Wadi Rum

It's taking me more time than I hoped to get my head back into climbing. I don't feel strong and my head just isn't quite right for multi-pitch climbing on somewhat crumbly sandstone....but I'm coming around and we've climbed some cool lines.

We're hanging out in a town called Wadi Rum. It's southern Jordan desert. The scenery reminds me of Zion National Park, but not as red and the walls aren't as high. The size of Wadi Rum dwarfs Zion. And there is sand. Sand everywhere. Especially in my tent and in my ears. The village is really small. Maybe 1,000 people living there. They're Bedouin and have been very nice though we don't interact with them too much because we climb all day.

The Bedouin are muslim and the men dress similarly to the Pakistani men except that their dresses are more slender. They wear cotton pants under their cotton dresses, but the dresses go to their ankles. I think the slender dresses make them appear more sophisticated than the sloppy baggy dresses worn by the Pakistani's...but appearances can be deceiving.....it's almost like they are all 12 year old boys who were just given a truck and a license to drive. They can't flip a u-turn without peeling out and they can't start the car in the sand without spinning a donut immediately after. Regularly in the evenings we hear gun shots go off. I'm pretty sure they do it strictly for the echo. But I will admit, the echo off the walls is fantastic. The women all wear burkah's and only show their eyes. But the women don't walk around town too often, so we don't see them that much.



After one day of climbing it rained like crazy. One kid told us it was the 110 year storm....but I don't think they categorize them as 110 year storms...but it was a lot of storm. We had to move our tents at about 11 pm. We were camped in this river, before it was a river.






We camp out at a place called the 'Rest House'. I can't figure out what's going on there. There's a handful of climber's camped there, and some tourists come in and out for 2 or 3 days at a time, but there are tons of Jordanian men there, all the time. Some of them work there but most of them seem to just hang out....and not lift the seat before they urinate. It drives me crazy....

For dinner we usually eat at 'Ali's Place'. Boiled chicken, on bones, with rice. It's getting really old....and Ali's story of having a Japanase girlfriend/ex-wife is awfully contradictory....



Jacob jumping the 'Great Siq'.


Wadi Rum Village in the background.




The climbing is similar to Red Rock outside Las Vegas. Though the rock here isn't quite as good. But the climbing is definitely fun. And we've never shared a route with anybody. There are only 8 climbers there right now, which is the most it's been in the 2 weeks I've been there.


Morning sunlight.


Sum coming up.


The mosque blares the call for prayer something like 6 times daily. I love it. I've been in Muslim countries for a while now and I never get tired of the call to prayer. The first one is early, like 5 or 6 am. During the day we'll be way up in the mountains and we can still hear it, echoing off the walls. It's one of my favorite things about muslim countries.

2 Days in Syria

When I start cycling again, it'll be mace, eggs, my feet and guns. Thank you for the ethical help.

Riding buses with a bicycle is a bitch. I got in a huge fight with the bus driver in Damascus. The people who sold me the ticket said the bicycle was no problem, but the driver said it was big problem, so I told him it was his big problem, and it turned out to be all my problem. The bus was completely full and the luggage compartment was too. I yelled and swore and the other passengers all had my back, but that driver wasn't going to budge, and his boss, the manager, was on a vacation in America, of all places. It really did sting my pride as the bus pulled away without me in it, and to top it off, when I walked back to my bike I had a flat tire...

There was a bus leaving the next morning which would probably not be full and would probably not be a problem. Jacob, my climbing partner, was already in Jordan waiting for me, and it would take me 3 or 4 days to ride to him, so the bus the next morning was my best option.

The kid who worked the counter at the bus company let me store my bike in his office for the evening (so I didn't have to ride it the 8 km back into Damascus). And since he was letting me keep my bike there, I decided to hang out with him for awhile, hoping that if we became friends, then any preconcieved plan of stealing my stuff would fade.

