Day 80 (Turkey): Gurun - Darica (”don’t stay in the next town”)

today’s distance: 78km
total distance: 5195km
riding time: 4-5h

As promised, Shule (this is as close to the English spelling I can get, for the German speakers, it sounds like Schule) picked me up at 7am and off we went with her nephew to Gökpinar, a beautiful lake about 10km up the mountains to have breakfast. The color of the lake is quite astounding, but see for yourself.

Breakfast was great. We talked a good deal about how her life as a teacher influences her ability to live together with her husband (it’s tough right now) and also that while they may be married on paper, no one really knows until they have their wedding ceremonies (that is two - one for each family so they don’t have to travel; the more the better I guess). They are both teachers, her husband in Erzurum, a good 500km away and so they don’t get to see each other too often. Schule actually grew up in Gurun, but they are planning to move to the Agean Sea in a couple of years when both can apply to be moved to a different location. Apparently doctors have it much worse, teachers are only tied to one place for 2 years or so, doctors and nurses for 10. Sounds like a killer for a lot of relationships (though not all).

We then drove at high speed through town to a canyon, took a quick look as she had to be at school at 9am.

So I was going to leave at around 10am I thought, but that wasn’t to be. The director of the teacher’s hotel had other plans for me. He wanted to videotape an interview with me, following another one he had done with the deputy head of the Turkish military who is apparently from Gurun. I am following in big footsteps. The idea was that it shold be inspirational for students. So Shule had to come back to do the translation - lots of fun questions thrown my way (e.g. What makes Germans so successful despite losing two world wars?, but also other things like whether I had any advice for Turkish schoolchildren in how to succeed in life. Nope, not really, but I played the part.). Apparently this was all borne out by the fact that the director was impressed by my future job [question #3 the previous day] and my age [question #2 the previous day]. This whole interview was a lot of fun though and I got a copy on my USB stick. I will have to see what to do with it - maybe use part of it in the next video.

So I eventually left Gurun and headed for the road. It was slow going at first, I  could feel the previous day for sure. U will be happy about this as he - fresh on the heels of M & M’s offer to donate the km of one day in about a week - has promised something similar today. Thanks a lot for contributing!!! The road was flattish at first, but then the first of two climbs came up, temperatures considerably higher than yesterday, reaching the low 30s C.

A quick break in Darende was followed by a more serious climb, which was a bit of a struggle. Halfway up, I was invited for tea, an invitation which I gladly accepted. We chatted about this and that in German and French before I moved on. Just as I was heading out, I was warned of the next village - people are no good there they said. This made me more curious than anything else. The promised 3km of uphill turned out to be 10km almost by the time I got to the top (there was a five minute discussion about this which made me a bit suspicious), but the area was quite amazing.

On the downhill I saw the town people had warned me about and I was going to stay either there a bit further up the road. As I came down the steep hill, I realized that something was missing. The minaret. Made me wonder a bit …

Needless to say I was invited for more tea as I wanted to buy my stuff for dinner. The first guy spoke German, then another and as it turned out of the 15 men about half spoke German. All had worked or are still working in Germany. My question about a camp spot was met with a big debate. Since there was no mosque, they offered the school. Not a problem they said - tent seemed to be out of the question. Then loads of tea over which I found out what the deal with the missing mosque was. They are Alevis - who have no grandiose prayer building. The women wear no headscarf either, at least not here and if so not for religious reasons I was told.

All of a sudden the “warning” was comprehensible, though not understandable as far as I am concerned. It again goes to the question of the “other” - since they were not Muslim as the previous town was, they had to be strange and ostensibly bad people.

I was invited for dinner by Ibrahim who said that I could go to the school afterwards. Turns out that he - as Özcilek does - works for Siemens in Berlin, though the name doesn’t ring a bell (it is apparently a large branch of the firm). Once in their house his wife made clear that she would not let me go there and that I should be staying at their place for the night. My question of whether this was really OK and that I had no problem to sleep in my tent was met with indignation. There weren’t any more questions and soon enough I had a carbohydrate rich dinner (yummy pasta) and homemade yoghurt and cheese. It was all extremely tasty and the conversation very pleasant and informative.