The Lycian Way Part 01
On April 18, 2023, I embark on a journey I have been dreaming of for years and preparing for the last several months. I have already mentioned the Canadian friend. She was waiting for me in Antaliya.
When I started dreaming about the trip, I heard from various sources that it would be a good idea to join different websites that promote opportunities for people who want to travel the world without having to pay for accommodation. For example, there is a site called Workaway, which connects between travelers and locals looking for volunteers. In exchange for a bit of work, they offer a warm bed and three meals a day. There’s also a site called TrustedHousesitters, which connects people who want to go on vacation but don’t want to leave their home and pets behind, allowing them to entrust their beloved ones to someone who wishes to experience local life. Oh, what a wonderful idea!
I paid a modest fee and registered on both sites. So how is the Canadian involved in all of this? She is also a member of these sites, and once, a long time ago, when she came to visit Israel, she found a home, a dog, and two cats in the village where I live. Both sites have an option to search for travel buddies, and since the Canadian is friendly, she conducted a search that included the name of my village, and my name popped up – Havatselet Arnon lives in Aviel. The Canadian Immediately sent an email, and about a month later she landed at my end of the woods.
That’s how the connection was formed. Not romantic, not deep, not complicated. Just a travel buddy. When she came, we walked in the fields, rode horses, went to a restaurant, and talked a lot, and then she left, but the connection remained. All this happened in 2019.
On April 18, 2023, I'm on my way to meet her at The Old House Hostel in Antaliya. Each of us is carrying a backpack weighing between 11 and 13 kilograms, containing everything needed to camp in the wild for at least two days: 3 liters of water, a tent, a sleeping bag, an inflatable mattress, cooking utensils, a compact camping stove, two sets of clothes, trekking poles, and more. In Tel Aviv, on the eve of my flight to Antaliya, my backpack was so heavy that I decided to leave the outer cover of my tent at home, a decision that turned out to be both wise and foolish.
And then we walk. And walk and walk and walk. I can't believe that there are such high mountains in Turkey, and that a distance that looked reasonable on the map, in reality translates into a climb of 900 meters over 9 kilometers, followed by a short flat stretch, and then another ascent of 800 meters over another seven kilometers. My feet feel are killing me. towards the end of the day, every step becomes an indescribable torment. According to the maps.me app we have, somewhere between the 15th and 17th km there's supposed to be a village with a restaurant and a place where we can set up a tent.
As evening begins to fall, we do find a few houses high up in the mountains. It's a little village. But it turns out that before May, the villages in the mountains are completely deserted. What despair. We take a few more painful steps, turn round a bend in the road, and right in front of us, like a mirage, we see three figures sitting around a wood fired oven, with the aroma of stew and baked goods wafting from it.
We stumble over to the three of them, a mother, her husband, and their daughter, and declare that we would pay any price for a stew and a place to sleep. A conversation develops. They speak Turkish, we speak English, and we understand each other perfectly. They lead us up to a terrace overlooking the entire valley we had hiked the whole day, place a baked flat bread from the oven before us along with soup, vegetables and sweet tea, and at the end of the meal, they say we can set up our tents inside the restaurant.
This is a perfect ending to the quite challenging first day of our journey.
At night, we both pray that tomorrow all paths would lead us downward.
Comments