Ankara to Erzurum

The moment I stepped out of the shuttle, in downtown Ankara, I knew I was alone. The organized chaos that spread in front of my eyes, was surely just the beginning, and although I had been to Turkey already and was familiar with it, the sheer amount of people and cars on their seemingly random paths impressed me.

The truth was, there was no way back. It was time to face the responsibility of the choice I had made, and the point of no return had already flown at a very high speed past my inert eyes. The truth was, I was going to be alone for the next 8 months, and I should start, from this moment, gathering the confidence to find a compromise between being in control, and letting the flow of life take care of me, for the first time in my life. The backpack was as heavy as my heart, but I would soon learn to lighten both up. I took a deep breath, opened my eyes to the beautiful chaos in front of me, and tried my first contact, with some young turkish kids. As I asked for directions to the bus stop I needed to find, I promptly realized that it would be hard to find an english speaker here – to my surprise – and after several attempts, finally, someone pointed me out to the place I needed to be at. This information came together with the warning that buses in Ankara would not have any information on which bus stop we would be, so I’d better savvy up and ask the driver for information.

I had sent Couchsurfing requests to Ankara, and had obtained a reply very promptly. A young medicine student would receive me in his house for one night. I had also received an invitation from an engineer, professor at the Middle-East Technical University, and puzzle designer, as a hobby. As much as the second character seemed very interesting to meet, I had already accepted the offer from the first reply, and thus decided to meet the second one, the next day, before my train would leave. With the sparse directions I had been given, I tried to get the bus driver and ticket controller to help me find my stop, to which they didn’t manifest much interest, busy with their intense work – a bus in the capital of Turkey at the end of a workday can be very crowded – so I tried to keep my eyes open and find the reference points I had been given : after the big slope, the bus will follow a sharp curve, where you should get out. Well, with the anxiety of missing the stop, I descended after the first upward slope, and found myself far away from the place I should’ve been. As the sun went down, I tried to approach some shopkeepers amidst the chaos of people and although their English and my Turkish didn’t really find a common ground, I managed to get shoved inside another bus, and after a while drifting through the maze of roads in the last purple light of the day, there was no doubt, the big slope and the curve were here. As I found the house of my host, I was greeted by a young man, with a huge smile and a very warm welcome. As it was exam period at the university and I had to wake up early and leave to the train station, my host, his flatmates and I, spent an incredibly nice evening drinking imported beer, and chatting about many different topics, from the psychedelic experience to the situation in Iran – turns out he was Iranian born and was studying medicine in Turkey, where he felt he had a considerable amount of freedom, compared to his home -, travel and many other things. In my first night alone, I went to bed with a huge grin on my face, as I digested the freshly recent encounter with my first interesting people in the middle-east.

My first bedroom, in Ankara.

The next day, I woke up early, and tried to find my way to the train station, which again, anxiety had made me leave the bus earlier than I should, providing me with a longish walk through the city’s suburbs. Ankara seemed now, in the morning light, as I expected it to be. A wild forest of concrete, with a lot of deteriorated buildings which gave it a urban exploratory charm and an aura of mystery. I arrived to the train station and bought a ticket for the Orient (Dogu) Express, to Erzurum, which would leave at the end of the day. As I had arranged with the puzzle designer to meet up, I found him in the parking lot of the train station, quite agitated because of being badly parked. He was an older man, around his 40’s, with a very Turkish face. Long nose, dark eyebrows, pointy cheekbones and kind eyes.

As we talked he told me about himself and his family, and told me he’d like to take me around to see a bit of Ankara, to what I promptly thanked and accepted without questions. The first stop would be the At-Aturk mausoleum, one of the greatest modern monuments of Turkey. From my previous explorations of Turkey, and the contact with Turkish people, I knew that the Turkish have a very special admiration for At-Aturk, the founder of modern Turkey, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, sometimes giving the feeling of personality cult, or even god-like reverence. My opinion on this was always that no matter as great as a man might be, blind reverence is never a good thing, and a man is still a man, prone to committing errors and making bad decisions. From my analysis of Turkish history, there is no doubt that At-Aturk, like any other politician, made a few of his own, despite all the great things he did for Turkey. The mausoleum was impressive. A beautifully arranged complex of buildings encircling a great open plaza, on top of a hill overlooking the whole of Ankara. On the head-top, the tomb of At-Aturk, magnificent and austere, surrounded by smaller buildings with museums of some of At-Aturk’s possessions. We walked around, and it was truly an impressive monument, with enormous spaces, boulevards of flowerbeds, and German-design egypt-like grandiose structures of contemporary architecture.

