On Sunday, I rolled out of bed and, before going down to breakfast, gathered up my stuff and prepared to check out of the Oğretmen Evi. Later that morning I would be hopping a bus to the nearby town of Tarsus, to visit the students at a school there for a few days. It...
Wednesday, 5 December In the morning Ali and I both woke up around 6:30 a.m. We got up and walked down the street to Hoca’s restaurant for breakfast but found it not open yet. We hung out at the kahvehanesi a while instead. When Hoca finally arrived we stepped into...
Nihat bey, the commander at the jandarma post, had told me to find and say hello to Hoca at the end of the day, so all day long I walked thinking, I can’t just camp anywhere tonight, I’ve got to find Hoca. Whatever I do, I’ve got to find Hoca. In the early afternoon I...
Tuesday, 4 December The next morning, I woke up just before dawn to the howling and yipping of coyotes a few hundred meters away. They either didn’t know I was nearby listening, or they didn’t care. I stepped out of my tent, put on my boots, and noticed that the soil...
Monday, 3 December The next morning, I finally reached the the Goksu River. I knew from the satellite photos that just a few kilometers down the road it would start flowing through a dramatic canyon with steep rocky cliffs a thousand feet high, but here it looked more...
Wide awake now, I grabbed my camera and ventured out onto the rock outcropping near my tent to take photos of the valley and hills below. Then I broke camp and got an early start down the hill. There were still no signs of life. The road was mine alone, and I reveled...
Wednesday, 28 November Back on the walk, Within the first hour, I passed through the town of Karaman. This was my last full day walking on the plateau. I would be glad to descend to the warmer climes, since the weather was becoming chilly on the plateau and I was now...
Thursday, 15 November The next day I woke up, stuffed everything back into my pack, and caught a bus back to the main road through Icericumra to begin my day’s walk. As I stepped off the bus I bumped into four guys getting off another bus. They had worked the night...
A few kilometers later, as I walked along the shoulder south of Cariklar, two very friendly cops in an oncoming car slowed and pulled alongside me. The one in the passenger seat stuck his head out the window. “How are you, is everything okay?” he asked. “Yeah, thanks,...
As I entered the village I greeted a young man coming out of one of the houses. We chatted for a moment, and then I asked him if there was anyone at the mosque a couple hundred meters down the road towards the village. He said that if there wasn’t, there were a couple...
Tuesday, 13 November Two weeks after leaving Konya for a vacation in Istanbul, I was back in Konya to resume the walk. I would have only one week before I had to return to Istanbul to pick up my new residency permit, and I wanted to make good time of it. I was stiff...
The next morning there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Before packing up I sat and watched the sunrise. This had been one of my favorite campsites so far, mostly because it had been so quiet during the night, only about one car on the road every ten minutes, and I was able...
Tuesday, 23 October After four days at the hotel in Beysehir I was eager to get moving again. I felt the familiar pang of leaving what had become comfortable and familiar behind, but I was starting to realize that the feeling was not going to go away, and that my aim...
Friday, 18 October I woke up the next morning with the sun streaming into my room, and I got out of bed to look out the window and check out the surroundings which I hadn’t been able to see when I arrived well after dark the previous evening. When I had checked in,...
Tuesday, 16 October Waking in the morning with a gentle breeze on my face, I lay in my sleeping bag for a long time watching pear leaves shimmer in the early light. All was quiet except for the breeze and an occasional roar of a truck passing on the road. However, I...
Monday, 15 October Then bright and early Monday morning, 15 October, I took a bus from the lake back to Sarkikaraagac and began walking again. I’d gotten a late start. After a few hours it began to get dark, and I realized I wasn’t going to make it to Kireli, the...
Friday, 12 October The next day I woke up early, packed up my stuff, and took a look around the room. Eight hours ago I hadn’t wanted to touch the floor or sit on the couch, but that dark, dingy place had become a safe home to me in a very short time. I recognized the...
Toward the end of the day I approached Bahtiyar which has a population of 1,500 to 2,000 people. It was about ¾ mile off the main road and up a hill so it would be a little walk yet. One of the first things I ran into at the edge of the village was a middle school....
The next morning I walked out of Gelendost in the rain, which stopped after a few kilometers down the road when I entered a small village of about 1,500 people. On my left as I entered the village was a school where a bunch of little kids were outside doing their...
Monday and Tuesday, 8/9 October 2012 I enjoyed the pension so much that I threw for several days when my week’s stay was finished. That is, I would do a day’s walk and come back by bus to the pension at the end of the day and spend the night. The next day I would take...
