I’m not bored, though. People had been walking across Turkey for thousands of years. His front yard, which was packed dirt, contained a little wooden shed with some farming tools in it. I thought, Actually, I didn’t stay for either of you. For months I had tried to steer clear of feeling I needed to answer the “why” question. I held my breath as I answered. Then I headed back to camp while Göksel continued touring around Kuşadası. Mehmet told me to come with him, I could rest at his house and then have dinner before coming back to the village. In these initial weeks of the trip, some of the viewers back home in the U.S. would see the pictures I’d taken and the blogs I’d posted. I worried that a passing driver might wonder what this strange foreigner was doing camping next to a bush at the side of the road, so I hurriedly broke camp, stuffed everything into my pack, and began my walk for the day. There were still no signs of life. Business is slow. I had to get my miles for the day. Where do you sleep? But in the three years I’d been back in the U.S. preparing for this walk by walking on the side of the country roads near Reedley, CA, I’d forgotten that rule. I poked my head in the door and called out to the one employee I saw inside. This guy is young enough to be my son, I thought. “My 30s were a lost decade,” I would tell myself in my more self-punishing moments. I washed three of my shirts and hung them out to dry. I was surprised that after a full day of walking I still had the energy to let a couple kids climb around on me simultaneously, but I dug deep and found it somewhere. By that time it was 10:30 p.m. so I said a quick goodbye to Eren and Ozgur and went back to my hotel to wash off the dirty feeling of Sef in the shower’s lukewarm water. There was no one around to make me feel that way. When you’re an adult you, also, will be able to eat as much junk food as you want. He replied that he had been to Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, all on military assignments. I got up about 5:30 a.m. so I could commute and then begin my walk by 8. When I step out of the bus into the freezing wind, all I can hear is my brain yelling at me to “go! The protests, he said, were centered around a town in Libya called Benghazi. Early in the afternoon I got to the bottom of the grade and entered the village of Keciborlu. Conversation with the cops got around to what my plans were for the rest of the afternoon. My host asks me if I want to go out and explore. Mehmet and I had met a few minutes earlier when I was sitting out on the porch. It was as though hungry foreigners carrying backpacks and speaking pidgin Turkish hiked through here regularly. The dog stayed behind at the docks. Melih didn’t have a problem finding me and spotted me very quickly, perhaps because I was the only foreigner stretched out on the front steps with a really big backpack. This jacket is actually waterproof.”, I sat down across from her, and as we huddled in the rain I learned that she was from Western Afghanistan, ndezza vettoriale definizione ginga eiyuu densetsu eng sub micro carte, once sim bouygues, here panduranga rao cartoonist three. A few minutes later my courage returned and I started singing, at the top of my lungs, a jingle from a David Naughton advertisement from about the same time, “Be a Pepper, drink Dr. Pepper.”
 Some nearby taxi drivers stood around watching us idly, probably bored by their early morning wait for fares. She nodded yes, and we agreed to meet a few days later, on one of my next days off. I ate every crumb off the plate. Midway through the climb, I stopped for a late-morning breather. I was determined to escape the noise and exhaust fumes, though. Before I set up my tent in the garden, I left my backpack at the side of the mosque and walked Joy Anna out to the main road where I waited with her for a dolmus to take her back to Kusadasi. Up ahead in the distance was an apricot orchard. I wondered if I could camp in their garden. I knew I had some problem-solving to do, and welcomed having a few days in a comfortable place to do it. He picked up one of the objects, a small book. I was still basking in the social high of chatting with Yunus and his family, and was hoping for more of the same in Karadiken. I looked around and noticed that the restaurant was deserted except for the three of us. I was looking forward to climbing into those. It had a big sign saying “Otel”. As we walked through the village we saw a bus full of high school age students out on a field trip. No such luck, but this time the older woman in the group spoke up and said that there was, in fact, a bakkal but it was closed and would not open for another hour and a half. The climb to the summit of Sertavul pass the next morning was short and steep. I thought of news footage