North Cascades, Baby!

Diana and I have been through a few mountain ranges in our time. The North Cascades, even though it is in our backyard so-to-speak, surprises us every time we go through it. Dramatic peaks, snowfields, lakes, insane quiet, and right now not many other humans around—is there a better place on earth? Our first morning after leaving Seattle we woke up from our camp, drove a little bit into the mountains, and pulled off and hiked to here.

Not bad for a post hectic button-up-the-joint and get-on-the-road craziness campaign. Yeah, life’s been a little…well…I can’t remember lately. The mind’s a tad off let’s just say. We’re talkin’ touch down from Turkey, pack all of your junk (i.e., possessions) into some crates, try to sew up the loose ends, cross yer fingers, chant to the gods, comb the hair and start the motor cuz’ you can plan and worry yourself into compulsion. We dropped the keys to our temporary apartment in the drop-box, gave a forwarding address, said thank you very much we’re leaving now, turned onto I-5 north, and began the homeless life that is now officially the start of our road-trip. Yeah, I know, everything before was just a rehearsal. We’ve got our good clothes on.

Seriously, this is the first time since we started this so-called road-trip where I’ve felt, okay, we’re doin’ it. Before it was a week in Squamish, straight to another country for over 2 weeks, then get home and store your things away for the next 9 months. THEN the actual trip will begin. And so it has. And just like the rest of the country felt when Gonzales resigned, we’ve let out a huge WHEW. Good thing that’s over.

Here in the North Cascades, the remoteness of these mountains, the magnitude of their sheerness, and the deafening quiet, separate this range from many others in the U.S. We hiked up today to a ridgeline giving us views of Glacier Peak and the neighboring ridge with a name probably like Desperation Arm or something. That’s the way it is here. The names to the mountains, the ridges, even the lakes sometimes take on a dramatic horror like Dead Horse Ridge, Starvation Mountain, and Death Soon Canyon. My gut tells me the crooked prospectors that clawed their way up here back during the gold rush gave these names to keep others out. And thank ‘em for it. But maybe there is some truth to the names. Who knows. All I know is that rambling about these mountains, often with too little food and water, til you’re tired and hungry but stuck on the views, is a life worth living. There ain’t nothing better than coming down from a high mountain lake (after a dip of course), legs on fire, starving, and settling back into camp, muscles aching, rolling up in a blanket, a warm cup of tea, a book, and reading yourself into a stupor. You’re tired, dead horse tired, and there’s nothing like knowing that soon you’ll fall into the dark land of nod oblivion, a black sleep, dreamless, uninterrupted and deep. Beyond that, can you ask for anything more?

Speaking of sleep it’s about time I turn in. The sun’s setting behind the ridge over yonder and the old bones are a croakin’.

Maybe I won’t keep up this blog anymore. Maybe I’ll just settle in and enjoy the peace. Afterall, can I really convey this place? Will words work now? Sure, they worked to tell about all that historical business in Turkey. But will they suffice an alpenglow sky? The roar of the clear river through the trees? The raven calling through beams of golden light? Probably not. Let’s let them rest awhile in the quiet where they belong. Words sometimes muddy up the place and right now I’m enjoying the clarity of a high mountain nothingness. Wish you were here.

other photos: unlikely companions, nature's air conditioning, typical Cascade scene

“Excuse me, how I can help you spend your money?”

One of the national mottos of Turkey, that and “It’s no problem.” Everything is no problem. Even if you’re at the wrong bus station, will miss your connector, spend the next 8 hours on a bus (we’ve spent about 30 hours on busses, even with a flight between places to avoid another 6 hour bus haul), the AC in your room doesn’t work, there is no pepto-bismol from here to Greece, and you've got Turkey trot (a.k.a. Montezuma’s Revenge, a.k.a. Delhi Belly), all of it is “no problem.” What else are you supposed to say in a place that seems constantly on the verge of tragedy? Here 40,000 people die in an earthquake, and it’s as if a minor storm passed through. Here people push their babies in carriages out into crosswalks and cars STILL do not stop, here where families have at least one relative who has been killed in some sort of car accident.

