stone villages

The stone villages we hiked through around Imlil reminded me of some of the Nepali villages I've seen. Humble rectangles, earthen-coloured, with bits of pink, blue, and red from clothes drying on a line. Goats braying, shy eyes peering behind windows, some shuttered, some barred.



As in Nepal, it seems as though cement is quickly replacing stone and wood.

of dogs and bees

wood and stone

We rolled into Akseki sometime in the afternoon when the sun's strength had started to wane and the birds were getting cheekier. The landscape had turned Mediterranean; rocky hills with green pines and shrubs, olive trees and wild thyme. The little town gracefully spilled down a hillside onto a dry valley, and within the boxy concrete buildings stood some beautifully constructed old stone houses. There are stone houses throughout Turkey, but the way in which these were built, with wooden support beams layered between the stones, was quite unique. The exterior walls of some houses were smoothed with a layer of dung or cement, some were painted, and others were left natural.

Akseki is a very small town, but it has two hotels— fortunately the receptionist in the first one turned us off with his brusque manner, and we were able to find (with some help from cheerful, loitering older men) the much more affordable Star Hotel and its charming owner, Yusuf bey. The spartan, clean room was just what we had hoped for, and once we had settled in, we headed out to explore and to find some birds.

We came across a village named Çanakpınar, which though it seemed to be quietly crumbling into the earth, was still inhabited. A handful of children played in the street, and an ancient, trembling lady stared at us from her doorstep. I imagine she had seen the village when it was alive with families, when the wood of their roofs was fresh, and the walls of their homes were not sinking into the dirt. I wonder what that must have been like— when the hunter brought home his ibexes, and hung the curved horns above his window with pride.



We stopped a while to sketch one of these marvellous houses— one that we thought had been forgotten, but as I looked closer at one of the windows, I noticed a hand was grasping the wooden lattice. I strained to see the face to which the hand belonged, but it was too dark inside the house. How long had they been there watching? I smiled, and hoped there was a smile in the darkness too.

donkeys and dung

The landscapes in Turkey vary so much, that you swear you were in a different country an hour ago. We have moved from mountains to vast arid plains, to farmland— and back. With the change of landscape, the construction of houses in villages change drastically (with exception to the omnipresent cement blocks), as do the creatures that have been domesticated within those villages. Outside Bolu we came across stone and wooden houses; some with tin roofs, and here outside Kulu, homes are beautifully constructed out of wooden support beams and sun-dried dung. Donkeys and sheep are plentiful, instead of the water buffalo and cows in Kartalkaya.

Then there's this little fellow:



Meet the Anatolian Souslik, a cheeky ground squirrel that runs rampant in these parts. Isn't it lovely?

the edge of both sea and desert

village doors, plateau

It was the elusive Bruce's Scops Owl— a blackbird-sized little thing, which had us standing on the edge of Saiq Plateau near sunset. The heat had no hold on this landscape; I tightly wrapped my blue scarf around my shoulders and arms, cocoon-like, marvelling at the drop in temperature. Before and below me, a wide series of massive rocks and their deep valleys reached the horizon, the only sound a cat, and the whistling wind. We walked down into a small village, where we were greeted by a young man whose teeth gleamed white as he grinned in the fading light.

"Assalaam alaikum."
"Wa alaikum assalaam."

The sun was soon replaced by a giant yellow moon and glittering constellations.
We stood in silence, straining our ears for the telltale hoo-ing of our little friend.

sossego

the doors of piódão

the goat and the pudding

Nestled in the terraced valley of the Serra do Açor, lies a storybook village of schist and lines of blue. Piódão is a stark contrast to the other Portuguese villages I came across, which were generally a collection of white-walled boxy houses trimmed in yellow or cobalt.

The quiet had a thickness to it, occasionally broken by a voice— human, bird or goat. I was taken by the careful layers schist and slate, the reverence of cobalt, the little hand-made crosses of twigs nailed above doorways. Climbing the narrow passageways between the ancient houses, I felt that familiar longing in my stomach.

We were beckoned to a little restaurant by an emphatic and convincing man, where we became the sole diners. It was decided that I must try the chanfana, a hearty and hygge (I must use the Danish here, as there really isn't an English word to describe the feeling of this dish) clay-pot stew of goat meat and potatoes, a hint of mint, generous in olive oil. This stew was made for bread-dipping, and my goodness, the goat... It just melted.



And the best way to end such perfection? A coffee, some rice pudding, and a few good laughs.

schist, and lines of blue

behind istanbul

I had accidentally deleted these photographs off my camera a couple of weeks ago, and was irritated with myself for not having downloaded them to my computer. As it turns out, I had downloaded them after all— and I'm happy to share with you some impressions of a dark, winter afternoon on the roads behind Istanbul— something you are not likely to see on your visit to this wonderful city.