Rocks and Mountains in Gökçeovacık

Hey, party people!  If you missed my first blog post about Gökçeovacık and enjoy looking at pictures of cats, click here.  In the post, I mentioned that my favorite part about my housesit experience were the walks I would take with the three dogs.

Each afternoon, we set out to re-mark our territory throughout Gökçeovacık.  Well, the dogs did.  I politely averted my eyes every time one of them squatted down to reclaim a patch of grass.  I’m so glad humans don’t have to urinate on something to state their ownership. Imagine coming out of store and seeing someone sitting in your car saying, "Sorry, it's mine now. I peed on it while you were paying for your groceries." Yikes.

Just kidding around!

When I had visited Jasmin a few weeks before, we went on a couple of hikes and it quickly became apparent that my jeans and battered running shoes wouldn't be enough to handle the occasional rough terrain and the never-ending torrent of my sweat.  I had some shopping to do.

A lovely olive orchard

The only remotely athletic pants I own are a pair of grey spandex bottoms that I jaggedly cut off just above the knee, making me look like a jazzercise pirate.  I only wear them in the privacy of my own home when I run on the treadmill, as they mercilessly highlight my butt sweat.  There was a chance that I might meet the lumberjack of my dreams on the mountain paths of Gökçeovacık.  Visible butt sweat was not a risk I was willing to take.  So I bought some black Nike pants for a mind-blowing 20TL from a man on the street who assured me that they were “otantik”. Right.

Selam, Zaza!

Before coming to the village, I also bought a pair of Timberland-esque shoes.  I know they’re all the rage now, but urban/rugged just isn’t a look I can pull off. However, high-quality hiking shoes cost 300TL, which is way out of my price range.  I decided that no one would see me wearing them, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.   I ended up falling in love with these boots and wore them at every opportunity. They were (mostly) waterproof and made me feel cooler than I looked.  

Me, Zaza, and Pixie in front of some ruined housing once used by Greek miners

For each walk I was clad in my mismatched hiking garb, Sparty shirt (Go Green!), and feminist bag, which would serve as a conversation piece for when I met my Turkish Paul Bunyan.  Sure, his name might be closer to Cem Bayram, but his mountain man facial hair would be perfection. If Turkish men have mastered one thing, it’s the burly, yet well groomed beard.  I think they probably invented it.

Where's Callie?

Callie, the apparent alpha female of our pack, only joined us on the path about a quarter of the time and spent the majority of our romps out of sight.  She would occasionally come check on us, smell something more interesting, and then set off into the brush again.

Maybe an old church?

Jasmin assured me that I'd be perfectly safe walking around on my own, but she didn't have Marianna Steele as her mother growing up. In my feminist bag, I packed a butter knife for self-defense. Even though it's absurd, it made me feel better.  Thankfully, I didn’t have to gut any highwaymen and I completely forgot that the knife was even in my bag…until airport security found it while I was on my way home.*

neighboring olive orchards and a yoga retreat

I wish I could say that I didn’t use technology during my hikes, but I had my GPS out every 10 minutes.  Ironically, the footpaths surrounding Gökçeovacık were the only place I got cell service.  I was only in Girl Scouts for a month in kindergarten, so my navigation skills are pretty sub par. If I didn’t have to get back to the house to work, I would have been more open to exploring sans technology, but alas, I have bills to pay.  (Do you see what a fiercely devoted employee I am, Deniz and Erol?)

Without the aid of my iPhone, I’d still be roaming the thick foliage encompassing Gökçeovacık. I would have undoubtedly become a feral mountain creature feared by the locals and the star of cautionary tales to keep village children from staying out past dark.  They would refer to me as the Chupalaurel or maybe the Abominable Laurel.

more Greek houses

I occasionally wondered what would happen if I fell and twisted my ankle.  Who would I call?  In the whole week, I only crossed paths with a handful of people.  Could I send the dogs to fetch help or would they abandon me in search of food and better company?  They understood Turkish and English commands, but I didn’t think I could explain the Timmy-Lassie dynamic adequately in any language, especially if I were in pain.  Fortunately, I didn’t take any serious tumbles.

Hi, Pixie!

We often got caught in the rain on our walks and this day was a particularly wet one. This was at a stunning house at the top of a hill overlooking the village, which was owned by some millionaire who hadn't been down to Gökçeovacık in five years. The building and grounds were well maintained by a caretaker and locals were welcome to poke around. How cool is that?

One of the challenges of traveling alone is getting a good photo of yourself.  Strangers are always happy to take a picture when I ask, but I hesitate to say, “Could you take another one that doesn’t show my double chin, please?” Also, I’m too much of a snob for a selfie stick.  Luckily, my friend Tarık’s camera had a timer. Unfortunately, I am not faster than that timer.

Heh, heh, heh.

I had no photographer on hand to tell me what a creep I looked like in this picture and it was raining just hard enough that I didn't care to take another. One thing I loved about the rain was that it automatically turned the saturation of all the village's colors up by 30%. It was gorgeous.

On our way home after an evening walk.

Even with the aid of my friend's camera, I don’t feel I was able to capture the magic I saw and felt on these walks.  No amount of filters or Photoshop can recreate the green I saw with my own eyes.  I wanted to bottle everything and take it with me.  I wanted to seal the sun in a jar, the breeze in another, and compact the myriad of smells into an aerosol can. Of course I couldn’t, but maybe that’s for the best.

Sina and her dog Irma joined us for one of our walks and we happened upon this turtle. Nature is the best! It was nice having another human along to talk to and to tell me that the bush I was trying to walk through would give me a rash if I touched it with my bare skin.

I've always been averse to any type of physical exertion. Whenever I'm running on my treadmill, I stare at the white wall in my living room and try desperately to think of anything other than the fact that I'm doing physical activity. During my walks with the dogs, it was the opposite. I stared at everything around me and couldn’t imagine anything beyond my present surroundings. It was like living in a dream. I never ran into my fantasy lumberjack, but as Jane Austen wrote, “What are men to rocks and mountains?”

more olive orchards

Goodbye, Gökçeovacık!

 *As I was passing through initial airport security in Dalaman, a guard waved me over.

“Excuse me, ma’am.  Do you have a knife in your bag?”

“Um…oh…OH, NO…ah…evet."

I unzipped the small suitcase Aylin had loaned me to retrieve the blade, revealing the famous Göcek oranges I was bringing back with me.  I turned scarlet.

“Portakal mı?”, one of the men asked me.

“Um, yes. Göcek orange.  Very beautiful and yummy.”

“Awww!  How sweet is this girl?”, a female security guard cooed.

I slowly pulled the silver knife from the feminist bag and presented it to my potential jailers.

Silence.

“What do you call this in English?”

“It’s called a butter knife.”

I then unnecessarily demonstrated how one would use such a utensil by spreading invisible butter on an invisible piece of bread.  

“Çok pardon, I just forgot”, I shrugged dramatically.

The security guards all looked at me, the idiotic foreigner, and then back at each other.  After a moment they all burst out laughing.

Every drop of blood in my body relocated to my face.

They let me keep my deadly weapon (permitted I checked my suitcase), wrote my name, passport number, and “tereyağı bıçağı” in an official looking book, and then smiled as they enthusiastically waved me on my way.

I didn’t stop blushing until my plane landed in Istanbul.