Escape from paradise...!

beauty courtesy of anders

There were aussies and Scotsman and kiwis. Two thick-ankled giants from Calgary. Starry-eyed and foul-mouthed lovers from Manchester.

Like some sort of international “Survivor” dream team, we all converged on the pirate-cove-turned-beach-resort of Olympos, as thousands of tourists do every year, at the southern tip of Turkey’s turquoise coast, where the past is forgotten and old grudges put aside to celebrate the wherewithal of the worlds heartiest binge drinkers.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved marching through the cave-city valleys of Cappadocia and climbing the ruined high-rises of hasenkeyf. But it was in Olympos that I finally found myself on “vacation” as defined by people’s dreams- that mystical land where everything always goes right, where the men are handsome and funny, and women are beautiful and sometimes sunbathing topless.

We were the chilled-out California boys, which is a good thing to be, especially if you have curly blond hair, which, when on the beach of people’s dreams, glows with a wispy sunlit halo and makes you look like an angel, which in turn makes people in a good mood almost disgustingly friendly towards you, and snowballs your delusional mental/vacation state to a dysfunctional prozac ecstasy.

Happy :)

Olympos is the kind of place where the lazy in you inevitably takes over. Slowly, terrifyingly, it oozes into your ears and settles in the front of your skull, just like those weird desert worm thingies that crawl into Chekov’s ears in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN.

Visitors inevitably find themselves staying an extra day or two regardless of schedules, plane flights or murderous pitchfork wielding mobs. There were legends of a German tourist who became so swallowed up by the lazy that her feet turned to wood, and her toes curled and worked their way into the sand like roots, and she became a tree.

Well, not really, but I’m starting one right now. I saw it happen. I swear.

A once sizable Lycian city, Olympos has roots in Greek and Roman mythology, allegedly being the birthplace of Vulcan, the god of blacksmithing, and the deathplace of Chimera, a firebreathiing demon of yore more widely recognized as the logo for the Turkish chain of gas stations PETROL OFISI.



chimera vs. chimera corporate logo

The Chimera was slain when Iobetes, King of Xanthos, dropped lead in its mouth from above. At the site where the creature died burns an eternal flame sprouting from the earth, which you can still go check out. The flame has been burning for as long as recorded history, and is also the site where the first Olympic torch was lit.

eternal flame of chimera

Supposed “smart” people say it’s a pocket of methane gas that is slowly seeping out of the ground, but ask the German tree woman and she’ll tell you differently. You need to bribe her with cigarettes first- no lights or menthols, and don’t bother her before 10 AM cuz she’s cranky.

Regardless, the historic mythology to the spot is and always will be appropriate for me. I will always remember Olympos as the place where the ancient Lycian Lazy Monster got to me. I became too comfortable there. When Anders and Ren were ready to go, I chose to stay. I let the lazy in, I let the beast crawl in my ears- I married it, made love to it, wallowed in it.

Amidst my decadence, the thought that I would never be able to leave set in, and I panicked. I became so comfortable that I ran. I ran away from paradise.

On the day that I sullenly boarded the dolmuş out of Olympus, somewhere on the sunny coast of the Mediterranean, the Greeks looked east towards Turkey and saw for the second time in 4000 years a pointy-nosed kid icarus falling back to earth like a flaming meteor, having flown too close to the sun, having come too close to heaven for any mortal to withstand.

German tree woman (taken by anders)

party people at the Chimera (taken by anders)

I will never be the same...

A week of many firsts...

Traveled over 1,000 miles since last post and now we’re in Van, a lakeside city in the southeast corner of Turkey, less than 100 miles from the border of Iran. Both Van the city and the lake rest on a plateau more than a mile above sea level (eat it Denver), making for a beautiful/alien landscape of snow-capped mountains atop smooth blue water. The lake is naturally alkaline due to the quality of the rock- that means that if you wash your clothes in the water, they come clean without soap.

We are way off the beaten trail here. English-speakers are rare, so we depend mostly on pantomime and a few key phrases from our guidebooks. Right now we are definitely the only white people in Van, and my brother and I get constant stares. A man in the market told us we are the first tourists he’s seen in 2 years. With our blond, curly hair and pale skin, people think we’re German. We let them. People are cautious of Americans here. "Aufitersen!" we shout as we walk away.

I’ve never been to Turkey before, so naturally I’m experiencing a lot of things for the first time. Some of my more notable firsts in just one week of travel…

For the first time ever, I’ve-

• been hustled by goat herders
  
  
• eaten paprika-flavored potato chips
  
  
• thrown a rock into Armenia from the ruins 1,500 year-old city
  
  
  
  
  
  
• seen so many satellite dishes fixed neatly atop the roofs of stone huts, surrounded by roosters.
  
  
• been sponge-bathed and then violently man-handled by a scar-faced man in a Hamam (Turkish bath house).
  
  
• successfully performed emergency toe surgery on an ingrown toenail on the bathroom floor of a hotel with tweezers and a sewing needle while running a flu of 100.
  
  
• celebrated Easter on the Black Sea 100 miles from the Republic of Georgia in a catholic mission, run by a Polack and a Romanian, with a congregation of 5 people.
  
  
• sat amongst a herd of grazing cows and found peace in the sound of dozens of mouths slowly chewing cud.
  

Needless to say, I’m having a good time.

Muslim prayers make the hungover and jetlagged wince.

Hi all. My name's Mark Ristaino, and I'll be blogging my 5 week tour of Turkey right here with Global Transmissions. A little about me- I've spent my last 2 years organizing young music fans against big bad President Bush with Music for America, a very cool non-profit that does issue education in concerts to help give kids the tools to change things in our unfortunate homeland America.

For those of you who've never done political organizing before, well... it's exhausting. I'm looking forward to getting a break and some perspective by eating lots of kebabs. I'll be blogging Turkish culture, and letting my dear companion Renato give you the virtual tour, as he does so exhaustingly well.

Adhan- the first shockingly different thingy I noticed
Turkey has over 70 million people, and as much as 99.8% of them are Muslim (mainly Sunni). Anyone used to a christain-centric culture will notice a big difference because of this, and nowhere is it more obvious than with the Adhan.



Adhan is a chant sounded loudly from atop Mosques 5 times daily, summoning muslims for fard salah, or mandatory prayers. I imagine that in smaller towns, the muezzin (recitor) simply yells as loudly as he can, but in Istanbul they blast the Adhan through loudspeakers from mosques at every corner of the city, which, at 5:30 AM, can otherwise be described as the Turkish version of Taps. Not too great if you're jetlagged and trying to sleep, or if you've been partying till 4 AM, but kinda nice if you like to be woken up early for a morning roll in the hay. (i wish)

You think McDonalds is good at getting people to come back for more? The Adhan keeps Muslims thinking about their faith no matter where they are and what they're doing 5 times a day... Kinda like a sing-songy, foghornish, screaming commercial for Islam.

Fortune 500 execs agree, that's good marketing. No wonder Islam is the biggest religion in the world.

more to come...