It’s April of 1987 and our travels start out in Istanbul’s Yucelt Hostel with a bang. In fact a bunch of bangs! Unknowingly we have arrived during the Holy fasting Month of Ramadan, a time for devout Muslims when nothing slips past the lips during daylight hours. At an outlandish hour of the night we are rudely rousted awake by drummers taking to the ancient cobbled streets to awaken the faithful to eat before sunrise.
Istanbul is a city so badass it couldn’t be contained within one continent, so it straddled the Bosphorus Strait to put down roots in a second! And on our first morning, just because we can, we walk from the shore of Asia over the floating Galata Bridge to the shore of Europe while staying within the same city.
The lower level of the bridge hosts petite tea shops, hookah joints, and fish shops that snatch their catch straight from the murky depths below. On the upper level we thread our way through a horde of bodies; eluding a tangle of fishing poles, flopping fish, and hawkers flogging eclectic wares ranging from snakes to potato-peelers to underwear! We find Istanbul an enigma of the mysterious, exotic, and unknown.
Beneath a striking skyline of domes and minarets, this former capital of the Ottoman Empire is vividly alive with striking panoramas and scenes from daily Turkish life. Settling into the city’s rhythm, we experience the magnificent architecture of Sancta Sophia and the Blue Mosque; along with Muslims in skull caps, the maze of 4000 shops in the Grand Bazaar, legless beggars dragging themselves about with old shoes over their hands, heavily burdened donkeys, carpet shops offering a toke of hashish from a bubbling hookah pipe or a tiny glass of Turkish tea, horse-drawn carts clopping along cobbled streets, rag-clad shoeshine boys, perfume and postcard sellers, exotic spices, photo copied books, broom makers, cold showers, Asian bucket-flush toilets, mosque’s mournful calls to prayer from centuries-old minarets, weather-beaten fishermen on weather-beaten boats, and a peculiar encounter at a nude Turkish bath constructed out of solid marble during the Ottoman Empire. On this last one, I feel it pertinent to elaborate.
Built by a Sultan in 1741, the awesome Cagaloglu Hamami is a bath house with separate bathing areas for men and women. Entering the men’s, I am told to remove all my clothes before being shepherded into a cavernous steamy chamber with droplets of condensation dripping from the domed ceilings high above.
Seated on a massive heated marble slab in nothing but my birthday suit, my dreams of being rubbed and caressed by some erotically dressed and tawny-skinned beauty are rapidly dashed. A huge belly enters the spa – followed by its owner. Lumbering towards me is a not easily missable Turkish dude apparently called a ‘Tellac’; a name denoting a person skilled in the combination of washing, massage, and torture.
Garbed merely in a loin cloth and a scowl, he has the body-mass of a gluttonous walrus and is carpeted in a hairy landscaping worthy of an extra in the Planet of the Apes. Above a couple of chins, his eyebrows have fused together into a huge forehead-dwelling caterpillar, looking down upon a moustache that could use the services of a well-sharpened lawnmower. His dearth of curb appeal is equally matched by a dearth of congeniality. Alarmed that his mitts may go wandering in the wrong neighbourhood I contemplate escape!
With a gruff demeanor the Ayatollah of Awkward begins a dry massage with an abrasive mitt to exfoliate my skin from head to toe. Next, he flails at me while squeezing a large soapy sponge; spewing suds everywhere including my eyes. With brute force he then attacks my muscles attempting to dislocate various body parts, and follows up with a full body slapping – all in the name of well-being. With gentility clearly not his strong suit, I try not to scream, knowing the sound will echo along the arched recesses of this ancient edifice.
After what feels like just slightly less time than it took to build Angkor Wat, the Turkish Sasquatch douses me with a pail of warm water, and likely perplexed by multisyllabic words, exclaims ‘Feeneeesh’! Like a crippled insect I crawl my way back to where my clothes are hiding, sincerely hoping Christine’s experience has been nowhere near as traumatic as my own!
Good old Istanbul, it truly awakens the senses! Our compelling six day stint passes in a blink, and we board a bus many decades on the wrong side of middle-age for a twelve hour stamina test to Turkey’s fairy-tale Cappadocia area. In the magical village of Goreme it feels as if we’ve been transported back a few centuries in time, with people using hooved transportation in the form of horse drawn carts or camels.