I grew up at drag strips, my father being a weekend racer himself, I’ve sat behind the wheel of his race car, raced it down the track, pushing 8 cylinders of a 400 big-block good ole American steel muscle car and yet our cab ride from Urgup to the airport was probably the most scared I’ve been in a car, including the time…well never mind. We are in a mini-van, no seat belts of course because in Turkey, to wear a seat belt is to commit a fashion faux paux, I suppose, the driver hacking up something from his throat, answering his phone, cursing (I think), all at 130 km per hour, FOR AN HOUR STRAIGHT. All of it down a Turkish highway (think ESPN Texas Rodeo Championship and you’ve got a good idea of what the van must have looked like from the outside), Diana turning green, me starting to fear that that the last kebob might climb its way out of my stomach and jump out the window to save itself (that selfish bastard!). And when we arrived at the airport with what? three minutes until our plane takes off, a line of what looked like Turkish refugees fleeing the country streaming out the door of the terminal (“It is no problem”), I fell out of the door of the van, kissed the ground, thanked Allah, and wondered what we would do if we missed the flight.

Alas, we did make the flight, it being late (of course), schedules here being like stop signs, optional, and we made our way to Selcuk and the site of Ephesus, the best preserved Roman city in Turkey (It is no problem). Not before of course a driver from our hotel picked us up and took us at 140 km per hour FOR AN HOUR STRAIGHT, at night, down a Turkish highway (near tragedy).

That’s pretty much the way this trip has been. The pattern is this: insanity (chaos and mayhem), amazement, insanity, amazement, and so on. The physical and mental toll this takes on the European/western traveler becomes evident by the wary, sullen look in their eyes at about day 10, and you can easily distinguish them from the new arrival, smiling, excited, chipper, and you can communicate with this wary westerner with a simple look, I’m with you brother, I understand. You don’t say anything to these newcomers and just let them enjoy the honeymoon. If they were to ask, just like every Turk will, How do you like Turkey, you simply reply, It’s great, so much to see here. And that is the truth. There IS so much to see here. So much incredible history, the seat of Western civilization for chrissakes.

But to travel here you must get used to the title of this post. If there is one thing Turkey is good at, it is separating you from your money. Why? One torched economy after another. Get this. Five years ago a beer here cost 1,000,000 Turkish lira. The government decided to cut some zeros from the currency, printed up a new stack, and poof, a beer instantly cost 1 lira (It is no problem). Five years later a beer here costs anywhere from 4 to 7 lira depending where you are (so about 3-6 American smackers). The price for the metro in Istanbul increased just in the time we were gone (9 days).

You must also get used to what appears to be a general decay here, dying cats (and dogs), constant pestering from carpet peddlers, shopkeepers, restaurant hawkers, being cut in front of in line, no traffic laws (well they are not followed) and therefore utter chaos on the roads, almost being killed EVERYTIME you try to cross the street; ketchup on your pizza; 4 star being a relative term; heat comparable only to the fires of the river Styx; garbage everywhere; Attaturk staring at you at every turn (on the money, on the walls, on statues); people dancing under a giant Turkish flag singing the national anthem while simultaneously throwing their cigarette butts and empty water bottles into the Aegean; Turkish optimism (being told it is 102 degrees when it is 108, or the road signs that say 7 km to somewhere when it is actually 10 km); cigarette smoke in restaurants, busses, hotel lobbies, airports (everywhere okay); and something else but I must run to the bathroom, sorry.

Righto, but with all of this is the incredible helpfulness of the common Turkish person, insisting on helping you find your way, carry your bag, etc. The amazing historical sites. The incredible food (be careful though). The beautiful singing lilting from the imams’ call to prayer from the ubiquitous mosque marinets.

Under the general tone (which can only be called tragic), and the general belief that Turkey may fall into the hands of the radical Islamists of Iran, there is the unrelenting Turkish hope. Turkish generosity. Turkish hospitality. This part will be missed.