We had a very interesting conversation. Khalil is a 24 year old Palestinian born and raised in Damascus. His parents were also born and raised in Damascus and His grandparents were born and raised in Palestine. He never uses the term Israel, except for when he references Israeli's or the Israeli army or Israeli government. The land/country is always called 'Palestine'. Khalil has the key to his grandfathers house in Tel Aviv, which he has heard has since been demolished and turned into a police station. It makes him angry that he can't go to his home. Although he has never been to Palestine, he still considers it home. He loves Damascus and loves Syria, he considers himself Syrian and even if he could someday move to Palestine, he would probably stay in Syria. It's more the point for him. The point that Palestinians lived in Palestine for years and they considered it their land, and now I, an American, can go see it, but he never will. He's seen pictures on google earth and wishes that he could just at least go and see, but he can't.

He's in love with his cousin (we talked for a long time...I really liked the guy). His father's sister's daughter. She was raised and currently lives in Jordan. But while they were engaged she lived in Syria. When I told him that in America that kind of stuff is illegal, he didn't really get it. When I tried explaining that I couldn't marry my sister, for example, he scoffed at me "of course you can't marry your sister, that's crazy...".

They are, however, no longer engaged. She was too controlling. "I would spend at least an hour or two with her everyday, and then when I go to my friends house she calls and demands I come back to see her...I can't live with that...". He's never kissed her. He's held her hand, but that's about it. Being a virgin before marriage is huge over here. He told me that if he married a girl and later found out she wasn't a virgin, then he would kill her. (I didn't really believe him on this one....not that he was intentionally lying to me, I just got the feeling he was trying to really show me how important it was that she was a virgin...).

He didn't steal my bike. And in fact, I accidentally left my lock in his office and he's going to hold onto it for me and give it to me on my way back through Syria after climbing.

Khalil - I hope you and your cousin can work it out...(but really, she'll nag forever....).

I'm now in Jordan. And Wadi Rum is cool....

Syria

I'm in Damascus. One of the oldest cities in the world. And the creepy Syrian internet worker guy is skyping with some english girl (who I'm guessing he me while she was here on vacation) and he's begging her to turn on the video so he 'can see your beautiful face, please Sophie, I want to see your pretty face, come on, please?" On and on and on. It's real creepy.

I'm taking buses at the moment. I'll be in Jordan tomorrow meeting up with a friend, Jacob, who I met while climbing last year in Thailand. We're heading down to Wadi Rum in Southern Jordan to climb for about a month. I'm hoping for good weather and strong forearms.

Oh, here's an ethical question: I've heard from multiple cyclists that the Bedouin kids on the side of the road in Jordan throw rocks at cyclists....when they do this to me, can I mace them? I have a can of mace. I bought it in Istanbul. Ben thought I was buying it for the big dogs in Turkey, and thought I was kidding when I said I was planning on using it on small children. Which made me think about thinking twice about macing them. I mean, I'm going to mace them while I ride away, so it won't be an up close shot, and I'll hopefully be riding fast because I'm hoping for tailwinds, so really they'll just get a wiff of the mace. I'm just trying to teach them a lesson...if someone can give me a better way to teach them a lesson besides mace, I'm open, but keep in mind I've already purchased the mace, so the cost of your idea should be less than or equal to the cost of my idea. Oh, and I'm not looking for a suggestion such as giving them candy. It turns them into beggars, and nobody likes beggars....

Ruins

This is Ephesus. As in the "Ephesians".


The library in Ephesus.


Toilets in Ephesus (note they didn't have dividing walls, however, they had running water...which makes them incredibly more civilized than current Chinese toilets....).






We also went to Pamukkale (Cotton Castle) and saw the ruins of Heirapolis and the travertines.





Travertines.

The water is from hot springs and they have all sorts of small canals diverting the calcium rich water over the hillside to keep everything white and pretty. The was only warm by the time it ran over the side.





Back in Istanbul on the Bosporous.


The Bosporous.

And Ben is now in an airplane hoping like crazy that he doesn't get stuck in a London because of storms....Thanks for coming Ben.

Ben

My brother Ben came to town. He was supposed to be here in October when the weather was beautiful....but a drunk driver in Georgia changed our plans.


Haiga Sophia. You put your thumb in the whole and twist and if it comes out wet, then you get your wish or something. Our thumbs didn't come out wet, which really is probably better...(I got a fisheye lens for my camera...and it's still taking me some time to figure out...).

Blue Mosque.


