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September 5, 2005 - From Yusufeli to Barhal
Waking up to a beautiful sunrise. The city is down below, we are on a very high cliff. High mountain accross, green everywhere, farms, meadows. We took few photos and hope that we can keep this beauty in our memory for a long time.
We are learning to convert money. One Turkish Lira or one million liras is equal to 0.735 US dollars. Our hotel tonight, 30 million liras was about 25 us dollars, including breakfast.
We ate breakfast on the balcony.
We spent the morning walking around the village, 196 steps down, passing farms, fruit trees, figs, grapes, pomegranates, tomatos, cucumbers, berries. Black figs, white figs, big figs and small ones and we taste them all, hope not to get a stomach ach.
At 2:00 pm there was a dolmush to Barhal, our next destination. We got our orientation in Turkish time. The bus was going to leave at 2:00 pm. 2, 2 .30, Everything moved slow. Our backpacks were on top of the dolmush. The driver started the car, moved a little bit, stops, gets off, up to the roof, down, cigarette, talked to someone, cigarette after cigarette, everyone was smoking. Finally we left at 3:00. We stopped again, the driver went shopping. Nobody minded, we all waited patiently.
The road was beautiful, we drove along the river, cliffs, mountains, rice fields, orchards, meadows, small villages along the way, hanging on the mountains.
Two Turkish passenger got off the dolmush, they were unloading a washing machine from the roof of the car. I did not see any houses around, where were they going? How were they going to carry it? There was barely a road.
We arrived to Barhal? Where is Barhal? Is that it? I saw few houses? Where do we go? I left my Lonely Planet in the backpack and did not remember the name of the pension. I saw a sign on the road “Karahan Pension Mehmet... 1 KM”, the name was familiar. I told the driver “Mehmet” and he said OK. He continued driving up, up, up and all we saw was a narrow road and rushing rivers and big trees. The driver started honking and honking. He stopped the car and said OK.
Backpacks coming off the roof and we see a small sign: Karahan Pension 50 meter.
Good, we arrived. It started raining and with our backpacks on our backs we started climbing. Steep climb, water, mud, rocks and we went up and up and did not see anything. Were we lost? Where were we? Further up we saw a construction. Benny climbed up and knocked on the door. He walked around the building and we waited and waited and waited and nobody came. I could barely balance myself. I was standing on two rocks and there was water under me.
Suddenly and young boy appeared from nowhere and gestured us to follow him. We climbed up to a higher construction. The boy opened a door and said ‘your room’. Nice clean room with attached bathroom. We loved our new room. It was rainy outside but it was cozy and warm in our room. When the rain finally stopped we go out and our young host asked: tea?
Yes, of course, and we went up to the balcony to have our tea. I asked the boy: where is Mehmet? And he replied: center ( he went to the town center to cut wood)
When is Mehmet back? One hour.
Another lesson in Turkish time, I asked him and his older brother when would Menmet be back and everytime the answer was “One hour”. We started at 4:00 and finally Mehmet arrived at 9:00 pm.
Mehmet runs the place with his two sons. A third son was in Istanbul. They were very kind and hospitable.
Dinner was served on the balcony. It was very cold outside so we wore our heavy coats. We sat next to Yohan and Ruwen, father and son from Belgium. Yohan is a physical therapist and his son study computer science. They are mountain climbers and usually climb the Alps. They had a very bad accident few days ago. They were planning to hike for the day but toward the evening, it became very foggy and they could not see two meters ahead and the father slipped and fell off an 8 meters cliff and the son fell after him. Luckily they did not break any limbs but had very bad bruises. They could not continue and had to spend the night in a freezing temperature. They had no food or water and drank their urine to survive. The next day they managed to get up. Now the boy must keep a secret and not tell his mother and baba.
As we climbed to our pension and as we walk up to the balcony, the way is dark, narrow, muddy, few steps, rocks, partially cemented. The place looks like it belong to a different time. We could not have a place like that in the US. In the US we have too many rules and regulations, safety codes, contracts, lawyers, everyone is sueing everyone.
If one of the guests is going to fall, who is he going to sue? Here, everyone is responsible for their own safety. Watch where you are going.
Tomorrow we will climb to Karagol Lake.
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