But generally I am missing now the cool, crisp air of the Puget Sound. I want to wait in an orderly line, single file, everyone waiting their turn. I want things to work on schedule. I want to actually stop at a red light. Stay within the painted lines of the highway. Cross the street without losing a leg. Eat leafy greens. Drink water out of a tap. I miss you America. Soon we will be home.

Ephesus

Ephesus is home to one of the best preserved Roman ruins in Turkey. Here’s an amphitheater. Here’s Medusa. And here are the public toilets, complete with the musician's area to entertain the relievers. Man, the Romans knew how to live. Since I’ve spent much time in Turkish toilets as of late, I found this sign to be amusing. Thus far I have failed to experience such magic. For the average Turk from a village, this flushing toilet device must be like manna from heaven. Here’s what village bathrooms look like, though this one is in a nice restaurant so it is a particularly upscale specimen. Any toilet paper in there?

Best not to look. Moving right along we went swimming in the Aegean. Had Turkish coffee with a Turkish family in their home (Mehmet’s family, a nice young man from the university where Diana taught who showed us around). Mehmet took us to an old Ottoman village high up in a valley that grows olives, grapes, and makes many kinds of fruit wines. We had lunch at his uncle’s restaurant.

On to Troy, where we saw more ruins. This one has probably the oldest known wall in the world (dated to 3000 BCE, the pyramids are dated to 2700 BCE). And then to Cannakale, home to Gallipoli and the battlefield from WWI , where hundreds of thousands of men died (most from Australia and New Zealand in addition to the Ottomans). We hopped on a bus and a boat and spun back to Istanbul. Short and sweet. Ciao.

More photos: island we took a boat to to eat dinner, castle in Selcuk, the Sacred Ramp in Ephesus, inside Ankara mosque (I forgot to post this pic in an earlier post)

See the rest of our photos here: http://www.flickr.com/gp/10412955@N03/7gb96e

Cappadocia

From Istanbul to Ankara, the capital of Turkey, down to Urgup, we went, to visit the must-see region of Cappadocia, land of grapes, underground cities, the mystical Fairy Chimneys, the Silk Road, and histories spanning the Hittites (1900-1300 BCE), the Phrygians(1200-600 BCE), Byzantines, Alexander the Great, Turks, and certainly others my brain has dropped due to amazement overload. Where to begin? How to describe? Will pictures help?

Let’s try the gist. The Fairy Chimneys. Okay, crazy formations by an ice age melt that left a huge body of water with volcanoes spewing rocks into the water, which landed on top of parasite vents at the bottom, water goes away, wind comes along, snow, melt, snow, melt (ad infinim), and viola! You’ve got basalt boulders sitting on top of cones, in which people lived, like Smurfs you could say, and when Marco Polo cruised through here on his little adventure he reported thousands of them on the valley floor, all with little streams of smoke coming out of the tops, people inside snuggly warm and content. Who were these people you ask? Good question. Originally Hittites possibly. But eventually Christians because there are churches with frescoes painted inside of Christ, John the Baptiste, Mary, etc. Then the Byzantines, finally the Turks, and even modern Turks up until the 60’s when the man kicked ‘em out, made a park, brought the tourists. In all fairness the chimneys started to collapse and kill the inhabitants so mandatory removal was probably a good thing?

This whole area, 4000 square kilometers, is covered in these cave dwellings that have been, and continue to be, used by the local people. Everywhere you look you see doors, openings, balconies, carved into the cliffs and hills all around. There are families here still making pottery in the Hittite style, handed down generation to generation, in these caves. We stayed in one for two nights, windows open into the cool Middle Eastern night. The crazy thing about these caves is that the entrances to them are about two stories off the ground requiring a rope climb entry. Why? Because, get this, to stay safe from cheetahs (the last one being killed in 1982?), lions, and other unsavory beasts (there were Gorillas in this area, giraffes, hyenas). I feel like a doofus for not knowing this.