The area is a geological oddity with phallus shaped rocks called ‘fairy chimneys’ painstakingly carved over centuries by Mother Nature herself. Our lodging here is extraordinary – we are staying in a cave carved into one of the rock pinnacles! After a couple of days exploring the area we end our time as troglodytes and use the power of our thumb to hitch a lift to the rock-cut settlement of Zelve.
Another day, another bus, which we are convinced is an acronym for ‘Boring Uncomfortable Stretch’. The thick Turkish cigarette smoke and shake-out-the-earwax volume of a woeful excuse for music are about as welcome as a scrotal graft. The only tolerable custom is a rag-tag kid shuffling down the aisle every few hours squirting a bottle of scented lemon oil into out-stretched palms to help refresh lethargic passengers.
On a bus for 12 1/2 hours that feel like 12 ½ days, we arrive in a charmless industrial town called Denizli. Seeking onward transport to Pamukkale the only thing that seems available is an ergonomically incorrect contraption called a ‘dolmus’. Designed for discomfort it is basically sciatica waiting to happen, and uncurling our spines when trying climb out of it, we have to teach ourselves how to walk all over again!
The name Pamukkale (Cotton Palace) is derived from its landscape of arctic-white terraced calcite basins and petrified waterfalls. About 650’ above the plains of Curuksu we savor the unimpeded vistas while soaking in warm effervescent thermal springs that we’re sharing with sunken Roman columns. Following an earthquake centuries ago, several pillars of the Temple of Apollo toppled into the pool and the artefacts now lay only a few feet beneath us as we float about in the soothing water!
After a few days in Pamukkale we head for Turkey’s south coast. How will we get there? Well, a trio of tedious bus trips of course! Barely tolerating the bastardly busing, we make it to the amiable fishing village of Kas, picturesquely hemmed in on three sides by the turquoise sheen of the Mediterranean Sea. After the magnitude of our travels through these parched lands we are euphoric to once again smell and see the sea!
We luck out by finding a rentable room in a fabulous location, and it matters not that the house is humble or that the owners do not speak English. Putting a little extra oomph in our day, the kind woman makes us Turkish tea on her hot-plate in the morning and serves up a breakfast of an egg, sweet tomatoes, goat’s cheese, and steamy-hot baked bread. Sitting on a small balcony overlooking the peacock blue waters we are as jolly as a couple of germs in a Jacuzzi!
Traveling by yacht to Kekova, and on to Tersane Island, we drop anchor in a bay near the remains of an old church with only its heroic archway still standing. Wading near shore Christine has the misfortune of stepping on a sea urchin, and returns to the boat to try and dig out the painful spines with a safety pin.
Having read that urine can help reduce the pain, and being a prince among men, I offer to drop trow and pee on her foot. Not only does ‘she-of-the-spines’ harshly dismiss the offer of my whiz-dom, but falling upon my ears is not her usual polite language – instead, it is phraseology that would leave a longshoreman blushing! But Honey, I’m only trying to help.
Leaving charming Kas we travel north, once again pretzeled into a space-starved dolmus raising concerns about an impending spinal deformity! Overlooking the town of Fethiye, and carved into a vertical mountain cliff are Lycian rock tombs, including the 350 BC built Tomb of Amyntas. We cautiously scramble up to place our hands on this amazing piece of history.
Today, yet again, we are on another beastly bus as a necessary evil to get to Oludeniz. The name translates to ‘Dead Sea’, but unlike its namesake in Israel the sea is not dead at all, it is simply a peacefully sheltered turquoise lagoon fringed with pine-covered mountains. To reach the beach we snare a ride in an elderly Chevy convertible and drive a completely cratered road that keeps our heads in a constant north-south nod like bobble-head dolls taped to the handle of a jackhammer!
The setting is tranquil, the beach is unsullied, and delightfully it is a place where we can frugally frolic for a few bucks a day. We have rudimentary lodging in a campground tide-side, and though the location is fantastic, our bare-bones room has a troubling surplus of local ‘wildlife’.
In the early morning a humongous insect only slightly smaller than a pterodactyl flies into our abode so I grab a book and land a weighty wallop on the intruder. However, with survival skills that would make a cockroach proud, the winged warrior gains our insect respect by making a victory lap of the room before finally relinquishing our air space!