Haiga Sophia.


Basillica Cistern. Huge, ancient, underground water storage downtown Istanbul.


Ben.


We took a night bus to Cappadoccia. The weather ended up working out for us really well. We got a lot of wind, headwinds of course, but no rain and it was only really really cold in the mornings.


The people here carved houses and churches and castles and food storage facilities into the rock formations.









Derinkuyu, underground city. The Phrygians started digging them out in the 8th century BC. It was a full on underground city with schools, houses, animal stables, churches, food storage, wine making rooms and a huge 60 meter ventilation shaft for air. Each house in the area had a passage leading to other passages which connected everyone. They used food storage year round, but a lot of it was built so that when invaders came through they could hide. This underground city had 7 floors. Only 10% has been excavated, and that 10% was huge.




Soğanlı. Another cave city in Cappadoccia.


A guest house we stayed at that was carved out of a rock.







Our one and only campsite. Camping is hard in Turkey in the winter. Everything is cultivated and it's hard to find empty land. It gets dark at 5 pm which makes for long nights. And it's cold. This night however wasn't bad. Oh, and my crap REI Tent (not the tent I normally use, but the one Ben brought for the two of us) had a really busted pole...I don't think the tent could have taken a second night.




Ghost town in the mountains. Tons and tons of shops and houses, but nobody around. We found out later that it's a summer getaway for people living in Adana.

Jandarma

The other day I was riding my bike and it was insanely windy. And hilly, of course, because I avoid highways, which tend to follow valleys in this part of Turkey. The hills I don't mind so much, but the wind was driving me crazy. In the rare moment that I would get some downhill or some flats, the wind would keep me from gaining any speed.

I came to a crossroads and my map is horrible so I asked some local ladies which way to Manisa. The two women had differing opinions, and they each kept changing their minds, so I backtracked 100 meters to a military base to ask the soldier guarding the gate. He called to his Commander, Ismail, and I was pointed in the right direction.

As I was leaving Ismail invited me in for tea. It was too windy for me to enjoy being outside, so I accepted.

Ismail didn't speak any english, but one of the soldiers, Turgut, did. Something to drink turned into lunch which turned into an invitation to stay at the barracks with them. The weather sucked and these soldiers were nice, so I stayed.

I hung out mostly in the commanders quarters the whole time. There was a laptop I could use to check my email and a TV which played the National Geographic Channel in Turkish.

Military service is required in Turkey for all males. If you get a college degree then you only have to serve 6 months, if you don't go to college then you have to do something like 15 months. Ismail, the commander, is 25 or something, but enlisted, so he's in it for 10 years. He's got a while to go, and he's kind of sick of it. Turgut is a teacher, has been married for two years (they get to choose when to do military service, so he finished college first), is 28 and is done in January. He's ready to be done. I asked him what he does all day, his reply "Uhh, we go on patrol....and clean. Lots of cleaning. We clean the toilets, the bathrooms, the showers, the rooms......." After I took a shower I asked what he was going to do next and he just looked kind of blank and said "oh, uh, nothing...". He was on a downhill ski team in college...and the doing nothing is hard for him.

There was another guy who spoke english really well, Akin, but nobody else knew any english. We ate dinner, watched a football game (soccer), though the power went out several times (there was a hail/lightning/wind storm outside...I had planned on camping that night...). Then I left the commanders quarters and went and hung out with the rest of the soldiers (there were something like 12 living there...I think). They all asked me what American's think of Turkey...but I've been planning on coming to Turkey for a long time, so maybe my thoughts are somewhat influenced...so, What Do American's Think of Turkey?

I'm now in Selçuk, home to the ruins of Ephesus (though I probably won't see them until my brother gets here in 4 days...), this is the place where John is supposed to have written his gospel and then died.

I'm meeting Corrine here for Christmas. She's an American cyclist I met in Tajikistan. We hung out in Dushanbe and then I bumped into her and my motorcycle German friend Michael, in Tbilisi. Should be fun.

Bergama

Carlos was dressed like this wall...

Diego and Carlos and Turkish Pizza's.

