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.

Housesit Adventures in Gökçeovacık

This past week, I did my first ever housesit in Gökçeovacık, a tiny Turkish village near the Aegean coast. Jasmin, a very cool English lady, contacted me via the website MindMyHouse.com.  After flying down to meet her a few weeks ago, I agreed to come back again to care for her pets while she was on vacation.

I packed my bags and took the one hour flight from Istanbul to Dalaman.

Complete with S'mores Poptarts (Thanks, Kayla) and Truvia packets (Thanks, Mom)

Jasmin picked me up from the airport and we chatted as we made the half-hour drive to the village. Perilous winding roads intended for car commercials brought us 450 meters into the sky. As we made our ascent, I felt my ears pop a few times.

The following morning, Jasmin left for her vacation and I was on my own.

See, Mom and Dad, I wasn't anywhere near Syria.

It was wonderful to get out of the city for a while and I was very ready for one week of ponytails and no makeup. Okay, so I put on some BB cream in the morning. If my boss requested an impromptu Skype call, I didn’t want him to scream in horror when he saw me. Plus it has 30 SPF. Give me a break.

The view from the upstairs balcony

You couldn't dream of a more charming or lovelier home. Jasmin told me that parts of the house were over 300 years old. As a stereotypical American, I'm impressed by any structure older than half a century.

Jasmin left me some of this heavenly German bread and lots of eggs she bought in the village. As you can see, I'm a highly sought after chef and food photographer.

In the mornings, I’d watch BBC World News, which was a big change from reading the news online. Hearing updates from attractive and racially-diverse people with posh British accents somehow softened the blow of tragic news. I also learned that I’d been pronouncing the names of many world leaders and terrorist groups incorrectly in my head.

My new office

Because about 90% of my job is done online, I'm able to work from anywhere with a decent internet connection. How lucky am I? These three cats (Thomas, Jaidee, and Tiddlywinks) snuggled up to me for most of the working day.

I don't know who's creepier in this picture, me or Thomas?

Don't be fooled by the above photo. I swear, Thomas loved me and was my faithful neck warmer for most of the week. The fourth cat, Boncuk, was a little standoffish and it took her a while to warm up to me. But she is a former Istanbulite, so I’m not sure why I expected anything less.

Callie, Pixie, and Zaza

Growing up, my family always had pets, but since graduating from university I haven't been able to have any four-legged friends of my own.  When people ask me what I miss most about America, my answer is usually Mexican food and my dog, Scout.  I can Skype with my friends and family back home, but I can’t really Skype with my dog...or a seven-layer burrito.  For me, the best part of the housesit was spending time with these affectionate animals.  

A very rustic looking farm implement relating to olive harvesting...I think.

While Gökçeovacık was extremely peaceful, it was far from quiet.  I traded Istanbul’s sounds of car horns, revving engines, simit sellers, and squawking seagulls for the village sounds of cautious tires on gravel, dueling cock-a-doodle-doos (or as Turkish roosters say, “kuk-kurri-ku”), sheep bleating, chattering birds, and an owl that I often heard, but never saw. Now that I think about it, the sheep and simit venders sound nearly identical.  

A purring leg warmer!

I haven’t owned a television for about a year, so I had fun watching Jasmin’s. (To be clear, I download loads of TV shows, I just don’t have the luxury of channel surfing.) One night, I watched an episode of The X-Files, which made me feel really nostalgic. Fox Mulder, I'll love you til the day I die. It wasn’t as scary as I remembered, but it’s spooky enough when you’re staying alone in an isolated mountain village. I may or may not have stacked chairs against the front door before I went to bed.

It was funny to see the cigarettes blurred out in the series; censorship that has had little influence over the Turkish public. If anything, it draws more attention to the fact that the person is smoking. Besides, the tendrils of smoke ascending from the blur are a bit of a giveaway. It’s a good thing it wasn’t an episode with the Smoking Man.