Our sleep is regularly disrupted by the persistent pestering of pipsqueak owls or the snarling dogfights. Also, we have to defend our food against a naked-tailed vermin known as ‘Rattus Horribilis’; a nocturnal visitor about the size of a dachshund! When the night is as black as it gets the patter of his rat feet scurrying across the rustic wooden beam overhead is not exactly an antidote for insomnia and gnaws on our nerves!
During our stay in the campground we befriend a German couple who have driven their Volkswagen van all the way from Germany. Using binoculars while we’re sitting around a camp fire late afternoon, Eva notices a small fire outside what appears to be a cave near the top of a nearby mountain, and with gung-ho optimism, I suggest to her husband Heiner that tomorrow he and I attempt to satisfy our curiosity.
At the first light of day we begin our leg-quivering climb, and a couple of hours later find a path leading to the abode of an old woman dressed in rags. As we offer a wave, the bespectacled one squints at us through Mr. Magoo-like glasses lending her the look of a demented owl. She seems totally flummoxed by our presence, but in a gesture of friendship I attach a Canadian pin to her tattered rags. My reward is a lovely gummy smile, as years of solitude have apparently reduced her inventory of teeth down to a total of three.
Her primitive dwelling is a dirt floored cave, and she has a few chickens and satanic-faced goats loitering about outside. Though obviously poor, with possessions few, her serene and lofty perch provides million lira views of the flawlessly composed countryside, and I will always fondly remember my encounter with this lovely old woman in the Turkish mountains.
Research by our German friends reveals the ghost village of Kaya is nearby. Built by Greeks, the once flourishing town of 10,000 is now abandoned in the eerily silent hills surrounding it. The sprawling ruins are rumored to contain a stash of human bones, and by sheer luck we find them inside a stone crypt.
Our last evening in Oludeniz is spent beneath a gently swaying Casuarina tree, sharing a bottle of wine and listening with a romantic ear to Chris De Burgh singing ‘Lady in Red’. The intended stay of a few days has stretched into ten, as we’ve absolutely loved sinking our teeth into this true Turkish delight.
We bus to the port town of Marmaris and overnight, before bidding farewell to alluring Turkey. When the ferry bumps to a halt on the Greek island of Rhodes, we err in accepting a lift from a guy in a van wanting to show us his pension. Sadly it’s several miles from town, and for our purposes about as useless as a chocolate teapot. Saddled with our heavy packs we’re now forced to drag our butts all the way back into town.
Within the walls of ‘Old Town’ we locate an apartment renting a windowless cell accessible only by a ladder. It’s patchwork of paint has us questioning if somebody with a white cane was responsible for picking out the paint chips. Every-which-way weird, the ceiling is Dracula-red and the walls are crow black, plum purple, Smurf-blue, and pond-algae green. Man, when it comes to harmony, this Grecian oddity is about as subtle as a hand grenade!
The ultimate Feng Shui fail is definitely a one of a kind, and the kind of which one is definitely enough. However, we set aside our quibbles due the perfect location. As an unexpected bonus we have the luxury of our first hot water shower in over a month, making sluicing away the grime of travel actually pleasurable for a change. Vrooming about on a rented motorbike we explore the roads of Rhodes roads by poking around any place of interest, including the tiny acropolis town of Lindos.
Our next sojourn is Santorini; a picturesque white-washed island with blue-domed churches barnacled to sheer 1200’ cliffs. At the port of Thira we have the option of riding a donkey up 566 stairs cut into the cliff, but to save money we pass on an ass and use our own four feet instead of eight.
Having a bit of a mental lapse when selecting shelter, we later learn that in addition to boarding people, the owners also board foghorn-worthy donkeys. Sleep comes in only dribs and drabs with our ears being ass-ailed throughout the night by the donk’s epic nasal honks, and making matters worse, I’m not exactly hee-hawing over the fact my wallet went through a wash that turned the contents into one big soggy mess.
The island is swollen with vacationists, and the rankled residents are left with all the emotion of a mannequin. After just a few days we’ve lost all willingness to endure their constipated looking faces, and combined with our noisy housemates with the four feet and long ears, the island quickly bottoms out on our care-meter. It’s time to vacate the supreme surplus of snobbery on Santorini’s soil.
