Comments in the spirit of “boring pictures” clearly don't encourage me to write, just so you know. Nevertheless, mostly out of habit, I will continue.
I left off where we were rolling along somewhat boring fields. By the way, I should also say this: the very fact that you are on a bicycle or on foot, meaning you're putting considerable effort into moving around, undoubtedly has a positive effect on the perception of the journey. This is, of course, just another human self-deception, but a pleasant one: if something required effort, it must have value. This is generally untrue, of course; but here specifically we are talking about subjective perception, and that is precisely what will objectively improve. Especially when, after a dusty highway, you emerge into the open and see the sea, which is what happened to us.
I
write in such weird phrases because I've been reading too much of Greg Egan – an excellent
sci-fi author whose work I first accidentally saw in “Esli” magazine and then they were also recommended by ![[info]](/files/lj/userinfo.gif)
avva. Greg writes very
modernly, with complex scientific concepts and ideas, but at the same time in a cyberpunk and technoid way, which I really
like. Of course, reading him can be tough at times – quantum physics is not exactly easy thing to comprehend.
Anyway, that's not the point. Here is the point: we pulled into a gas station, probably for the first time. There we tried the local canned compote. Globalization is everywhere – it's mostly Cappy brand nectar, and that belongs to Coca-Cola. It turned out to be not bad, though, and the different fruit flavors actually taste very distinct. The cherry one is very much like watered-down jam.
Further on, the clouds began to gather over us, in the literal sense. The scary forecasts from the weathermen finally came true, and a downpour lashed at us. There was nothing left to do but pull over to another gas station with a somewhat decent eatery, and drink some tea (I almost wrote “have some of these soft French rolls”). It cost one lira for a bardak, meaning a small glass. A lira is 0.33 lats, or just over half a dollar. On the plus side, I recharged my iPhone, which I constantly consulted for cultural references and word translations. In addition, Maris got a flat tire – the first more or less serious breakdown on the road.
Once it cleared up, we tried to move on, but not for long – the bad weather again forced us to pull over to the teat of technological civilization. Fortunately, we were met there by a friendly Asian-looking girl who tried to communicate with us in broken English. We didn't have to suffer for long – when she heard us speaking Russian, she joyfully exclaimed, “Why didn't you say so earlier.” Everyone probably knows the answer to that phrase.
In any case, the girl shared that she was from Turkmenistan, and her name was Toma. I didn't tell her that she had a beautiful name, didn't have the time. The girl showered us with gifts: mineral water and those sealed cupcakes that are popular in Turkey. It all came in handy later, although it's always a drag to lug water around. But you have to find a compromise here: it's a drag now, but later you'll have nothing to drink. Then again, there are just as many gas stations in Turkey as we have, and more natural springs. Then the generous Turkmen girl also informed us that the Turks gave her a new name – Zerrin. I lied about Zyfyr, my memory failed me, but I did find Zerrin in a list of Turkish names, so the iPhone acting as a voice recorder didn't fail me at all.
Then we finally moved on. The rain, of course, followed right behind us – as a result of which we had to pull off the highway, which had turned from dusty to wet, and climb into a gas station building, an unfinished one this time.
If up until then life generally seemed to be in a good light, despite a few drawbacks, things truly got joyless here. You sit in ruins, look at the dirt, sunflower seeds, and broken glass, it's raining outside, sometimes even hailing, and on top of it all – it's freezing cold, and I'm wearing a nano-jacket. Not to waste time, we took out the burner and had lunch, but it looked somewhat depressing.
I can sum it up like this: why travel to Turkey just to eat pasta with canned meat in the middle of an unfinished, filthy gas station? And if the rain hadn't stopped, we would have even spent the night there – a completely suffocating prospect. Here I'm already on Shchukin's side, and even going further. It's better to pitch a tent god knows where and sleep in a puddle, as happened to Sergey once (more on that later), than to drearily stare at unplastered ceilings like this.
To our immense happiness, the weather finally cleared up and we moved on.
Not for long – the day was drawing to a close, and we had to look for a place to spend the night, which isn't very pleasant to do in the dark. We were passing through a small town and almost camped in the city park, but I personally found it inexplicably unappealing. Probably the smell. The collective mind decided it was better not to tease the locals, (especially since the park was named after Atatürk), and we moved on.
Unfortunately, the areas where we were are very heavily occupied by agriculture – including even the inconvenient hills. This immediately gave my comrades a reason to declare that the Turks are hardworking and “they have everything plowed over”, whereas back home everyone's a drunk and a bum, nobody wants to work. There is some truth to this, but you have to consider all the other factors. The main one being population. The more people there are in a country, the more they can usually achieve together. Of course, managing such a country is harder, but it also has more resources. It's also important to consider density – in Turkey it's 93 people per km², while we have 35, almost three times less. And that's even though Turkey is a mountainous country, and in many of its parts it's hard for people to live, which means in the other parts the density is really high.
For us, the consequence of this was rather mundane – we had to spend the night in the bushes again, and right next to a farm and a busy road, too. We did, however, climb to the top of a hill and sort of “laid low” there. Despite this, the farm inhabitants clearly knew about us, but they didn't seem to care, even though we were shining our flashlights and my nano-jacket like crazy.
