hatice, Nilüfer, Ayla, Berrin, Elis).  İbrahim was the leader.  He’s a fairly quiet, laid-back leader.  Also, his Turkish is extremely difficult for me to understand.  I feel a little better about this since even Turks have a hard time understanding his Turkish.  It’s amazing how much he’s able to say without moving his lips.  This is certainly not helpful for me.  As a leader, however, I can see that he’s quick to accurately assess people’s abilities, knew which people might have trouble and where, and set things up so the trip would go smoothly.  Here he is on the right:

DSCN7656 by bryandkeith on flickr

My only complaint would be that no one pushed us along to move a little more quickly.  We took our time and ended up paying for it by finishing a couple hours after dark and having to do one waterfall rappel in the dark.  Our progress in the dark was very, very slow (and careful).  Had we had one additional hour of light (by spending less time at lunch or less time getting ready at the start), we could have been out before dark.

At the small bus we geared up — wetsuit, climbing harness, helmet, life jacket.  Then we walked along a road for a bit before getting to the water.  For most people this meant intense sweating in their full-length wetsuits.  I had borrowed a short-sleeve, short pants wetsuit, and the walk was warm enough for me that I took off my beanie.  Staying warm was a bit of an issue for me.  The only other one in a shorty wetsuit was Hatice, and she also got a bit cold a couple times.  While others enjoyed the time in the water, I stayed out of it as much as possible.
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The end again, in Safranbolu

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Bryan Keith

I have finished another chapter.  I took two and a half months to cycle from Antalya to Safranbolu.  My plan hadn’t been to end in Safranbolu, but I seem to be ready to change my plans at a moment’s notice.  Another thing is I had trouble keeping my energy and interest up.  I felt very energetic and interested through the Frig Yolu (Burdur, Denizli, Uşak, Kütahya, Afyonkarahisar).  But as I headed to Eskişehir and on to Karabük and Safranbolu, I found myself more easily annoyed by people than usual and less interested in natural and historic sites than I normally am.

A case in point is Safranbolu, one of the few UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Turkey (I know I’ve been on a World Heritage kick ever since going to Mexico last fall).  Arriving in Safranbolu reminded me of arriving in Kyoto at the end of a month-long tour in Japan a number of years ago: “I’ve seen all this stuff before.”  Not the right attitude to be a good tourist.

The best thing about Safranbolu was chatting with both the tourists and the locals.  Biking from village to village through the mountains is great, but the quality of conversations can get tedious after a while.  This fact surprises few people, and I enjoy these interactions more than many people.  But I started to realize that it’d be nice to get back to a city where it’s easy to chat with both men and women and talk about topics other than farming, mining, and animal husbandry.  Yep, we grow barley and take the sheep up high in the summer.  Blah, blah, blah.

In Safranbolu I talked with two guys from Adana.  It was hot.  They had walked from the new part of town to the historic part, and surprisingly they were observing the Ramadan fast.  Uff, it’s tough work when the days are so long and hot, and they were even out walking around.  I ate an ice cream and drank half a liter of water while we were chatting.

I also spoke with Elif, a student at Karabük University, who had come to spend the summer in Safranbolu to learn how to make lamps out of gourds.  They’re actually more interesting than they sound.  She quite easily learned how to do it.  It was clear with her university degree she was destined for better things.  She had dreams of travelling.  I suggested we get married and move to Mexico.  She agreed to be friends on facebook.

I guess because Safranbolu is a World Heritage Site I ought to include a couple photos.  The point is to preserve the old Ottoman houses like I’ve seen in Kütahya, Eskişehir, Söğüt, Göynük, and Mudurnu.  I think there are similar houses in Kastamonu which was the next place on my itinerary (another reason to abandon the tour in Safranbolu).

DSCN7485 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Eskişehir and some mountain riding to Karabük

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Bryan Keith

I outdid myself this time.  Kütahya to Eskişehir is 78km by the main road.  I took 24 days to cycle between these two cities.  Of course I had some super adventures on the Frig Yolu and a couple diversions in Antalya and Ankara along the way.  I’ve now cycled in over half of Turkey’s 81 provinces.  Given another year or so maybe I can get to the rest of them.

Turks sometimes ask me what my favourite city in Turkey is.  I usually reply, “Trabzon.”  A follow-up question is then: “have you been to Eskişehir?”  Uh, no (I used to say).  “Well, go, it’s the best city in Turkey,” I was repeatedly told.  Could be, could be.  In Eskişehir I stayed with Sabiha‘s nephew, Tolga.  We had met once before in Ankara.  Tolga was a super host.  He’s not a mountaineer/climber/backpacker like Sabiha.  He’s not a cyclist either and hasn’t travelled much.  He’s a young engineer working on the industrial food production machines at ETI, makers of Burçak biscuits (which Kurt favourably reviewed here).