I finally left Avalık and rode to Bergama. I got stuck in some mud and had to spend 30 minutes cleaning my bike again....The road had been great, then all of a sudden turned to mud....it would have been an hour if I had gone back and taken a different road....

In Bergama I met two Spanish cyclists. Carlos and Diego (Carlos is Spanish for Charlie). Carlos is heading to Iran, Central Asia, Pakistan, etc... and Diego is just along for the Turkey part. They had also stayed at the same place as me in Ayvalık but we didn't see each other.

Carlos and I walked around Pergamum, which is an old Greek city with a huge stadium. It was fantastic. Parts of it are rebuilt to show what it was like, but most of it is in crumbles. White marble blocks lay all over the ground. It's hard imagining what these places used to look like. We ducked the fence to avoid paying....so we didn't get any maps describing what was what....

Ayvalık

Here are some pictures of Ayvalık.

The tires are made of rubber.

My new wool sweater with a hood got a hole where the hood attaches to the shoulder, so I walked around looking for a seamstress. I've visited probably 8 different seamstresses on this trip. I always enjoy it. It's one of the things I need done that never turns into a mass of confusion. I show them my broken clothes and make the sewing machine sound while moving my finger like a sewing machine needle, they always know what I'm talking about, because they're sitting in front of a sewing machine, and they rarely charge me.

I was walking around looking for someone to fix my sweater when I walked into this shop run by an American women who runs this non-profit providing opportunities for women who have never before earned a salary. These women have all sorts of skills that aren't worth anything to a developing nation. In Turkey the markets are losing ground to Supermarkets, because purchasing something manufactured is somewhat of a status symbol, and not something the people have grown up doing. In America people go nuts over homemade stuff because we've had the manufactured products for so long. But the women over here who have needlework and crafty skills can't make any money with it. So this project allows local women to come in and make bags or other things out of recycled material, and they get paid for it. The American told me that last week they all went out to breakfast and it was the first time in the lives of several of these women, who are into their 40's and 50's, to ever spend so much money (probably $10) on something as frivilous as breakfast at a restaurant. They're gaining an identity other than 'mother', 'wife', 'daughter', 'cook', etc...

So I walked in and asked if someone could speak english, the American piped up, her 'workers' fixed my sweater and I hung out for about 45 minutes talking to the lady. The bags were really cool. They receive donated throwaway instant soup packaging and weave them into handbags and sell them at upscale quirky shops in Istanbul. I would have bought some, but I've got enough quirky handbags as it is....

A Break in the Rain

Canakkale the morning I left.

I was about 1 minute away from buying a bus ticket to Istanbul to drop off my bike and then head to Bulgaria...because I just didn't want to deal with the weather on a bike. But I decided to give the bike a few more days and the weather worked out beautifully...well, at least it worked out.

Fisher guys setting net in 40 F weather.

I'm still scared to death of highways so I stick to small roads, which sometimes turn to dirt roads which are really mud roads which piss me right off. It took me 30 minutes to clean this mess up and my fingers felt like blocks of ice when I was done.


A bird's nest.


Some ancient Greek ruins....they're all over the place. I can't be bothered to document what is what...


Turkish Village.


The Greek Island of Lesbos as seen from Barhamkale (Assos). Some maps call the island "Lesvos", but for ease of readability I'll stick with Lesbos.



Bahramkale ruins.


Me in the evening with a bunch of Lesbos in the background.


Tuesday December 15, 2009, in detail.

The night before while looking for a place to camp (it wasn't raining, so camping seemed like a good idea) I was riding on a road right up against the sea. There were olive tree orchards all over, and camping amongst them seemed to be my best bet. I'm not super into "stealth camping" so I found a guy working in his orchard and asked if I could camp there. He shot me down. I asked another guy a few kilometers up the road, he shot me down too. This place gets a ton of tourists so I figured they like their peace in the off season (and off season it is, I haven't seen a single tourist since I left Istanbul last week).

I pulled up to an empty hotel and asked the guy if I could camp on the lawn, he hooked me up with a really cheap room that didn't have electricity or heat or the water turned on (I found out the water wasn't on after I took a dump in the toilet and it didn't flush....sorry man...).

