Tag mountains

Trabzon Mosque

After a restful week in Yusufeli we felt more than up to the task of our 6 hour bus ride to Trabzon. This was no ordinary road, but a winding, rocky pathway on which giant buses passed each other going opposite directions like slugs creeping past one another. I quickly fell into my “sleep when you can!” routine and managed to feel marginally normal for the first twenty minutes. But when we hit the first of a series of winding curves it was back to barfing into a Doritos bag for me! Looked up at one point, mid-puke, and Mike was laughing hysterically as I gave the thumbs up and finished emptying my stomach. Apparently I had eaten something red (I don’t remember that?!).

We arrived relatively unscathed in Trabzon, which is one of the biggest Black Sea coastal cities in Turkey. We had decided not to take a direct bus to Ankara, but to tour the Black Sea Coast and soak in our last glimpses of this temperamental sea. Trabzon was a delightful city with glistening white Christmas lights hanging over pedestrian streets that were crowded with merry people shoving baklava into their mouths by the fistful. We checked into a hotel and received a discount based on how utterly hopeless we looked with our giant bags and sweat-covered faces. We wandered into the central park and had tea before finding a place to dine and exploring the city on foot. Mike’s primary interest was in acquiring a few beers, since Ramadan was now over. This proved more difficult than one would imagine, and Mike became ever more determined as the shops displayed endless amounts of sweets but no beer for poor Mike.
We strolled around feeling like it was a Christmas-like city, without snow and full of Muslims. The attitude was jovial and holiday-like, and everyone seemed happier than normal and full of holiday cheer. It was the last day of post-Ramadan feasting, which was perhaps part of the mood, but I think Trabzon is also just a friendly place.

Sumela Monastery. The next morning we booked a trip with a travel company (our first group tour!) to go to the Sumela hanging Monastery, about 45minutes away. Our minibus held mostly Turkish tourists and three other international travelers. It rained, and our minibus sent showers of water up the windshield with every puddle we hit. We were deposited at the top of the mountain to climb the last 1/4th of the mountain on foot. As usual, Mike forgot his umbrella so we huddled under mine as we climbed through the woods and up ancient stone steps to the monastery. The buildings have been restored, but were original built in Byzantine times by the Greeks who had hoped to acquire the area as a Greek state. The creation of the Turkish Republic saw the demise of Greek Orthodoxy and the abandonment of the monastery. The structure itself clings almost desperately to the side of a sheer rock face high above an evergreen forest, with a raging river and waterfalls galore below. We wandered from room to abandoned room and gaped at the paintings of Christ and the Virgin Mary on cave walls.

After an hour at the Monastery we wandered down the mountain in the rain as cars splashed past us on their way up. Midway down my shoes had more water inside than out, and my toes began to turn to raisins inside my mushy socks. A friendly Turkish family picked us up, thanks to our pathetic looks once again, and drove us down the road (which was now more a river than a road) to the base of the mountain where a small restaurant sat nestled in the woods. Here our driver had instructed us to gather at the appointed time. We ate a small meal so that we could sit inside where it was warm, and then boarded our minibus back to Trabzon where I sat with a German lady, an Australian man and a Polish traveler as we discussed what was worth seeing in Turkey and the highlights of the Caucus—the normal backpacker conversations one hears in every bus station, airport and hostel across the planet.

Water Pumping

Having arrived in Yusufeli without a map, we had to rely on shabby LP written directions to get us a place to sleep. We have not had good luck with these in the past, but luckily since we were so exhausted after the 4 minibuses that day, we found the place within a half hour. We walked through the very quiet town of Yusufeli to Green Piece Pension. Reading our guide, we were tipped that there were places to camp here, which really appealed to us because we were somewhat shocked at the inflated prices in Turkey, or at least in comparison to everywhere we had been. We walked across a creaky suspension bridge that made Lauren’s stomach churn and down a gravel road for less than 1 k. Nestled next to a rolling stream, several vegetable fields, and rocky hill tops in every direction, this was a great place to stay.

