everything's better with a pigeon

a winged escort

on last month's trip to Büyükada.

the ache

of missing you.

the colours of trabzon

a threatening sky

another u-turn

After leaving Sivrikaya with a heavy sigh, we rerouted ourselves towards Anzer, hoping to get there before we were immersed in the blackness of unlit rural roads. The pockmarked one we were travelling on became dirt somewhere in the darkness, and we were soon bumping along in rocky muck— giggling about the look on the faces of the car rental agency if they knew where we had taken their poor vehicle.

The road was little more than a scratch in the surface of the Earth, serpentine, with shoulders that plunged into hidden rivers. At some point we doubted the map— there was nothing about our environment which promised a charming village of bees and honey at the end of it. Eventually we came across another human being, casually strolling in the darkness, hands folded behind his back. We asked him with all the naïveté and hope of lost tourists, if we were on the right track to Anzer.

Anzer? He repeated with a chuckle, and dramatically lifted his hand in the direction we were already set on, and let out another soft laugh. The gleam of amusement in his eye concerned me, and as we followed his fingers, we began to worry about that chuckle. Just where was this place?

At some point, thoughts of dealing with popped tires in the middle of nowhere, with no cell reception, hungry, in the cold, began to weigh heavily against the possibility of dining on honey and resuming our search for the Caucasian Black Grouse. After some debate and a few more sighs, I got out of the car to help direct a dangerous U-turn, delighted with morbid fantasies of wolves circling me. We would not see the grouse on this trip, but sometimes the journey and the search are what we remember and carry with the most fondness.

That night, we drove all the way back to Trabzon.

facing the myth

After countless head shakes and many a tss!, we had given up on ever finding the mythical Sivrikaya, deciding to head toward Anzer, otherwise known as Ballıköy, famous for its honey with alleged healing powers. Having most likely been a bee in my former life, Anzer seemed like paradise— images of beehives and wildflowers dotting the green hillsides filled my head, and I was already salivating at the thought of slathering some warm bread with butter and Anzer's legendary honey. While playing the navigator and plotting our course on doubtful roads through the valleys, I randomly followed a yellow line on the map that lead toward the town of Ispir, and let out a shout— Sivrikaya!

We immediately changed our course (birds trumped the bees) and began to excitedly discuss the possibilities of meeting this Mustafa, and hiking through the snowy plains to catch a glimpse of the Caucasian Black Grouse.

As the narrowing road led us uphill, the temperature dropped in the car—our ears gently popped, and our curiosity grew. Would we make it before sundown? Would we find lodging? Would we finally see the bird we were hoping for? Then, to our dismay, a red sign with a lot of exclamation marks declared that the road to Ispir was closed to traffic.  We decided to ignore it.



We pulled over to the side of the road and stepped out of the car, just in front of another massive sign that threatened us in blinking lights, to go no further. The air was crisp and sweet, lightly biting my cheeks. There, on the hillside, the humblest homes clung desperately to the earth, and a vast scooping plain opened up before us. Fog obscured mountains, falling toward us, and a small, squarish man passed us with suspicious eyes.

Merhaba, we chimed, and smiled.
We were offered a grunt and a respectful nod of the head. Could he be Mustafa?

I was convinced I would spot the black dots of the grouse on the plain any minute, but as the looming clouds behind us turned orange and the fog grew denser, we looked at Sivrikaya and knew. We had to turn back. The road was shut, and the few lean houses looked unable to host two wanderers. We hadn't eaten since breakfast, and the thought of asking someone to share their food, which seemed hard to come by in this desolation, made me uneasy.

It would have to be another day.

passing through

reaching snow

We hadn't planned a thing. We bought plane tickets, packed only the essentials (which included sketching gear, binoculars and a scope), laced our hiking boots and took off. There was an old Lonely Planet guide which nested back and forth between our bags, providing us with some slightly outdated information on lodging. Upon arriving in Trabzon, the Kaçkar mountains, like phantoms lining the horizon opposite the blue line of the sea, seduced us. We rented a car and drove toward their whiteness, hoping perhaps, to catch a glimpse of a resident black grouse.

There was rumour of a village named Sivrikaya, which stood on the edge of an alpine plain. Each time we asked someone on our journey where this mythical Sivrikaya was, they would reluctantly shake their head and shrug their shoulders. Bilmiyorum, was the constant response. Apparently this unknown village was known outside Turkey for its proximity to the habitat of the famed Caucasian black grouse. There was a man named Mustafa, who could take you to see them.

One night, not knowing where to go but up, we headed to Ayder, which our Lonely Planet promised a bed to sleep in. Little did we know the town was entirely touristic, and being off-season, empty. Lodging under 100 lira was difficult to find, but eventually an old insistent lady in a floral headscarf offered us an unheated room with a low ceiling for 70. Fortunately she gave us a little plug-in electric heater she called a soba, which helped keep the mountain cold at the door.



Mounds of old snow lay about the green hills, and it reminded me a bit of childhood trips to Switzerland, though a lot more ramshackle and disorganised. The air was crisp, and held notes of wagtails, crossbills, and crows. I layered on two pairs of socks, bundled up in a yak wool sweater and coat, readying myself for a hike in the snow. Crunching uphill, we passed three wooden signs with crude illustrations of wolves, bears and lynxes, with instructions in Turkish of what I assume were the proper means of dealing with an encounter of each. I made a mental note of the shape of each carnivore's footprint pattern, just in case.

uphill

angels and lions

deface

belief scratching out belief; gouge the eyes, the face
personal graffiti, centuries deep or decades
scar, mar
leave your trace.

sümela

Clinging improbably to the side of Melá mountain in Trabzon province at a height of 1200 metres, is the stoic face of Sümela Monastery, a Greek Orthodox monastery dating back to the Byzantine era. Founded in 386 CE, Sümela was abandoned during the 1923 population exchange between Turkey and Greece, and converted into a museum. I have long been mystified by images of Sümela— it seemed mythical; this long, stone structure embracing a menacing cliff above a dark, storybook forest, so out of place.

I don't know how long the hike up through the forest was. I remember its steepness, the dampness, the smell of earth and impending rain, and the flashes of blue from a spying jay. We stopped part way up to sketch, sitting cross-legged on the ground, occasionally graced by the curious stares of passersby.

The depth of the valley from the monastery was intoxicating— the rushing river below reduced to a pale trickle— the pines, dark spots in a field of many greens. Ravens slipping in and out of view like shadows, lifting into the graying sky, then plunging into the green. I did not expect that behind the impressiveness of Sümela's straight face stood several humbler structures— little stone kitchens, chapels, as well as rooms for monks and visitors, huddled around a central church, which was carved into a cave in the rock— every surface painted with biblical stories.