A Quest

When Tash suggested that I could take advantage of being able to take a trip out of school holiday times (when they are significantly cheaper) now that I have given up teaching, I didn’t need asking twice. I knew exactly where I wanted to go. It was a sort of quest. I asked my oldest friend from our time at Kingston Polytechnic many moons ago if he wanted to come with me. And so the quest to Göbeklitepe (‘potbelly hill’) was born.

Stu and I had both followed and read all of Graham Hancock’s books and wanted to see this enigmatic mystery for ourselves. It is a rewriter of history, an archaeological game-changer and something of a hot topic of ‘debate’ (I will explain the use of inverted commas later). So we flew to Antalya, in Southern Turkey on the Mediterranean coast, to begin what was to become a 3,200km (2000 mile) road trip out to south eastern Turkey. We could have flown to Istanbul and then taken an internal flight to Şanlıurfa. But a road trip gave us the chance to see a bit more of a country so richly blessed with ancient sites, to eat like the locals (what a treat that was) and see something of the amazing scenery away from the beach clubs, all-inclusive resorts and holiday complexes of the south coast. And what amazing scenery we saw along the way:

We took three nights in Antalya, staying in a narrow street in the old town, with its pantile-rooved houses and maze of narrow covered streets rammed with trinket shops, cafes and boutique hotels. You get a great meze breakfast and a warm welcome here. There’s a Roman harbour down at the bottom of the old town and our room was a sort of annexe to the main hotel, with a separate door into the room giving straight out onto the street. Other rooms were accessed through the main entrance off the pleasant, shady courtyard/bar/restaurant out back. Being in a room whose door opened directly on to the street made it quite noisy with regard to late-night/early morning revellers returning from bars. And then there was occasional motorbike or car noise. Cars had to slip very carefully between the buildings on streets that were certainly not designed for them. And then there was the upstairs neighbours, who made a bit of a habit of stamping around on the floorboards at two o’clock in the morning each night. We never found out why. Isaac, the man in the rather unimaginatively-named shoe shop opposite (“Shoes”), told us that they should never have made a room there, opening straight on to the street and to stick our heads out of the door if people were being too noisy – everybody would know what we meant.

Bulent

In the courtyard over a beer, we get chatting to Bulent, a German-Turk who used to play football in the second tier in Germany for a club in Bavaria. He is married to a Russian and runs his own business in Russia and Ukraine. He complains about how expensive the Maldives are nowadays and summons the waiter to get him to go out and pick up his prescription from a pharmacy. The waiter delegates this to a lower-ranking Filipino colleague, who dutifully scuttles off on the errand. A short while later, Bulent finds he needs some cigarettes and calls the waiter over again. The process is repeated, but this time the hapless Filipino has to check in with a photo to ensure he is getting the exact brand required.

That evening, Bulent is somehow involved with a large family party for which all the tables on the terrace have now been arranged into a large horseshoe shape. This added thumping Turkish music to the late-night soundscape. I didn’t really mind. I can easily sleep through most things. Plus, I am British, so don’t like to make a fuss. Isaac gives us a knowingly sympathetic look the next morning and suggests a visit to Butterfly Valley, about an hour away from here, where you can camp in bell tents on an idyllic beach. It does look amazing from the photos of his last visit on his phone and we needed to sort out accommodation for our last night in Turkey anyway, so we gratefully followed up his tip via Air B&B.

Feeling Like a Crusty

Isaac is nice to us, in that he treats us more like neighbours, never hassling us to buy anything, but always ready for a chat. We stayed in Antalya for three days to give us a chance to acclimatise and start to get used to the driving here and this morning we are to pick up a hire car at the airport.

Having booked a transfer from the airport to the hotel which never turned up (thanks, Booking.com), I was expecting trouble with this car pick-up too. I was right. But it started off reasonably enough. We took a tram out to the airport. A young teenage girl got up and offered me her seat. Shit, am I really that old? This really has never ever happened to me up until now. I mean, I’ve seen those signs on public transport before (‘Please give up this seat if an elderly or disabled person needs it’)… but have I really become one of those? I feel even older when, after the hire car contact didn’t turn up, I had to buy a Turkish SIM card to phone the company. I have no idea how to change the SIM card but the young’un in the (very expensive) Vodaphone booth at the airport soon had it all sorted for me. One of those times when you realise that you’ve forgotten something vital on this trip: in this case my fourteen-year-old daughter, Iona. She’d have known what to do and how to do it.

So eventually I managed to phone the hire car company, which is how I discovered that there is another terminal and we should be meeting them there. But they were not there either and it took a few more messages back and forth to sort it all out and finally pick up the car.

Then, we brave the city traffic and go on a sub-quest to find our way back to somewhere close to our hotel and then to find somewhere to park our new bestie: a slightly scratched Renault automatic with air conditioning that would come in handy when the temperatures would later get up to 44 degrees Celsius. One more night here, then the road trip begins… I drift off to sleep musing on the thought that next time I am on public transport I will certainly make a point of offering my seat to someone older than me, even if they have one already.

Besties and New Bestie: The Questie Begins

Read Part 2 of this travel, where the road trip begins, here.