The underground cities. Mind blower. There is believed to be about 150 of them here, 36 have been discovered, 8 are open to the public. Again, probably pre-Hittite people created the first couple of levels (8 levels in all), with the Christians creating the last several levels during the Roman persecution. These people could live down there for months on end without ever having to surface. They had vent shafts for both air circulation and to retrieve water that go down 350 meters into the earth, they have elaborate chimney systems so their smoke could not be detected from the outside, toilets, stables, kitchens, wineries, churches, everything they needed to wait out an enemy invasion. Four to five thousand lived in this two city complex we visited. Most of the cities were connected by tunnels, and really long tunnels went to the tops of mountains so sentries could watch for invaders (mainly Romans) and report back down into the underground city when they left so the inhabitants could surface and return to their homes and lives outside. In this area it is generally believed that 3 out of the 8 wonders of the world should be listed.

Goreme, a cave dwelling complex used by the Christians and later the Turks, was a kind of monastery, the biggest and most important during its time, it being the place where the Christian kingdom sent orphans to be trained in the ways of the church. Here you will see the only image in the world of Christ as a teenager, and the only image of him without a halo (Mary is holding him and it symbolizes that she would love him even if he wasn’t special).

I really feel like an uneducated American since coming to Turkey. Shouldn’t I have known that Alexander the Great spent much time here in Anatolia on his tour? Shouldn’t I have known that the Virgin Mary came here to retire? Shouldn’t I have at least known that the Romans built coliseums here, the Greeks were here, that Turkey was the seat of Islam for the entire Islamic world until Ataturk shut that program down in 1924 after the Independence War? (There is no such thing for the religion of Islam anymore because according to the religion it can only be located in Turkey) Why didn’t I know I was going to cross the Silk Road?

So we now head towards the Aegean sea to visit Ephesus (Roman capital of Asia Minor and the place of the Temple of Diana, Virgin Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon), home to a Roman coliseum and Roman city, the House of Mary (where she lived her last days), and the sea coast of the Aegean.

Other photos: Margaret Thatcher, Camel, you decide, Orca, no really, a camel

Istanbul, Turkey

Turkish cab riding, the new extreme sport. Don’t believe me? Try it. Pitch yourself in the front seat, strap in, hold on…and pray. Though I don’t think it’s limited to cabs, this suicidal blinded in one eye trust me I’m too tired to care sport comically called “driving,” because everyone here drives as if there’s a fire somewhere and peds are…well…silly. Or stupid. Hemingway said there were only three sports (mountain climbing, bull fighting, and auto racing [not Nascar of course, Formula 1]), all the rest were games. He obviously never tried to cross the street in Istanbul.

In all of this madness, the harranguing of carpet peddlers, the restaurant hawkers refusing to allow you to eat anywhere but there, the feral cats, the children smiling saying, “money, money, money,” there is in this city much beauty, many surprising gems, history beyond belief.

Take for instance the famous “blue mosque.” Famous? You ask. Understood. Once you come to Istanbul you will quickly learn it is famous. It is one of the places you will visit, guaranteed. This one is only 400 years old. You see, it was built by a sultan of the Turkish Empire who wanted to outdo the neighboring Aya Sofya (the picture in this post). The Aya Sofya was first dedicated in 537 CE by Emperor Justinian and was the Byzantine Empire’s greatest place of worship worthy of coronation of several Byzantine emperors. Christendom rallied from this church until the Conquest in 1453. Istanbul used to be Constantinople, the Roman Empire’s new capital following the decline of the western portion of Rome’s rule. And so it was that the Roman Empire ruled from this city until 1453 when the Turks came in and sacked the place (not before the 4th crusade, but that’s getting too involved isn’t it?), changed the color of the drapes, gave it a new name. Anyhoo, getting back to the original thread, the Aya Sofya was turned into a mosque after the Turks took over (now it’s a museum thanks to Ataturk) and the “blue mosque” was built by Sultan Ahmet I to outdo the Aya Sofya.

