blown about

After the last rainy days we're desperate to get cycling again, but we hadn't counted in the wind factor.  So we set out on a sunny day with a huge wind sweeping across Kos.  Our ride takes us into the hills on the south side to an old village that now gets swamped by tourists in high season.  Today it's quiet and peaceful.  We stop for lunch after the exertion of the climb and enjoy the sunshine.  It's only after we have traversed below the ridgeline and come out at a crossroads of sorts where roads diverge to north and south sides of the island that we realise how strong the wind has got.  There's a castle on our map and we cycle down a lane beyond an army camp to see it close up.  It looks like a classic Crusader model and it's perched at the head of a valley overlooking the resort village of Kardamena.  It's as if the Frankish knights wanted to protect the traditional villages from the invasion of Anglo-Saxons, Huns and Slavs.  A young man on a motorbike is rounding up a large herd of goats for the night.  The sun is setting.  We follow a track which becomes a paved footpath, with no steps, following a ridge that drops towards the coast.  At the first olive grove we pitch the tent behind a bush.

Wind can be a real problem when you're sleeping in a tent and it is for this reason alone that we don't eat lentils.  The next day it continues.  We stock up in the town at the coast.  It feels like a bad place in a spaghetti western today, but it's probably a fun and lively place in high season.  Porky The Pig's Nightclub is probably the heart and soul.   Our map leads us west along the shoreline and to a clutch of 'classy' hotel resorts.  We ask a security guard about water and he shakes his head - "it's no good for drinking" - but offers us one of his bottles before telling us not to bother continuing.  "It's all sand - just the beach - too hard for you."  Too hard?  Don't you know we've cycled through the Gobi desert? Well, no, actually we haven't and he's right - it's just a sandy beach.  We sit on it and eat our lunch.  When we retreat back towards town we see a little sheltered spot.  There is no wind, the beach is deserted, we are thrilled. We stay the night.

How long can the wind continue?  Back up on the spine of the island we are buffeted.  We consult our little map and plump for the pine forest.  We are close but we can't see it.  That's because it's in a complex of gulleys, below the lie of the land.  We ride down into the bewitched place and are freaked by the eerie cries from within.  Pained, lonely cries.  We see the cats first, then the peacocks.  An ostentation of peacocks. (I looked that up.)  They look fabulous.  Someone must feed them and the cats are clearly hangers-on.  We find some good shelter out of the wind and beyond the claws of the stray cats.

all at sea

Saying goodbye to Pam after such a long stay is not so easy, and neither is riding down the hill fully-loaded.  Pam takes our panniers down into the village for us.  It's a beautiful sunny day and the long straight road to Ortaca goes as quickly as our thoughts.  Back on the bike, looking back to our stay, thinking about the places ahead.  We try to avoid the main highway and take a road, probably the old road, around a hill towards Koyeciz.  Eventually we have to get onto the highway but the traffic is light and we decide to stay on it.  We have two days to reach Marmaris and opt for an early finish mid-afternoon when we reach about halfway.  The reason is a nice empty stretch of road.  The countryside away from the coastline has been some of the best we've had in Turkey and here is a pine forest and a dry river bed replanted with young pines.  Gayle scouts out a delightful place over the river for the night.  A full moon rises even before the sun sets.  It is idyllic.

idyllic: extremely happy, peaceful or picturesque

 

Riding on the next day we can take a little detour around the foot of more hills and through some small villages.  We emerge from our back road at a pretty and well-preserved old Ottoman-era village with some lovely stone houses.  It's a little touristy but on the discreet side.  It's so rare to find such villages these days.  After lunch it's an uphill slog to a pass followed by what seems like an endless descent.  We're following a river but it appears to be flowing in the opposite direction which means that we have to climb again to reach the pass with a view of the sea and the sprawl of Marmaris below. We coast down to the port to buy our ferry tickets for the next morning and take a cheap hotel near the seafront.  The promenade is quiet - just a few foreign and some national tourists wandering around.   

looking for a spot to eat our spit-roast chicken and bread

anyone there?

The boat that crosses to Rhodes is not so big - and starts to fill up when a tour party arrives.  Our bikes stand in an aisle next to another - there's a Polish cyclist as well.  The crossing takes a couple of hours and is plain sailing.  We arrive at the port with the Old Town walls protecting the harbour.  Our plan is a little loose - we want to visit Symi but don't know when the ferry runs.  After a fruitful visit to the local tourist information office we learn that a ferry is going in the evening.  We book a place to stay on the island for two nights and then go for a look around the Old Town.  It's a museum.  "The best-preserved medieval town in Europe."  It's not so well-preserved in some places and it's almost deserted.  It looks like everything here is only for tourism and, as it's winter, it's understandably dead.  Really dead.  It's eerie and disappointing.  Empty cities are not very interesting.

Symi, on the other hand, is everything that we want and more.  The main town of Gialos is a colourful mix of grand mansions built by wealthy sea captains and sponge merchants.  The houses are perched on the steep hillsides reaching around and down to the harbour.  As quiet as you'd expect - there are only a handful of cafes and tavernas on the harbour front that are open.  Most of the big houses are now holiday homes.  

Gayle reads about the Horio - apparently every Greek island has a Horio (insert your own joke here) - the village up on the ridgetop overlooked by a ruined castle and a pristine white church.  There's a wide staircase that leads up to the oldest inhabited part of the island - tucked away up here to hide from bothersome pirates.  Up at the church we get the views - looking over the port in one direction, out to the Turkish mainland, back towards the ridge over which the road disappears and then down over the Horio and a lush green valley of farmland.  Walking around the village up here we realise this is where most of the locals are living - the houses are smaller and the schools are here.