showing Iraqi civilian drivers with their brains splattered over the back seat after getting shot in the head by nervous US soldiers at security checkpoints. “We don’t want you to walk on an empty stomach,” Yakub said. I decided to continue on to the lake since it was only ten kilometers further–and staying at the lake would be a lot nicer than spending the night in this God-forsaken wide spot in the road. He had been actively following my walk, but I hadn’t been aware of that. Instead, he simply said with a straight face that he had come to the mosque to do his prayers. It wasn’t a fancy dinner, just a few dishes of eggplant and some other vegetables they had prepared for their evening meal in their small village home. Though I was a bit chagrined at being called a freeloader, I had known in my heart before the walk and had learned first hand on the road that money isolates people and does not bring them together or make them feel respected. I hadn’t even been able to get to the window to enjoy the sunset over the lake. I felt alone. “Of course, it’s more than acceptable!” I blurted out. If I don’t mention your name, or the times we shared, in my website or in my book, it might be because some memories are just for me. Today’s walk is 32 km (20 miles), starting at the provincial border between Urfa and Diyarbakır, and ending at the village of Tokaçlı. I gulped down the plate of rice and thanked Eren and Ozgur for the food. I got up to leave. I didn’t know what that need was, but a few days earlier at TAC the universe had made me a rock star. I loved traveling like this. I walked around in some of the markets and found a sweater and a scarf that I could use and then just walked around the market again. Before that he was in the special forces in Mardin, Diyarbakir, Tunceli, and Urfa, all cities in east and southeast Turkey. I had lived in Turkey for a number of years and had seen many famous sights. One of the first things I did during my long weekend off was to get some new shoes. When I arrived at the roadblock, all the cops said to me was, “Hello! Theirs was a world where iPhones, chargers, electricity, and hotels were common. But the gas station attendant said that yes the two Polish guys had arrived yesterday and spent the night, leaving this morning. A man who I think is a shepherd waves me over to a small stone shelter next to the road. “Excuse me, I need to go get my friends,” Ayşe said. Then more innocent Pre-teen girls started coming into the square and Sef made more incredibly lewd comments and gestures at them while slamming back more and more rotgut. She knew I had a day off coming up, and invited me to come visit her students. I blinked a couple times, surprised and impressed by her directness but I drank it in like a parched man who has just crossed the desert drinks in a cool, tall glass of water. “I’ve found you a place to stay,” he said. The god (or judge) of Mankind,- My lunch finished, I stood up, wished the farmer a good day, pulled on my pack, and walked back out to the road. But before I stood up and walked back out to the road I pulled out my pad of paper and penned the following comment to post on my blog later: Some videos get made, some diplomats get killed, some people get all up in arms, etc. At an altitude of 5400 feet (1650 meters), the summit was also the end of Karaman province and the beginning of Mersin province. • Assume nothing; you know less than you think you do. “I don’t know. Who is this unidentified stranger with a back pack standing by the fountains? I wondered if she had run into Khan. I pointed to the area and said to Joyanna, “There you go, I’m going to camp there tonight.”, Joyanna looked at the site and then back at me. It had been described as bucolic, ancient, and silent, and had a great view looking out over the valley. Having been at this hotel for four mornings now, I had gotten used to a new routine: Pull on clean clothes. This seemed to be my lesson of the day. People had been feeding me all the way across the country, but now they were friends I had met a week before, and here I was getting to see them again. As I walked, I scanned the terrain in front of me. I continued along the main road and finally reached the outskirts of town. But it never came, so I exhaled and reveled in the fact that I was hearing one of the most dramatic storms of my life. I put down my tea and started to look around. When I needed to speak English, İlgi translated my words into Turkish. “Do you have a place to stay this evening?”