Tolga wanted to make sure I saw some of Eskişehir and, most importantly to a cycle tourist, make sure that I ate well while I was there.  He’s a bit of gourmet, took me out to a yummy kebab place one night, and put together a super fish dinner another night.

DSCN7048 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Wild animals in Turkey?

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Bryan Keith

I have now cycle-toured about nine months in Turkey, more than in any other country except maybe the US.  Much of that time has been spent in mountainous areas cycling on small roads connecting one village to the next.  Turks often ask me if I’m scared.  What’s there to be scared of, I sometimes ask.  Yes, I know how to fix a flat tire.  Yes, I get tired.  Yes, I might get hot or cold.  No, I’m not worried about bears, wolves, wild pigs.  There’s simply very little wildlife left in this country in spite of what many Turks believe.

In Romania also there was this concern about bears.  Indeed there are bears in Romania and Turkey but not many.  The Colorado mountains and the Sierra Nevada mountains in California seem devoid of wildlife when compared to Alaska or parts of Canada, but Colorado has heaps of wildlife compared to Turkey.

DSCN6987 by bryandkeith on flickr

As far as animals are concerned, the biggest concern to cycle tourists in Turkey (excluding insects) is certainly dogs.  Dogs are a real menace in Turkey.  I’ve been bitten by dogs three or four times in my life, twice in Turkey.

A few weeks ago in Aslanbeyli (Seyitgazi), I started a typical conversation by asking which road led into the mountains.  I got the typical advice: don’t go to the mountains by yourself; it’s dangerous.  What’s there to be afraid of this time, I wondered.  Dogs, the man warned, they’ll bite you.  Wow, now that’s an unusual response for a Turk.  I enthusiastically agreed (katılıyorum); yes, what a menace dogs are in Turkey.  Oh, wow, this really ticked the man off who said no, no, no, Turks love dogs and took quite the offence that I didn’t like dogs.  That in turn pissed me off because less than minute after he warned me about biting dogs in the mountains, he was telling what great friends (dost) men and dogs are in Turkey.

It’s much more common for Turks to warn about pigs.  Indeed wild pigs commonly destroy crops near the forests in Turkey.  Supposedly it’s illegal to hunt them, but Turks send out posses in fruitless attempts to eliminate this menace.  In Artvin last summer some nights I heard what sounded like gunshots.  These are simply propane-powered noisemakers designed to scare the pigs and keep them out of the fields.

Finally one morning near Yenipazar (Bilecik) I got sight of my first wild pigs in Turkey.  I was camped down low between a small stream and a steep embankment that led to the road and the woods beyond.  I heard them first and since the fly was off the tent because of the heat, in the first light of the morning, I saw the pigs running up the embankment near my tent.  I went back to sleep.  Later that morning I climbed a pass (and crossed into Bolu) and near the top I came across two pickup trucks full of men with big guns.  They had killed 10-15 pigs that day.  I saw five dead ones where I caught up with the hunters.  From the pass I descended, climbed another pass, and camped at the top.  Again that evening pigs came by my camp.  Wow, what a day.  I haven’t seen or heard any pigs since.
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Backpacking, of sorts, in Bolu

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Bryan Keith

I don’t race.  I don’t really like races, especially when I’m one of the participants.  I ran the Bolder Boulder once.  I even got talked into the Grand Traverse ski race and then decided that anyone who would sign up for a race like that twice (Scott, Wendy) really is a masochist.

So it was with more than a bit of trepidation that I agreed to participate in DASK ADAM (Anadolu Dağ Maratonu) this year.  It was only later that I found out that the M stands for “marathon”.  I sort of tried to back out sending a bit of a cryptic message to Banu asking if the registration was already taken care of.  Oh, yes, yes, she replied, we’ve arranged transportation from Ankara as well!  She took my concern as excitement.  There was no weaseling out of it.

In spite of the name, DASK ADAM is more of an orienteering race than a marathon.  If you don’t make any navigation mistakes, it is very easy to walk the (medium-length) course at a casual pace and still finish within the time limit.  Of course that one caveat — no navigation mistakes — is the kicker.  Of the 18 teams in our category (men doing the medium-length course) six teams did not finish.

DSCN7415 by bryandkeith on flickr
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