The At-Aturk Mausoleum

When we were done with the mausoleum, my host explained that Ankara had been designed to be the administrative center of Turkey, and that apart from the mausoleum, there was not really a big deal to see in the city. He suggested we could visit the Middle-East Technical University, as he knew it very well, being a professor. When we arrived, I was surprised with the sheer size of the campus, as we drove some kilometers deep inside to arrive to his department – I would discover throughout my trip, that most universities in the countries I visited had enormous campuses. The department was nicely arranged and quiet, as he showed me around. There were some fantastic items in their open-air museum, like an old steam locomotive, a bunch of fighter jets (including a slick turkish made jet), old classic cars, and a bunch of other mechanical paraphernalia spread around the exterior of the campus. One of the most interesting items was a boat, made of concrete, which he swore was designed to actually float on water, despite the incredibly heavy weight of tons. As we strolled through the campus, we arrived to the sports complex, where I saw, on the stands, the words DEVRIM written in big white letters. The story of those letters goes that back in the 70’s, the chemistry students of the TUA, were involved in student riots, in a turbulent time in Turkey, and they painted DEVRIM (REVOLUTION) on the stands of the university stadium, with a special paint, that no matter how hard the university tried to remove it, it never had come out. Maybe the solution would be to repaint the whole thing, but no one ever did, so the echoes of revolution were constantly floating around the TUA – an ironic story, given the authoritative tone of Reyep Erdogan, Turkey’s ex-PM and current President.

REVOLUTION painted in the Stadium

The Middle-East Technical University Campus

After the campus tour, we went to have lunch, and I tried my first eastern delicacy on the trip, a traditional baked potato from Ankara, filled with a wide range of tasty bits, like corn, onion, sausage, cheese, and others. My host then suggested we’d go for a drive out of the city, where Ankara natives go to escape the bustling chaos of the city, and do a very traditional Turkish activity, which I had solemnly missed since my last visit : drink Turkish tea in a tea garden. He took me to this gorgeous spread of greenery, just outside the city limits, overlooking a lake, a property which also was part of the METU, but where whole families go for their strolls and tea by the lake. We sat down in a really nice tea garden, with the lake just in front, and my host ordered something which I had never had or seen : a Semavor, this is a traditional way of drinking tea, and consists in a big (almost half a meter tall) tea boiler, with space in the middle to have burning coals inside, which not only boils the water, but keeps it hot at all times. The tea is then prepared in a little kettle on the top of the Semavor, and mixed with hot water from the bottom. Quite an apparatus, to have a cup of tea, but a very interesting ritual and device, obviously originating a great cup’a! – since I came in contact with the Turkish culture, that the Turkish tea has to be one of my favorite dimensions, never giving up a chance to have a nice cup of tea, in a nice garden, especially if it has a nice view!

Tea Garden in Ankara

Semavor

In our last moments of interaction of what had been a really heartwarming day, my host told me the incredible story of how he had met his wife. In his last year of university, the same day he had received his diploma, and just after having had a terrible heartbreak with a woman he had thought to be the woman of his life, he had come to this exact same place (the green lung of Ankara) with his friends to drink and celebrate, by the lake. Amidst the laughs, good humor and great vibes, they had drank a bit too much, and definitely too much to drive. Of course, under the influence, none of them had the good hindsight to predict that it would be dangerous to drive, and as they were returning home, speedily, on one of the sharp curves, they lost control of the car, which flew over and plummeted into the lake. The accident was very very serious. When the ambulance and firemen arrived, they were rescued, but the consequences had been tragic: one of their friends was in a coma, and others were badly injured, including my host. They were taken to the hospital, where they were taken care of, and in-between broken bones, wounds and blood, the young nurse, who had been working there since little time, caught my host’s eye. Amidst the tragedy of the fateful night, it seems that love had found its way, as it always does. Since his injuries were serious, he was committed and stayed at the hospital for a couple of days, and some months after, he asked her to marry. Today, they are part of a happy family, together with a teenage girl 🙂 As he told me this story with tears in his eyes, he gifted me one of his homemade puzzles. A wooden cube, made of 9 rectangular pieces that fit together, with a hand-painted pattern on each of the sides, which took me quite a long time to re-assemble, the first time I decided to tear it apart and try it out. Little did he know, that throughout my trip, his puzzle would entertain and challenge many many children and adults, throughout 7 different countries! Nowadays, it rests in my bedroom, and I can re-assemble it in less than 5 minutes. Yes, it did have its trick, just like everything in life, including leaving everything to face the unknown in places very few people want to go, as I would soon find out.

