Turkish Delight

  

 

 After some time finally here the Turkish Ski mountaineering adventures in written format.

Last April/ May a group of 6 adventurers in search of the wild and the white in Eastern Turkey, Anatolia. Alberto, Andoni, Iker, Patxi, Unai and myself flew into to Istanbul and continued in the early hours of the morning with a flight into Erzurum.

 

 

The adventure started already long before we left. We did a lot of research before we departed on this trip but there is very little information available on the eastern part of Turkey. English written info is a hardship and maps are pretty much for main roads only. The only areas that are well known and provide you with some form of mountain map are the Kackar and Ararat. The Kackar guidebook by Kate Clow was most helpful and it contains a reasonable map by Zsiga Gyorgy. For Ararat there is a vague map but to climb Ararat you need a permit and use a local 'guide'. Two out of our team tried the 'local guide approach on the day thing' but got done and decided to attempt it themselves which turned into a bit of an epic. Two Russian guys that we met in Dogubayazit told us they had just come back and used a local guide and porters last minute but..a quarter of the way up the guide and his man decided it was to exhausting for them to make trail (as the snow was waist deep powder) and made base and wouldn't go any higher!!

Overall though during our trip we discovered that the Turkish/Kurds are incredible friendly people and everywhere we went we were welcomed with a warm hard. It was the first time since many years that I traveled to a country where I couldn't speak in their language nor any other language I know. This made the adventure even bigger and more fun as everything was done in sign language or making drawings etc. It also provided us with some scary moments though!! The people live their lives still very much like many hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

 

Our first port of call was Erzurum which is in the center of Anatolia and host the biggest Turkish ski resort Palandoken. We realised that it was famous to the Turkish but not really to foreigners. In Erzurum our first challenge was to hire two vehicles suitable for the mountains. How do you explain that in Turkish? Nobody, but nobody spoke any foreign language and there were only two car hires which were situated next to each other and probably brothers!!! We spend about two hours at the car hire requesting two off road type vehicles or a some sort of minibus but no success the only cars they had were a Skoda and a Suzuki. Asking them about the insurance was a complete mystery to them and in the end we had no idea whether we were insured or not. They got a friend to come round and we had to wait until he was there because apparently he spoke English....and he did one, two, three words. But he was so proud and it was cool! The whole scenario was hilarious because every one out the street came round to look what was going on. All our luggage, mountaineering and ski equipment on the pavement. When we set ourselves down in front of the car hire we were joint by a few locals!!

When we finally got our cars the next challenge was to find somewhere to stay in Erzurum for a night. We thought it a good idea to visit the tourist office as Erzurum had a ski resort so sure it would have a good tourist office?? Well there is but I realized that I needed to start learning Turkish for next time! Another funny experience. The town is a bit of a chaos and to find your way round is a bit of a puzzle in the beginning. We did find the tourist info eventually but when we got there we saw two men drinking Chai and about five desks un occupied. A the desk where the two men were sitting there were lot's of brochures but when we spoke to the men,they just looked at us and then started talking Turkish to us. We understood to have a seat when the one of the men pointed at it and thought that maybe someone was coming to speak to us and so we waited but no one came instead we were offered numerous cups of Chai and so we just flicked through the brochures for a little while to check out the pictures until we realized that it could take a very long time before anyone would come and speak to us... So we left to continue our mission. We flicked through the lonely planet for recommendations on accommodation. We found a sound place to kip, the Yeni Ornek. Basic but cheap, clean and spacious rooms and nice staff (no English either!). They do a fine Turkish breakfast with lot's of choice and opposite the Hekimoglu does great kebaps!!!

In the afternoon we decided to go for a bit of an explore. Patxi and Andoni went for a ski tour to Palandoken whilst Unai, Alberto and myself went for a drive around. Erzurum isn't the prettiest of places on the eye and has big contrasts. A lot of poverty around but look through this and you will find some jewels. The old town, the beautiful mosques, the amazing views of mountains and mountains all about 3000m plus and of course the people. They will be quite wary at first because they don't see many tourists but once they no it is all good they couldn't be more friendly and helpful. Before you know it you will be drinking Chai everywhere!

Our next stage, the travel to Kackar, our captivity by the Turkish army whilst climbing one of the peaks on the way will follow next week. Keep watching this space!

XX Christel