By bus we gingerly descend a serpentine road to the port of Athinos for an overnight ferry to Piraeus. The ferry is followed by a bus to Athens, and another to the city of Patras; where piling on the purgatory, we then endure a 20 hour ferry trip across the Adriatic Sea to Brindisi in Italy. Yikes, the punishing travel we are enduring has now degenerated from a barrel of laughs into one big vat of vomit!
At the port of Brindisi a group of travelers, including ourselves, are taken to a customs area and lined up along a wall. Our backpacks are placed in the center of the room and checked out by the ever probing nose of a security dog; but with no dope to tantalize the mongrel’s sensitive snout we are permitted entry.
After a night train to Rome we are approached by an old man touting a room, and trailing along behind him, are pleasantly surprised when taken into an Italian family’s homey apartment to see their extra room. The elderly Italian mamma speaks no English at all, but losing a battle with our eyelids we’re just grateful for a place to slide between the sheets.
As we roam about Rome on a quest for nourishment, our acquisitions are a bottle of red wine and a whole cooked chicken, which should be perfect companions for a box of cherries left for us by the owner. Back in our room we raise a glass to stepping off our frenzied travel treadmill, before keenly dismembering and devouring the delectable fowl using nothing but our fingers.
After indulging our inner gladiator at the Coliseum we toss a few lira coins in Trevi Fountain. Wandering into Vatican City we have a chance encounter with the Pope, standing on a balcony giving blessings to the tide of people below. Hmm, never had a papal blessing before – probably won’t help!
Christine and I then say arrivederci to ‘pastaville’ to experience the culture of northern Africa. Scrunched between the troubled countries of Libya and Algeria, Tunisia seems to be the safest option, but at the filthy airport in Tunis we are taken aback by the general unfriendliness, and already pondering our choice.
Despite an apathetic lack of help we locate a bus bound for town, and as the only infidels aboard, can feel an undisguised scorn radiating from faces looking as friendly as a lynch mob. With standing room only on the crowded bus we struggle with our equilibrium management while trying to remain upright, guard our backpacks, and decipher where the Hell we are!
Endeavoring to get off, our Canadian politeness is to no avail so I engage my elbows and knees to help unclog a path to the door, but the sullen driver doesn’t even bother coming to a full stop. Laden with heavy packs we awkwardly jump off onto a sidewalk, and land right beside a huddled group of gibbering Islamic women; who dressed in full on black burqas, look very similar to a stack of collapsed patio umbrellas.
The Arab world of Tunis feels edgy and irritable. It is headquarters for the PLO, and with Arafat’s second in command Ibu Jihad recently assassinated by Israel, the streets are thick with armed police. Foraging for lodging in the profuse heat we realize there’s likely a better chance of finding Jimmy Hoffa. Tunis seems a city without laughter, and one that would without doubt present serious challenges for a tourism board!
After probing alley after alley for accommodation we are famished, but regrettably a decent ‘squat and gobble’ is harder to pick than a broken nose! At a stand-up Muslim eatery with doubtful hygiene we eat some unidentified slop that should have remained in the pot, and swallow a malaria pill for dessert.
After a few days our morale is in a terminal decline with Tunis being a total cesspool, and tired of all the shit, we are ready to give it a flush! Ruefully questioning what mental mishap possessed us to add this wretchedness to our itinerary, we adjust our plans on the fly to give Morocco a try. Since it’s unsafe to cross Algeria by land, we have to wait for the first available plane which sadly is not leaving for another 5 days.
All out of fucks to give about Tunis, we turn our backs on the pandemic of unfriendliness and train to Sidi Biou Said. The pretty cliff top village has whitewashed buildings with ornate wrought iron railings and brightly painted blue doorways, and by luck we find two brothers who offer us a room beside a courtyard built around an enormous 800 year old fig tree.
In a nearby café we sip a cup of mint tea while seated next to Arabs smoking from a hookah pipe, with mini checkered tablecloths draped over their heads. Lizards scamper about the walls and a Congo drum jam session is underway outside on the street. Children pass by selling ‘nosegay’ made of jasmine buds and an old woman flogs long crusty rolls of still warm bread out of a mangled metal wheelbarrow. The town is a good pit stop, despite the fact that I’m suffering from acute sobriety in this alcohol-prohibited country!