He drove me to the train station, just before my train departed, and we hugged sincerely. Apparently I had been his first couch surfer, and beautifully, we had both experienced the best of this marvelous way of meeting people.

My puzzle-designer host!

I went to the train platform and boarded the Orient Express with a little knot in my heart, and a huge smile on my face. The East was expecting me.

I. Prologue

 

A Caged Animal Surrounded by Anthropological Treasures at The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, London

It had been a long and strenuous process, the decision of leaving everything, to plunge into the unknown, the culmination of many disillusions, the realization that the process of being alive, after all, is not something we can control, or shape, as many years of formal education and academic cocooning had tried to convince me of.

Humans are naturally curious – especially growing up -, and as a species, this quality might have very well been the reason for our success. Curiosity permeates in some way, into most of human personalities, leading humans to pursue knowledge, and often, become overly analytic and critical of other human actions, especially when confronted with the contrast between human action and Nature, and the progressive deterioration of the planet.

Indeed, fueled by curiosity, post-modern literary ideas, luddite essays and stories of other travelers, my comfortable position in society, slowly turned into a nightmare.

The capitalist dream, of a happy and safe childhood, learning to respect authoritarianism, several years of schooling framed in a (orthodox and quite un-pedagogic) education system, culminating with an academic specialization with the ultimate goal of becoming a productive member of society, the perfect consumer and the patriarchal leader of a family, started its dissolution with key experiences and inputs. The financial crisis of 2008,  Henry David Thoreau and the luddite’s manifestos against the industrial society, the fiction of post-modern authors like Foster Wallace, DeLillo, Vonnegut or Pynchon, several traveller’s adventurous accounts, experimenting with psychedelics and Terrence McKenna’s defying theories on reality and the general dissatisfaction with the 9-5 corporate life, filled with frustration and jejune mundanity, these were the main motivators for the ultimate decision: to break with the platitude, and change.

And so, it came to be, that in June 2014, I took the decision that many had taken before me, and that many think of taking, every single day. I quit my job as a software engineer, and decided to depart on a 8 month trip, from Turkey to Nepal, by land. In the spirit, a couple of creative projects: to write a travel journal in poetic form, and to document my explorations with a complete body of photography.

This post, is the first of many, quasi-journalistic collection of posts, where I will describe the key aspects of my journey, adventures, feelings, experiences and characters that enriched my life and made my trip an unforgettable thread of a never-ending ball of yarn, called world.

 

In the South

In the south,
the soul has wings, and flies.

Rules are of no importance,
for the thirsty spirit,
and the magic that comes out of it,
shows its of no importance,
that they are not important.

Here, each book is of poetry,
every caged bird
composes precious melodies,
each corner is a painting,
each smile shows the strength of being alive.

They meet up everywhere,
with their colourful towels,
spreading them on the floor,
they live on top of them.

They drink, smoke and love,
just as the poets have taught,
and in the end, celebrate it all,
with an improvised dance,
it doesn’t matter where.

The vines spread sweetness in the air,
and just by breathing it,
grows the desire to join the dance.

There are contrasting gods,
that everyone carries inside.

                      — Shiraz, May 2015

The Soul of a Poet

Show me your poetry,
which is so different from mine,
but so universal,
that everything you say,
is mine as well.

The poem is part of your blood,
since millenia that words
pump inside of you,
anxious to escape.

Your books have
a magical orthography,
that hypnotises me,
when I follow it’s winding lines.

