We were again struck by what appear to be, to our western sensibilities, the incongruities of Turkish life. Two stand out. One would assume, from the attention paid to cats here, that Turks are animal lovers. Yet today we saw the friendly, old yellow lab that had greeted us with wagging tail at our usual parking spot, lying dead in the middle of the road, apparently struck by a car in the night. To our dismay, the corpse was still there several hours later. Then in the mountains, the beauty of the hillsides of pine and ancient stoneworks was marred by the ubiquitous piles of garbage. We are left with an uncomfortable sense of not knowing what to make of it all, or, whether it is our place to make anything of it all, at all.
Every mountain village has a purple house. We don't know why.
Stopped for lunch at a Turkish vineyard. Ate Menomen, a dish of vegetable and eggs and drank a bottle of the local vintage. Two observations about this. The first is that Turkish wine has an alcohol content and smoothness best likened to the national beverage of Newfoundland, Screech. The second is that plastic water bottles have been a boon to every liquid industry from olive oil to wine.
Our Turkish vineyard experience
Our host
Our booth
The afternoon was spent wandering and experiencing slices of mountain life. We picked up a smiling elderly gentleman whose suit jacket pockets were stuffed with branches. As we drove him the several miles back to his village, he explained that these were cuttings to enhance his orchard, and that he often walked long distances on similar errands. We watched men breaking apart large pieces of granite using sledghammers in a quarry that would not have been out of place during the building of the pyramids. We were facinated by the workings of a pine orchard. I say orchard because the trees are left standing and carefully pruned and cultivated, and the economic benefits come in the form of the harvesting of pine nuts for foreign pesto producers, and pine cones to be used as fuel in stoves locally.
The Turkish entrepreurial spirit at work in a roadside çay stand
There is a self sufficiency here that is enviable in a world where one's employment of 20 or more years can be eliminated by the stroke of a board room pen thousands of miles away.
Our headlong tour eased to a conclusion when our guide lost her bearings among the small rural roads, and we had to guess our way back to recognizable terrain. At this point, my ever vigilant V pointed to the temperature gauge on the car and said, calmly, "Is that supposed to be that high?" It wasn't. Sterling Heidi pulled the car over just as a plume of steam erupted from beneath the hood. Probably all that slow driving at the end of our tour. We had no time to lament our plight however, as a truck pulled over almost immediately, and our condition assessed by the experienced eye of one of the few Turks still working. Off he went to get water, and returned in moments with--you guessed it--a plastic bottle full, and we were saved.
Replenishing our radiator supply at a roadside spring
Our time in Dikili and with Heidi ended wtih a cold Efes and wine on the beach near her home, watching the sun set over Greece. We have been exceptionally fortunate to have had such an intimate introduction to the wonders of this intriguing place.
Heidi and lucky us on her beach
Our last view from Dikili. Seemed appropriate to include a fisherman.
Seems every country has it's own special poison, I remember the first time I tried Ouzo, I thought the host was trying to kill me.
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