The friendly family immediately showed us the camping area and within a few minutes, our camp was all set up. The nice thing about Green Piece, was that we could use their facilities, which included a restaurant, wifi, warm showers, and bathrooms. Over the next several days, as we really took a liking to the place, it rained 5-6 times a day. I was joking with Lauren that it was a lot like Seattle. Coincidently, we also heard a comedian’s joke about Seattle on my iPod, “You know what they say in Seattle, if you don’t like the weather, just wait 5 minutes and then shoot yourself in the face.” – Probably a little dark for the blog, but the rain was actually really refreshing and the rain lulled us to sleep in the tent at night. We also got a lot of work done on the site. It was funny making a few Skype calls from our tent – as the fact that we had wifi in a tent was ridiculous, but I made a point to tell everyone where we were. Traveling is not what it used to be, huh?

One thing that did not take us too long to pick up was that there was a shortage of food!!! Yusufeli was a very religious Muslim town. We realized this the first night when the 5:00 am call to prayer blared on for several minutes and woke us up in the middle of the night. We also quickly learned that it was the festival or “torture” of Ramadan. Ramadan, a Muslim “holiday,” is a long period of fasting. This made people irritable, hungry, short-tempered, and ill-humored. It was also difficult for us to find food as all the food establishments were closed. It also made me feel guilty to eat in front of the family when they couldn’t eat from sun up to sun down. The lesson learned was, and we had heard it before: Don’t go to Muslim countries during Ramadan. Unfortunately, I don’t really keep track of things like as they usually don’t apply to me. They did in Turkey. We were able to cook a few meals in the kitchen as well. They told us we could use the kitchen, but I am not sure how happy they were about it. We also saw several whitewater rafting groups come there while we were there, a man from Holland who had been riding around on a motorcycle for a year and a half, as well as another Dutch couple with a camper who lived in St. Martin. Besides the great company we had while we were there, the slow atmosphere of the mountain city as well as the trekking around the village, made it a worthwhile place to plan and time the rest of our trip up to Ankara.

Mike at the Summit

In the morning we awoke to the sounds of people around us, and, paranoid that we should perhaps not be camping on church grounds, packed up our tent and decided to start hiking further up the mountain. There is a glacier about 900m up (but over 3k distance wise) the mountain, so we aimed for that. With the packs, the going was slow, but we made progress slowly as we watched the summit of this 2000m mountain loom closer.

Once at the top, there was an astonishing view of the glacier beyond, and of base camp one for mount Kazbeki assents. It was noon and we decided that without warmer clothing and clamp-ons for our boots we should not risk crossing a glacier to reach a frozen plateau where we could freeze to death in our tiny tent. We turned around and began the descent. However, midway down the mountain a grump of a cloud hovered over us and began to pour, we threw down our bags, and in less than a minute our tent was assembled with us dry inside. We waited out the storm on the edge of the mountain in this fashion, playing cribbage, making a small esbit fire for food and warming up in the sleeping bags. Two hikers (now soaked) climbed up and we emerged from our tent for a top-of-the-world get to know ya. They were photographers on a mission to photo raptor birds in the wild. We chatted a bit before breaking down the tent and continuing our descent.

We passed the church, and our campsite from the night before, and in the middle of the woods encountered a Frenchman on his way up named Julien. We chatted a bit before climbing down the rest of the mountain.

Back in town, we ate at the same café as the day before, and they advised us on camping in the park on the edge of town. We ordered food and a few beers and Julien showed up and joined us for dinner and told us about his amazing trip from France to basically all over. We had a few rounds of beers while Julien had a few rounds of French fries and then it got dark while we told travel stories. It was already late so we quickly headed into the park once the beers were empty and the mosquitoes emerged. In the park there was a stream bisecting the north and south parts. We crossed a log over the river by moonlight, and set up our tent on the northern bank.

In the morning, we packed up the tent and faced a river that, in daylight, looked impossible to cross with our bags. Somehow, in the moonlight, it had seemed safer. We managed to cross the rickety log without incident and then got lucky when we nabbed two seats on a bus back to Tbilisi. Although I was car-sick the entire time, it was a pleasant enough ride with a great group of people who were about as friendly as any group could be.