View from Göcek marina

On Saturday, I went to a birthday celebration in Göcek for Sina, Jasmin’s neighbor.  I was anxious about going to a party where I knew no one, but ended up having a complete blast.  The group of people consisted of about half-a-dozen nationalities, who all seemed to be connected through the local animal shelter.  Throughout the afternoon, we shared wine, food, and funny stories.  I was the youngest person there by twenty years and everyone kept calling me a “young girl”, which was sweet.  

Ain't no party like a Gökçeovacık party, because a Gökçeovacık party stops at 10pm.

I enjoy spending time alone, so I wasn’t disappointed at all when this turned out to be my Saturday night. Being lazy in front of the fire I'd built myself (after much turmoil) was great. Also, there was no one around to hear me speaking in my animal voice, which is two octaves higher than my normal timbre.

My first attempt at aesthetically arranging fruit

On Sunday, Sina took me to the market in town. The area is famous for its oranges, so I had to buy a few of those. I went a little overboard with the strawberries, but it was totally worth it. According to the legends (and Wikipedia), Göcek is the area that Icarus landed in the sea after his famous flight. Today, the small town is part of the “Turkish Riviera” and is known for its yacht tourism. It seemed charming enough, but I was glad that I was staying in Gökçeovacık.

The lone mosque in the village

In the whole week I was there, I only ran into about ten people in the village.  One day, as I was taking the garbage to the dumpster, I crossed paths with a woman who looked to be approximately one million years old.  She smiled at me to reveal a set of multicolored teeth that were an amalgam of white, gold, and silver, like a metallic ear of flint corn.

"Do you want to buy some eggs, my dear?", she asked.

“No. Thank you. House in many egg there is”, I responded in my impeccable Turkish.

She said something that I didn’t catch, not because I couldn’t understand her, but because I couldn’t stop looking at her kaleidoscopic teeth.  They must be worth a fortune.  I wondered if she included them in her will and left individual teeth to different people.  

For my sister, Gamze, I leave my golden left canine.  

For Kemal, the one who got away, I leave my silver lower right cuspid.  

For Halil, my ex-husband, I leave my rotted molar. You stole the best years of my life, you a**hole.

I snapped out of my testament fantasy and realized that she was waiting for me to respond.

"No, thank you, auntie.  Good day.  See you later.  Take it easy.  Bye-bye."

She sheathed her teeth and I knew I’d be getting a rotted tooth like Halil.

Wowee!

Not wanting to face the egg seller so soon after our fruitless business encounter, my short trip to the dumpster turned into a long walk. I came across a couple goatherds and decided that if things didn't work out in Istanbul, roaming around with livestock all day in Gökçeovacık wouldn't be the worst backup. Plus, the rain boots and elastic-waist pants the goatherds wore seemed like my kind of uniform.

The lady goatherd definitely saw me take this selfie and definitely judged me.  
Her flock probably did too.

It rained a fair amount during my stay, but there was almost always a dry window when I could take the dogs for a walk. Plus, given my proclivity for sweating, I didn't mind that the weather was on the cool side.

Anyone want a puppy?

One day, I was drafted to help Sina vaccinate her nine rescue puppies.  I was extremely nervous and imagined myself going to bed with several gashes and possibly frothing at the mouth, but it went just fine.  I would lure each puppy into a warm embrace of false security and Sina's deft hands would administer the injection, which they never seemed to feel.  Hanging out with puppies is very cool and very messy.

Goodnight, Gökçeovacık!

My week in Gökçeovacık was so magical. The best part of my stay were the daily walks I went on with the dogs.  They were so wonderful that I'm saving those stories for the next blog entry.  Get excited!

If you fancy doing some housesitting, check out Mind My House  or Trusted Housesitters.  Also, take a look at the Göcek Animal Rescue.  They’re doing really incredible work.

Special thanks to my boss Erol for letting me do this, Aylin for being my emergency contact with ulterior motives, Tarık for loaning me his camera, and most of all Jasmin for sharing her pets and home with me.