Your streets have the names of poets,
and you erect mausoleums,
for their rotting bodies,
you let beauty persist after death.

Your proverb says that,
“everything that comes from the heart,
plants a seed,
in the hearts of others”,
and I already feel it blossom.

One day, a white rose,
will sprout from my mouth,
and plant its seeds,
in the hearts of others.

              — Tehran, April 2015

The Boys of Fuman

The boys of Fuman,
used to be teenage rebels,
that stole fruit from the neighbours,
but today they are the boys of Fuman,
famous for picking up strangers,
and turning them into one of them,
by using the delights of the garden of Eden,
where their roots are well buried,
and their love eases the growth,
of every ear of rice,
every blade of grass,
every turtle.

They are the ones who make this land a paradise,
they are the ones who fill it with poetry and simplicity,
of the pleasure of living with mud-covered feet,
they are the ones who bring the world to Fuman,
and show everyone,
that barriers don’t exist.

A turtle moves slowly in the rice field,
while the boys of Fuman go down the road, side-by-side.

                     — Fuman, April 2015

Twin Souls

Twin souls,
who attract each other magnetically,
hidden and obvious talents,
which mingle from the first moment,
in a whirlwind of creativity,
colors, sounds, magic, spirits,
from ancient Persia to the exploring Lusitania,
today traditions are explored,
brick by brick,
a wall of noise and static is risen,
and in the distance,
faraway echoes of lost cultures,
boil in the blood,
and climax into an explosion.

Exhausted, we let ourselves float
on the fortress we created,
the pleasure is unachievable,
for a moment we were one single entity,
now impressed in discretized data,
for all eternity.

                            — Yerevan, April 2015

             for Anahita, Arash and Marco

Dried

You molded me,
from clay to vase,
into one of the most beautiful shapes
that ever existed,
which if shown to the world,
would’ve been the envy of nations,
attract the most distant travellers,
and be shown in a pedestal,
in a magnificent temple,
that would live up to the beauty,
like a sacred casing
for its golden aura.

You left me to dry,
in the burning sun,
until my skin cracked up,
each day, deeper
each day, more parched
each day, more unavoidable,
slowly,
I became a ruin.

You put me in a corner,
and forgot about me,
and one day without noticing,
you tripped on me,
I crumbled to pieces,
thousands, minuscule, miserable.

I flew and spread with the wind.

It was up to you, to let me go.

                                    — Tehran, April 2015

Travel Companions

Travel companions,
are a preciousness,
which can be found on the way.

Heavy talkers or silent types,
all have something to say,
they are pillars of sanity,
and faith in humanity.

We share fleeting moments,
and create eternal bonds,
they are the ones who show us
that little corner where we would never look at,
or tell us that story which we’ll rememember,
when we become old men.

One day they fall from the sky,
the next they ascend,
they have already won their wings.

Behind stay promises of reencounter,
in another part of the world,
when destiny will be kind enough,
to let us embrace, once more.

                          — Tbilisi, Georgia, April 2015

Grey Wall

That thick fog,
formed, in an instant,
an invisible barrier,
hiding whichever
fragment was left of the world.

The tea bushes disappeared,
and with them, the slopes on which they were sustained.

In this eerie world,
the occasional sight of a skeletal tree
through the window,
reminds me there is a reality,
where your face is not just an apparition amidst the mist,
and where feelings have a shape,
and stop being this pale curtain which surrounds me.

We open way through the grey wall,
and we dive into the abyss,
we are ghosts, fragments, illusions.

                      — Artvin, Turkey, April 2015

The Monastery

Suspended, in the mystical valley,
where the fog hides the shapes,
and all the waterfalls of the world
converge in a single destructive torrent,
an imponent monastery,
rises in the stone wall,
majestic.

Stone by stone,
the human effort,
inspired by the divine,
reveals itself,
resilient and herculean.

Today, ruins and disfigured frescoes remain,
no God resides here,
but in these corridors,
the echoes of Byzantine chants,
the steps of the monks,
the whispers from the kitchen.

It is hard to expel ghosts as insistent
as the one who chose to live here,
in the heights,
in the stone,
in the fog,
in the snow.

The valley remains silent,
while the snow flakes,
smash violently against the ground.

— Sumela, Turkey, April 2015