In the last part, the story left off with us finding something resembling a campsite. Upon closer inspection, the campsite turned out to be daytime only, at least in the spring – there was no shower, and the owners were about to leave for the night. I went to have a chat with them before they took off. When he saw me, an ordinary-looking guy of average height and build crawled out, a little bit tipsy. He was in a friendly mood, but, naturally, didn't know a word of English. I, as usual, tried to tell him in my usual gibberish “two tent one night me want, how much?"?”.
The dude understood me, but started very sharply and frequently using an adjective that sounded like “shustu”. It seemed he wasn't against us setting up camp at all, but he kept repeating this word like a spell. Eventually, he performed a pantomime – shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. We quickly guessed that “shustu” – means “cold” in their heathen tongue.
You can't scare us with such nonsense – most of our sleeping bags are marked “extreme –5 C°”. This means that if you're well-fed and healthy, you can spend a night in the sleeping bag and not die, even if the temperature around you is minus five degrees Celsius. That is, directly outside it, without a tent. A tent adds a lot of heat – so in fact, in such a sleeping bag inside a tent, you can endure even a real frost for a couple of nights. Let alone a warm Turkish spring, when it never drops below +5.
So I proudly declared to the guy “Kacha?”, meaning “How much?”. In response, he shrugged and said “besh euro”, meaning 5 euros, which I solemnly handed over to him. True, we were advised to pitch the tents in the grass, and not on the clean little lawn, though it never became clear why. Shchukin said that the dude supposedly planned to turn on the sprinklers for the night, but I never saw them working. Despite this minor detail, and the lack of a shower, overall the place was calm and nice. Our grassy spot was separated from the lawn with benches by a small river. At night, frogs performed an orchestral piece there, and the water on the rocks provided an ambient backing track for them. Occasionally, local dogs joined the performance. By the way, they dragged off my bowl, which I foolishly left with some food scraps near the tent. Maybe I lost it myself, but then it's unclear how – I don't have any other theories besides the dogs.
The landscaped area across the river was padlocked – as it turned out, the owner left it unlocked for us and only pulled the gates shut for show, but due to my excessively massive intellect, I didn't immediately realize it. He did tell Shchukin about it though, so he was in the loop. We still had enough time to pitch the tents, but we cooked in the dark. It seems that doesn't bother Maris at all. Once again, by the way, we wolfed down some yogurt, albeit without jam, and a hot meal too. Our hot meals usually differ only slightly – macaroni with stewed meat, macaroni with tuna, macaroni with porridge. Yes, the latter is a slightly exotic dish, but you'll devour just about anything when you're starving.
By the way, on Lepra they recently discussed “bards”, “hiking enthusiasts” and other similar personalities, the quintessence of whose activities is the line “skis and a guitar are standing by the stove”. I, as I've already written, am not a fan of such hardcore-tent communion with nature, so I'll show you a satirical picture.
The phrase on the top right is just excellent. I myself, by the way, often walk around with a backpack too, but laughing at oneself is, as we know, the best cure for Orthodoxy of the brain.
I should also mention that the exact beautiful places where we currently are in the narrative were mentioned in guidebooks, the internet, and Wikipedia as the tourist spots of this region in Turkey. I mean, the city of Tekirdağ itself is also nice, but the mountains around it are a veritable Mecca (another not very successful pun). So, below I’ve dragged in some photos from Flickr for you – enjoy while you can. My own photos of these places have run out, plus you've seen enough of them in the last post.
In general, a thought has been brewing in my mind in recent years that I like variety. Sure, everyone likes it to some degree or another, but I've practically made it my credo. You could say, of course, that I'm scattering my energy and all that, but that's just the way I'm wired.
For example, on Sunday I bought a plant-based milk alternative made in Sweden – it was on sale in Rimi, called Oatly. Tastes like a cross between porridge and whitewash, but it's okay, drinkable. I thought long and hard about what “oat” actually was, but finally looked in the dictionary and was surprised to learn that it's simply oats. Since it's a Swedish product, the price is inhumane, especially since it's positioned as organic, eco-friendly, and just healthy as hell. Fortunately, it was on sale for the price of a carton of juice, so trying it once is fine. What always makes me wonder is – who actually buys such exotic and premium products in Daugavpils? The answer is usually “nobody”, which is why they don't sell them here, except maybe as an experiment.
But let's get back to the topic of travel. Until recently, I've been on bus tours in Norway and Germany, drove to Poland (to relatives, so not quite as a tourist), then to the USA – to my sister's, so also hitting local sights. Most recently there was an all-inclusive Crete, and now this – a bicycle tour in Turkey. As you can see, everything is very diverse. I hope to continue in this spirit in the future – with an emphasis on more active recreation, because sitting in one place is not my thing – kinda boring. Variety forella!
In this stream of thought, I got interested in an article on my portable iPhone Wikipedia about the cylindrical meat balls of the city of Tekirdağ (Tekirdağ köfte). Since our team consisted of one doctor and two PhD students of technical sciences, my literal translation caused a stir and a flood of humor. The thing is, an object like “cylindrical balls” is so far unknown to science, and to actually try them as food is nothing short of a revelation. Subsequently, the innocent quote turned into a whole classic legend. To use modern language, a meme. The author of the term, by the way, is the planet's chief atheist, evolutionary biologist Dawkins, which is somewhat unexpected.
The village from the last part is supposedly called Uçmakdere, and a paragliding festival is periodically held there.
I read the article about the cylindrical balls in English and translated it on the fly, so an astute reader will be able to guess what it was actually about. But you shouldn't consider me completely stupid – try riding 79 km through the mountains during the day, like we did that day, and then we'll see how you'll work as a simultaneous interpreter at night. Plus, I always try to say things whichever way is funnier, not more accurate.