Just as our flight to Casablanca in Morocco is about to land, the pilot abruptly forces the plane’s nose upwards and circles in the sky. As the plane bounces to a stop on the runway on a second landing attempt passengers break into spontaneous applause, praising their beloved Allah! Diminishing our joy, Casablanca is another travel fail. Unlike expectations of a romantic Bogart and Bergman movie, our wanderings suggest the only parallel would be the ample cast of dodgy Peter Lorre-esque characters lurking about.
During our rigorous search for a room midafternoon the sun is severe, and Christine sits on a bench with our packs while I keep looking. After roaming street after street I turn a corner, and several blocks away catch a glimpse of Christine. Unsure of the intentions of three suspect characters moving towards her, I race back and they quickly vanish from sight. Gathering up our gear, a still shaken Christine tells me she is so grateful I returned when I did, because she had visions of either a Moroccan mugging or being abducted.
Longing to push on but ambivalent as to where, we rashly decide to travel to Marrakech; helped to that decision by the fact that it’s the destination of the first bus we see! They say spontaneity more often than not makes for the best kind of adventure – well we are about to find out!
Like sharks smelling the scent of blood in the water, hustlers swiftly approach the bus through the darkness as we exit somewhere on the outskirts of Marrakech. Luckily we have met a girl on the bus who speaks a little English, and she has kindly offered to take us, via a second bus, into the ‘old town’, where we are hugely relieved to locate lodging directly across from bustling Djemma El Fna Square.
Once the key meeting spot for trans-Siberian caravans trading spices, slaves, and gold; the square is now a jaw-dropping medieval circus where the bizarre and unfathomable regularly shake hands. We find it enthralling! There are flutes piping, drums pounding, tambourines jangling, snake charmers hypnotizing cobras and vipers, a plier-wielding dentist with a gory array of brown molars, jugglers, kids sniffing glue, impassioned wailing storytellers, shoe-shiners, tattooed Berber sellers, hand-holding men, hash vendors, skulking hustlers, pushcarts stacked with pyramids of oranges, and bread sellers with hennaed hands. Medicine stalls sell spices, gnarled roots, lizards, toads, bird beaks, and porcupine quills; and for a few dirhams flamboyant water carriers in dingle-balled hats resembling a lampshade will untether a silver cup from a necklace and pour you a cup of water out of a goat’s stomach.
A pickpocket in the square deftly unbuttons my pant pocket and has my wallet almost out before I thwart the theft and send the culprit vanishing into the crowd. Behind the square is a Kasbah, a centuries-old labyrinth of twisty alleyways certain to confuse and disorient. In fact scaremongers harass us, telling us that without a guide we’ll never find our way out! We try ignoring them to death, and dismissing their intimidation, enter the maze on our own.
The seething souk is a spider’s web of aggressive merchants all wait for their flies. They don’t like to take no for an answer, and grabbed at a stall I angrily slap away the guy’s arm and a heavy shoving match ensues. Contemplating an injury to his whiskered jowls, in a blip of lucidity I realize that being deep in this disorienting medina I need to dial back the testosterone. We walk away, going this way and that, and soon find ourselves hopelessly lost as forewarned. Muddling about claustrophobic ‘burka-ville’ like rats in a maze for what feels like days we eventually chance upon an exit; ever so relieved to see daylight!
Three days later we escape the madness of Marrakesh by traveling by bus through the Atlas Mountains. The scenery is bleak with the only signs of life being a few Berber women hauling water in clay urns and storks nesting atop old ruins ravaged by age and blistered by the Saharan sun. The bus driver enthroned behind the steering wheel is clearly not a first-round draft choice, and combines a dangerously heavy foot with an apparent brake phobia as the bus weaves through dusty mountain switchbacks at full bore.
There is a chorus of groans from several passengers spewing the contents of their stomachs onto the floor. Trying not to retch from the stench, we elevate our feet to evade pools of disgustingness sloshing about the isles with each lurch of the bus. Barricading our nostrils in an attempt to prevent our own Technicolor yawn, we glumly endure the 200 km regurgitation-fest until arriving at a drought-ridden waste of real estate known as Ouarzazate; part of the immense nine million square kilometers of the Sahara Desert.