. I was sitting in an air-conditioned room, I was watching a basketball game on TV, and I had just been flirted with by not one, not two, but three cute young women. I emerged from the hotel, strolling out onto the center square and into the barbershop. There would probably not be many areas where I could find a couple consecutive kilometers in which to camp. I hoped to find a cheap hotel or a hostel in Nazilli where I could celebrate the end of Week 1 by taking a steaming hot shower. That wasn’t the one I’d hurt. Who whispereth in the hearts of mankind, Enes came back to the apartment about 9:30 p.m. talking to a friend on his cell phone. They even got worried that I might be homesick and one day organized a “Taste of Home” luncheon where they presented me with a platter of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I accepted. We’ve lost the notion that the same process still goes on. When I stood up to begin walking again I felt relaxed. I stayed behind to work on my foot. They were parked at the side of the road while the driver ran into a store. Ayşe grabbed it from me and read the names. I began to second-guess myself, asking myself inanely if there really was a pattern of mood-swing in the barrens, or if my brain was playing tricks on me, seeing a pattern where one didn’t really exist. As tired as I was, I walked further into Bozkurt. I would be bored with the place in less than a week. All they needed was a thin excuse, and I was that day’s thin excuse. I had followers who thought it was a fascinating thing I was doing, walking across an entire country. There was not a single woman in sight in the whole town. Then she returned to returned to Afghanistan in 2001 or 2002, shortly after the U.S. invasion, to take a job with the U.N. setting up computer systems for the refugee office in western Afghanistan. Now I was walking through a string of sandy beach towns along a road lined with hotels, shops, and restaurants for vacationers. I wondered if I scared them. Money spent so far in all four months was over-budget. I scrunched up my nose and took a sip. I noticed Joyanna seemed mildly uncomfortable at the station, for reasons I didn’t understand, so I ate quickly and politely declined Mustafa’s uncle’s offer of tea. I tried a few hotels, asking first about the price and then asking if I could see a room. While the rest of the group had been chatty that evening, she had been fairly reticent, and the few words that she did say suggested she had a very unusual background. I was alone once again, but now feeling nervous, realizing how vulnerable the hills and solitude made me. The castle was built on top of a high hill in the 11th or 12th century by the Armenians, and was probably used by the Crusaders too. Okay, I thought, I have this really large backpack on. They spoke only Turkish asked us if we were boyfriend and girlfriend. A group of men is sitting on the sidewalk drinking tea. Greetings. “Of course,” he said. whisperings which can weaken belief, introduce doubts, or entice mankind towards evil. Months before the trip I planned on 300 kilometers per month, so I was pretty close to my target. “Can I get some cay too?” I called out to the employee who was now busy making my toast. I laughed at the image. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and stared at it. Rest on one of the park benches. I’d learned by then that when a group of adults said they were looking for a place, it meant they had taken upon themselves the responsibility of finding a place for me to stay, and that if I were just patient, they would find one. The next day I packed up my stuff, checked out of the Ogretmen evi, and grabbed a bus to Gaziantep to meet my new couch surfing host, Mustafa, a tax inspector for Gaziantep province. Politics, history, professions, money, life, philosophy, girls. They had already been engaged in this project for some years and had been through Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, and Northwestern Turkey. Then we shouldered our packs and left. Conversation turned to small talk about the weather. So learn how to welcome the Resistance into the room, and continue working while it sits across the table from you, staring at you. There wasn’t much along this section of road, other than big rocks and fields of dry grass. When a pastor in Florida burns a Koran, you don’t think, oh my god, I need to organize a rally. I pulled off my pack and, since there were no shade trees for miles, took a seat in the sun. Two weeks ago I had been walking through forests and river valleys. Later, after Melih and I had stopped for lunch and began to enter Mersin, I felt a bit of deja vu when we approached some acres of neatly trained, manicured orchards behind a steel fence, and I thought, Oh wow, they train those trees like they train peach trees in Reedley. I walked over and shook his hand. “With the light on I couldn’t see out of the tent, and I have to be able to see my surroundings, even in the dark,” I said. I started to feel uncertain myself. A young boy briefly entered the room to deliver a cup of tea to me. I felt