I woke up Tuesday morning to rain. I only planned on doing about 40 km of flat riding, so I figured I could tough it for 2 hours or so. Besides, there was nothing to do in the 'beach resort' (the beach was pebbly and beautiful, but it was too cold to enjoy it as a beach).

The night before I had arranged with a cafe owner lady named Emine (pronounced similarly to Armine...Emynay) to make me breakfast. She had also made me dinner and then roasted chestnuts, mushrooms and some other nuts on her stove for me. She didn't speak any english. For breakfast she gave me fried eggs, bread, tomatoes, cheese, butter, honey, two different kinds of olives and ketchup (I'm not sure for what...the bread maybe?).

After eating the rain had died down and I headed out. After 4 minutes I took off my rain pants, because it wasn't raining, they aren't even waterproof, and I was hot. 3 minutes later I took off my rain jacket, which also isn't very waterproof. 3 minutes later I took off my mittens and my beanie. It was overcast, I don't remember the temperature, but I was cycling in pants, a t-shirt, my long sleeve seer sucker shirt, and socks. And a helmet. I hate wearing helmets, but I got hit by a freaking car....so I wear one now....There was a bit of a headwind.

The road was small and empty for the first 10 km then turned into a 6 lane highway, 3 going each direction. The added lane made me feel nice and comfy because all the cars were swinging plenty wide. I was in and out of bays the whole time and right up against the water.





40 km in I pulled into Akcay and went into a Converse outlet...my converse are ripping apart. It wasn't an outlet in that stuff is cheap. It was only an outlet because they sold stuff...I don't think they know what outlet means. So I didn't buy any.

I tried asking the lady working there were I could buy a new map. I have a big one of Turkey, but I wanted a smaller one which shows more roads, because I like the small roads, which aren't on the big maps. This turned into a huge fiasco. I kept showing her my small road map and then trying to explain that I was almost going to ride off of it, so I needed a new one, but she just couldn't understand me.

I went across the street to a grocery store, they didn't have maps, so I bought 2 banana's and a coke.

After I ate I went into a taxi booth and asked about maps. Nobody spoke english, but one dude could speak a little german (I'm actually using my german more than my english). He didn't speak enough german to help me and it turned into another fiasco with guys listing towns I would see on my way to Izmir or pulling out big country maps. I tried drawing a box with my fingers around the area I wanted a map of and then making my best 'zoom in' sounds I could think of, but it wasn't working.

I went to get on my bike and one of the drivers walked up to me and told me to follow him. Another taxi guy said he would watch my bike and me and the guy walked all the way across town to the tourist office. It was closed for lunch, for another 10 minutes, so I walked back to get my bike.

The tourist office didn't have any maps to help me. But I did find out about a small road that was a huge shortcut and I wouldn't have to go all the way to Edremit and ride big roads.

The next section of road was on sidewalks right up against the water. It was all summer resort places with volleyball courts, picnic tables, bars, cottages, etc....but everything was empty.


Heading out of Akcay the terrain turned swampy and there was garbage all over the place. When I was putting my camera away after taking this picture a van passed a truck while the truck was driving past me and the van came within inches of hitting me. I flipped him off, but I don't know if flipping off people makes sense in Turkish. I should have thrown a rock....

The road continued through swampy areas of nothingness crossing bridges and greenhouses.

I came into a small town and asked a guy the best way to get to Ayvalık without getting on big roads. He didn't even think I could get to Ayvalık from where we were....I pointed to the road I thought would work, but he disagreed. He walked me over to a shop and asked them and they pointed to the same road I had pointed to....

I stopped and bought some water and a candy bar.

The only way to get where I was going now was on a big highway. There wasn't a ton of traffic, but enough to stress me out. There were several big hills and the descents had headwinds, so I never got very much speed.

I passed several farmers collecting olives that were falling from the trees. When I was on the Italian Riveria a few years ago they set up nets to catch the olives, but I haven't seen any here.

I got to Ayvalık and was looking for a hotel when I bumped into a german ex-pat. He's a carpenter. He showed to a place, which was closed for the season. But that owner showed me to another place, which was also closed for the season. But this owner showed me to another place that let me in.

About 30 minutes after I checked into my hotel it started to pour outside....