We walk out along the ridge northwards beyond the old windmills and along a rough and rugged path through the limestone rocks.  The walk is waymarked but we sometimes lose sight of the red paint markers.  After a much longer walk than we expected we emerge at a tiny beach facing a small island with a chapel.  The beach is tiny because some moron has built a concrete and fenced cafe up to the sea.  We both have a refreshing dip in the cold water.  There's a shorter walk to another bay but again, there's no real beach to speak of.  The best places are accessed by boat.  Still, we enjoy the walks in the sunshine.  Around and about there are signs of people getting ready for the new season - lots of construction, clearing, painting etc.  


The ferry calls in on a round trip from Rhodes some days and brings some daytrippers and deliveries and it's this boat that we take to Kos.  The weather is changing and there was some doubt if the boat would run.  It rocks out in the Turkish coastal waters for a while and I wish we were on one of the bigger ferries.  Kos is just a staging post for onward travel but as a storm is coming we opt for a cheap room in a hotel.  The town is thankfully very quiet, although it turns out that we have a room above one of the rockest places in town, when the band kicks off with a crooner singing old Greek romantic songs that could just as easily be Turkish.  He's a performer, I can tell you, starting at around 8.30 he's still going when the storm blows in and the thunder and lightning threaten to drown him out.  The first power cut we realise is because of the storm.  The silence and darkness deafening.  And then power is resumed and so is the show.  I have to check our bathroom though because it sounds like the guy is in our shower.  And on he goes.  Through the second and third power cuts - these, we suspect, induced by other hotel guests who decide that around midnight enough is enough.  But the show must go on. And on it does until 2am.  Well, they say Kos Town has a good nightlife.

sayonara Sarigerme

Muhammed is laughing as he reads the translation on his phone.  Pam has asked him a question about getting her car registered and he can't think of the word in English.  "My phone speaks better English".  Muhammed runs the local real estate office in Sarigerme so of course he knows all the ex-pat residents. In his younger years he went to Germany and worked there through the winters, returning to Turkey in the summer.  So his German is better than his English.  He has had a slow year.  We call in regularly to say hello at his office and enjoy a Turkish glass of tea, two sugars thanks.  Sometimes he gives us lovely sage tea.

the oranges are perfect

Muhammed's family name is Teryaki.  We wondered if he had some Japanese connection.  When Ataturk began modernising the country after the collapse of the Ottoman era and the birth of the new republic, one thing introduced was family names.  Up until then, you were simply known as son of or daughter of whoever.  Muhammed's grandfather lived in a small village where the chief was obliged to write down everyone's new family name.  He asked the other men what they should call his grandfather.  The man liked his coffee, his tobacco and the name means, here Muhammed explains he can't ascribe the right Englishword, "it's something like addict".  Epicurean??

Joe used to go swimming with Muhammed and Mike, an Englishman who also lives here with his wife Linda.  They are back in England whilst we are here, but Mike returns in our final week with Pam, so we do at least get to meet him.  He used to live down the road from us in Manchester.

watching the waves crash in

The winter is drawing to a close.  The days are getting longer.  The storms are fewer and further apart.  We have had a fabulous time here with Pam and as she points out when we leave, the circumstances are not what any of us had wanted, but we're glad we've been to visit and we are certain we will see Pam again.  That spark of friendship that she and Joe kindled when we first met ten years ago remains alive and strong. Thank you Pam.

coming and going

The nearby towns of Dalaman and Ortaca both have a weekly market which supplies most of the local population.  Ortaca is the administrative headquarters and has a nice feel about it.  It is typically Turkish - large concrete appartment buildings - and lots of shops.  In fact, the style is very similar to China.  Not enough green spaces or trees.  Market days are busy and the market is full of good produce. 

Ortaca market - preparing gozleme, a tasty stuffed crepe

filling the shopping trolley

Fethiye is just over an hour's drive away, along the main road through the hills.  We go with Pam on a couple of errands and afterwards she takes us up to the village of Yesiluzumlu in the hills just north of the town.  We stayed here with Gayle's mum and sister and all her family back in 2008.  Whilst Fethiye has doubled in population over the ten years and grown outwards, the village of Uzumlu has kept its charm with plenty of old Otttoman-era stone houses, some being renovated.  However, the mosque has been rebuilt to twice its original size - we suspect a government programme rather than local zealotry.  There are also more modern houses being built in the surrounding farmland.  Construction is the backbone of the Turkish economy.

Dalyan beach

On a cool and quiet Sunday Pam takes us to Dalyan beach on some of the lovely quiet back roads.  The beach is protected from development to protect nesting turtles - a rare environmental success inspired by a British woman living here who engaged with locals and persuaded the local council.  The town is separated from the beach by wetlands.  We return another weekend to visit the inland lakeshore village of Koycegiz and then over to hot springs where the lake runs into Dalyan river.  The landscape on this coast is dramatic - all limestone ridges and escarpments clad in pine.

Dalyan River

After a few wet days we get a sunny break and cycle over to a tiny beach Pam has told us about.  We take the little farm lanes and back roads to reach it - not realising how flooded some of them would be.  There are twenty other cyclists already there - a school trip.  We can't believe it.  Why aren't they chained to their desks rote-learning???

taking the back roads to...

Asikoy beach

More rain, more storms and strong winds keep us indoors reading, or working on other projects.  When the skies clear we can go walking again.

 
And Gayle is happy to do some weeding and sifting of stones in Pam's garden.

I finally catch up on the blog covering our ride through New England and down to Washington DC in 2017 plus our time in Cuba & Mexico in 2018.  I feel liberated of a heavy yoke.  In the news there are dramatic photos by Will Burrard-Lucas who captures the first photos of a black leopard for over 100 years.  Intriguingly, the leopard looks quite familiar. Haven't we seen it somewhere...?