like I was having to audition for a role as a homeless person. “Let’s go to a restaurant.” Then the three of us climbed into Meltem’s car and drove a couple hundred meters to a nearby restaurant. I do communications coaching. So I just said to the bakkal owner, “Thank you very much for your hospitality,” and gave him my contact information. I thanked Nihat bey for his hospitality and for welcoming me into his facility. “Thanks, but no,” I said to the group, interrupting the debate. Goksel, a university student from Istanbul, was hitchhiking south along the Aegean coast in order to walk the Lycian Way before school started again. One of the features on today’s walk, midway between Yakapinar and Ceyhan, was Yilankale, or Snake Castle. We got to the bakkal, which was open and had been all day. I had learned some basic road skills, like: • Be friendly. We loaded into Meltem’s car and took a back route to the gasoline station. 6 I need to walk every meter.”. So I finished my time in Beysehir,—not a bad place to have fallen sick. Most of what I knew about the lives of American cops came from the movies, and I told these cops that, but they didn’t seem to mind and kept asking. I spent most of my time following up on correspondence, particularly the growing stack of questions from the fourth graders. I had felt these every couple years since my mid-20s, and I knew I would be completely disabled on the floor for three or four days beginning right now, and then they would go away as if nothing had ever happened. I greedily gobbled down every consumable morsel and then asked for more. All that day I felt the old vacillation between wanting to hang on to the comfort I’d had the last few nights and would be having this one last night and the dread of not knowing where I would sleep the night after that and that I had a huge project I needed to get done. He said, “Well it’s unkempt. Also, I learned that Eren owned the bakkal across the street in addition to the bufe. I held the sign out at arm’s length, faced toward the morning sun, and snapped a picture. By the time the food came we were so busy talking we barely ate. Do not try to fight it. It had been back in November, over a month earlier. I was loving my new Couchsurfing travel method. I took a deep breath and stuck out my left foot. It was fig harvest season in this area[ Remind where you are? A couple hours later I meet two men on the side of the road. The younger boy started pedalling towards me now, but the bicycle was too big for him and he had to stand up in order to pedal. A new camper, named Goksel, had arrived and was also setting up his camp nearby. I’ll be with you for a while now. They were covered with thorny raspberry bushes. “No, 7pm,” I countered, thinking about having to get up early the next day to resume walking. When I finished I sat for an hour drinking unlimited refills of tea and listening to the water splashing from the fountain. They asked me if I had eaten. Walk. On my fourth morning in Horsunlu, I woke up and got ready to begin another day of working my foot. On the way out of Gaziantep I passed the stone camel caravan, like me, walking east out of town. The hot water cascading down over me made me feel happy. Before packing up I sat and watched the sunrise. As deep as I was digging to make the most of my Tarzan Turkish, she was digging as deeply to understand the awkward stranger sitting across the table from her. Ilgi asked them to ask their questions in English for language practice, but they were too shy, so they asked their questions in Turkish and I answered in Turkish. Once inside another I was shown to the commander’s office. Who whispers [evil] into the breasts of mankind – As daylight dimmed, I trudged on through the barrenness looking for a place to at least shelter down for the night but was finding nothing but dry open land. After breakfast I went back out onto the highway and walked to Denizli. There is no hopping in the car and escaping a problem. She opened her shopping bag and insisted I take something from it. I remembered that my mom was having knee replacement surgery the next day, and I thought it might inspire her to get up and walk on that new knee if she saw the photo! The cops running the speed trap were sitting around drinking tea and invited me to join them. He called out good morning through the door, but he sounded like he was in pain. One of the emails was from my dad. While I am eating it occurs to me I ought to start a travel cuisine blog called QuestionableTruckStopGrub.com. “Well then,” the waiter said, “Talk to him. Huh, that’s unusual. “I have been walking for six months,” I repeat. But the soon-to-be-new-friends are waiting for me, and so I’ve got to say goodbye, at least for now, to the old ones.
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