There are so many things to say about the history here, and we won’t bore you with it. Just know this, our hotel room (located in old Istanbul, which was Constantinople) looks out over the Sea of Marmara, the mouth of the Bosphorus, and old city walls that protected Constantinople from invaders for centuries; we can see the Asian side of Istanbul (no not Chinatown, there isn't one, the half of Istanbul that is on the Asian continent) while we stay on the European side; you cannot go anywhere here without being within earshot of the Imams singing over mosque loudspeakers calling Muslims to prayer 5 times a day (starting at 5 a.m.); and we had Turkish tea in an underground Roman cistern, the largest of its kind, that held water for the city (built in like 300 CE or something) pumped from aqueducts that ran from the Black sea. Did I mention the Egyptian obelisk built in 1430 BCE brought here by the Romans from Cairo as decoration for their Hippodrome chariot races here? Sorry. Just wait ‘til we get to Troy!

Other photos: bread man, us inside palace, inside blue mosque, Diana dancing in street, international man of intrigue, inside Aya Sofya, Aya Sofya mosaic

*note: The pics inside the Aya Sofya cannot illustrate the sheer impossibility that the entire ceiling of this place was covered in mosaics consisting of tiles the size of Chiclets.

Check out all our photos at http://www.flickr.com/gp/10412955@N03/1Qf7s0

Back in Seattle for one night before we take off for Turkey tomorrow. Left Squamish this morning after breaking camp and strolled on down the "Sea to Sky" highway towards Vancouver. Squamish is a mystical place that is changing rapidly. The Olympics are rolling into town and that's got the place sprouting condos and Starbucks like mushrooms at a Dead show. Still, it is somewhat lowkey for the time-being and the place is awe-inspiring.

We spent most of our nights camped up a forest road with Esther serenading us to sleep, while waking in the morning mozying about deciding what to do for the day (hike? bike? climb?). On day 5 we decided to head up to Whistler and play around there for the day. It was clear from the time we started walking through the village early that morning that we were not dressed properly for such high mountain travel. Nonetheless, we trekked on marvelling at the hoopla surrounding the coming Olympic games and the frenzy it's stirred there. Keep your eye on the 2010 winter games and you might just see a shining new team in the bobsled event.

One thing's for sure, even though us humans in this vagabond crew weren't up to the fashion standards of sparkling Whistler, Buck and Edie still won Best in Show. Whistler is really a beautiful place where a family can have good time together. Just make sure you bring plenty of dough. Loonies and Georgies are about even now (translation: the American dollar has sunk to a point where the Canadian dollar is worth more).

On the final day Adam and Amanda made us blueberry and Salmon berry (fresh picked by Amanda by the river close to our camp!) pancakes. As the time came to bring this leg of our trip to a close a certain sadness set in. As I watched Adam and Amanda drive out of camp for the last time I spun memories of our time here around in my head. From Brent and Emily bouldering with us, to alpen nights in camp, spinning still to just relaxing, talking, laughing our way into memories created we can later recall around an as yet to be determined adventure together. Thank you Squamish. Thank you Whistler. Most of all, thank you, our friends, for meeting us during this first week of our trip. We couldn't have started it a better way without you.

So we're off to Turkey tomorrow. We'll see how much we keep up with the blog thing during the next 16 days.

Hiking in Squamish

Sitting in the Howe Sound Brewery...yes, after a long day of mountain biking, following Adam down a Squamish double black diamond wondering, how, howe, Howe good it was going to feel...thighs on fire because yesterday we hiked to the top of the Chief (2,600 feet of granite) with Esther, where just before she was about to prove her mettle someone said wait! What? Check this out. Sometimes when taking photos the light is just right, or maybe the backdrop, or something else, but in the photo in this post something weird has happened. I think it was the clouds. I think it was the fact that the Howe Sound is glacier green. The sun was out. Maybe it was the wind on the water. Or maybe all of it. But I think the magic in it is enough to show the beauty of this place. Words will not suffice. Enjoy.

More pics: Edie and Diana, Esther and Buck, Cool boulder, Beautiful scenery, Edie