Near Savsat, Northeast Turkey
Sometimes on this trip I have really missed having another person with me, especially when I reach a lovely place. It’s the first time I’ve done a long trip on my own. A few days ago, I climbed a pass from the bare north Anatolian steppe out of the Ardahan valley west into the mountains. Just after the summit there was the most BEAUTIFUL view over green alpine meadows with pine trees and the rocky Kackar mountains which lie now between me here and the Black Sea. So I brewed up some tea and was drinking it alone on the stony verge when a car came by and two men and two women got out. They smiled a lot and waved their arms at the view, said by hand gestures something like ‘you’re having tea up here - wonderful’, and then suddenly went and turned up the car stereo so that opera music filled the air. We all listened for a moment, looking at the view, then they gave me some pears, shook hands with me, and drove off. So I didn’t have a friend with me but total strangers were suddenly very nice company. Things like that happen much more often than I imagined.
These roads in Northeast Anatolia are utterly beautiful but very tough to ride.
I climbed up from Posof near the Georgian border through oak and conifer forests, pine cones on the verges. There were villages dotted across the valley, each with minarets; calls to prayer were blowing across the air sometimes louder sometimes fading to nothing.
Through hay fields with men lifting forks of hay with pitchforks onto wagons. Men cutting hay with scythes, three in a row swinging scythes in synch. Straw hats. Dust and grassy bits in the wind.
I was aiming for the Ilgardagi Pass. There was silence except for crickets buzzing, bees in the clover, wind in grass, tiny thin cheeps of brown unidentifiable birds, far away man calling cattle, or a stream over stones. And my knees creaking.
There were buzzards soaring, or suddenly huge right near me on a telephone wire, they stare at me then lift off.
Up above the tree-line, there were green meadows with wild grasses, rosebay willow herb and blue vetch and purple thistles and white thistledown and yellow dandelions. Herds of brown lean cattle, one cowherd leaning on stick looking at me, waving.
I saw a long-legged buzzard on a rock, russet chest, pale head twisting this way and that in the wind. A new species, pretty sure I got it right.
There were trenches up the hills for the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline, and I passed a big white pumping station with accommodation blocks and big fences and a helipad. Thought from a distance it was a nice cafe with cold drinks and seats, maybe, but…
The road winds high high up from one horizon to another long uphill stretch. There was a mountain spring where a man was praying on a carpet. Delicious ice cold water. Dusty green mountain peaks far below, and above the bare yellow rock smooth peak of Mt Cicek.
I struggle last few miles to the top of the pass against a wind, but then over the top reach the beautiful high Anatolian steppe, endless bare pale green hills, no trees, no fences, sun getting lower over huge huge open land. I do 60kph down long looping curves into the valley, not braking at all.
I stopped at a little poor village called Damal. Old men in frayed brown tweed jackets, dark flat caps, gold teeth, rosary.
Wheelbarrows, tractors, horses and carts. Men drive over cobbles clattering on horse-drawn machines with huge metal wheels taller than the man, who sits on a seat over metal combs. Can’t remember what these are called. Someone said there was a hotel in the village and took me to a building below the main street, but it was locked and had one of those signs on the door that say you should wear a hard hat and protective boots when going in. Didn’t seem right at all. Finally I found a room over the local petrol station across the hill from the village. Four eleven-year old boys walk there with me in the dusk, trying to teach me Turkish, miming, pointing, grinning, showing me off to their school teacher who was walking with a friend to the village.
In the quiet morning, I rode south over the high steppe. Huge tangles of flowers in the verges, sweeps of flowers over the fields, bees buzzing. Dark blue spikes like lupins, blue flowers on spiky stalks like I saw by my tent in Kazakhstan, purple thistles, yellow ragwort, purple vetch, white meadow sweet. Distant hills pale green pale blue. It’s just beautiful. Dark swifts with arc wings curve all over the place high in the air then dive close to me. Their shadows keep passing across the road as I ride along.
Pale white gold fields, deep brown gold fields, green gold fields. Smell of hay and dust.
I saw a couple of ruined castles on little knolls.
It seems very poor here. People’s homes in the villages are made of piled dry stones, some plastered and whitewashed, others just bare stone. Grass on roof, chimney smoking, tiny windows, family outside, with toddlers stumbling after footballs etc. Women in long brown smocks, hedscarves, aprons, carrying buckets. Washing on the line, and a big hayrick with wooden ladders propped against it, and piles of cut turf for the fire. By the villages are little flocks of white geese, and horses and foals by rivers.
The next day I climbed up the Cam Pass leaving bheind Ardahan and the dry high steppe, and dropping down into bright green valleys, with wooden cabins and pine trees, and little streams and buzzards crying. It was at the top of the pass looking down into this landscape that I had my tea, and the car with opera music people appeared.
Anyway, just wanted to say that thanks to Ben, a whole bunch of new pod recordings are now coming up… There are all sorts of things coming, from western China right through Central Asia, horns playing in Buddhist monasteries, Chinese Muslim calls to prayer, a Tibetan dance party, a thunderstorm heard from under a bridge near the Kyrgyz border, birds in the rafters of a 12th c mausoleum in Kazakhstan, a Kyrgyz man playing a clay flute… Hope you like them. And thanks again Ben for looking after this site.