We’re now in the middle of fricking nowhere; and if fricking nowhere had a capital, it would be fricking Quarzazate! Sand is overrated if there’s not a beach to accompany it, and coming from an island with 20 feet of rainfall a year, we are uneasy with the emptiness of our surroundings in the world’s hottest desert. The Saharan Sandmageddon’s name means ‘place without noise’, which tells us the name for ‘place without interest’ was already taken. But wait, let me check my ‘giveashitmeter’. Nope, nothing!
Enduring another cheerless 24 hour marathon of travel on a succession of sad-ass buses, we backtrack through Marrakech, Casablanca, and Rabat before reaching the coastal town of Asilah. Stepping off the last bus trying to unkink ourselves we give a big Halle-fucking-lujah, and agree that this seaside town will have to suffice as a desperately needed stopover until our sullied spirits have a chance to repair themselves.
Occupying the room abutting ours is an offbeat American hippie couple and their two amusing little pet chameleons. One night while getting high with a little help from my friends over a pipe of hash, I collapse in a rip-roaring belly laugh watching the laughable little lizards doing their lizardy things. One is perched atop the guy’s Rasta hat, and the other is clinging to a pair of Valentine Red sunglasses the guy must be wearing on a dare! Nature’s ninjas amazingly cloak themselves to their surroundings and hilariously swivel their bulging Marty Feldman-like eyeballs about totally independently of each other.
After a much welcomed rest in Asilah we move on to the decaying port town of Tangier. Expectations are again quelled by feral brats with stalactites of snot hanging from their nostrils, who tug at our shirts with one hand while begging for baksheesh with the other. With religious differences and trouble slumbering just beneath the surface, the town’s tourism office is not likely to be putting us on a retainer any time soon!
Empty of enthusiasm and tired of seeing travel unravel in unfriendly Islamic countries, it’s time to get out from under the veil of Morocco. We have absolutely no remorse in leaving the culture stress of aloof Arabs with a fetish for head-bonking prayer mats, braiding nose hairs, cavorting with camels, playing tonsil-hockey with underage goats, or whatever else fills their dusty days.
My theory is if you ever find yourself traveling in an Islamic country, I strongly advise heeding one of my better travel tips; never find yourself traveling in an Islamic country! Sorry; one man’s opinion. We take another bus back to Casablanca, and as a cruel necessity, fly back to Tunisia as we have a pre-booked flight home from Tunis. A journey of joy this is not!
Travel now feels more like travail, and with spending another hour in Tunis about as appealing as a turd in a teacup, we look for an elsewhere with ANYTHING not involving a bus. At this point I swear we’d prefer to French-kiss a coiled rattlesnake rather than climb aboard another bastardly bus!
Headed south to the town of Sfax aboard a train, shift suddenly happens. Christine’s backpack accidentally tumbles off an overhead rack and lands right atop an Islamic woman’s hijab-covered head. With wildly gesticulating limbs and nastiness emanating from her every pore, the woman dressed in bedsheets sets the train car off in a barrage of vilifying auctioneer-speed Arabic squawk.
We unsuccessfully try to mollify ‘Jihad Jane’ and her belligerent buddies, but it’s like taking a bread knife to a gunfight. Tough the backpack bombing was clearly unintentional, the woman’s unrelenting fury has me ruing the fact I don’t have a pork sandwich to dump in her lap to help justify her whine with a little swine!
Trying to see the best of Arab countries definitely requires better vision than either of us have, and with our tolerance decelerating by the minute, we ferry to the Kerkennah Islands in search of solitude. The dead-flat islands formerly functioned as a place of exile for prisoners, and with slightly less than bugger all to do, are as lively as a potted shrub. After five empty days as castaways we boat back to the mainland, and drain the remainder of our time in the town of Hammamet before finally being able to leave these lands in our Jetstream.
Canada is now like a dangling carrot and we are the voracious donkeys! During the last two frenzied months we’ve become incredibly road-weary, having woven our way through 34 cities; with transport including 10 trips by plane, 9 by boat, 7 by train, 37 by bus, and 17 miscellaneous!
Totally fatigued from the exceptionally exasperating journeying, we’ve come to the conclusion there’s a better chance of us drinking moose drool than participating in any further travels in the Islamic world! Many hours in the sky later, we are almost levitating with joy to be back with our own tribe in Canada, where a friendly customs officer at the airport greets us with our two new favorite words; “Welcome Home”.
Mark Colegrave 1987