Kickin' Back... By Climbing a Mountain

We had just left Konya – a big, bustling city, where the focus was on learning about religious experiences, and all of the mental processing that followed. Now, we were headed to a completely opposite destination – Eğirdir. Eğirdir is a lake town, located at the south end of – you guessed it – Lake Eğirdir. It’s not very big, or even particularly well, even to Turks – some of my METU friends told me they didn’t even know where it was.

It’s also a peaceful haven and not what most people would think of when they think of this country. The quietness was the main appeal for us.

The first sights of Lake Eğirdir, as the highway reached the edge of the lake.

 The drive there was very pretty, through mountains and past lakes – we had entered Turkey’s Lake District but took a few hours. It was later in the day when we arrived in Eğirdir, and we didn’t yet have a place to stay. Luckily, the main part of Eğirdir is a little peninsula sticking out into the lake, and very walkable. We found a nice pension – the cost was a little higher than we were used to paying, but after our Couchsurfing adventure in Konya, we were happy to have a private room to ourselves.

I loved Eğirdir already – narrow streets, calm lake on both sides, a laidback everybody-knows-everybody feel, and mountains surrounding it all.

Our pension had a nice restaurant space, closed in the evening to keep out bugs (there were really a lot of bugs here) but otherwise open during the day for fresh air and beautiful views out onto the lake. We were tired from the day of travelling and hungry, so we just hung around there for quite a while, and enjoyed a truly delicious meal of fish and stuffed eggplant. I’m not sure if I’ve ever talked in my blog about how much I love the eggplant in this country. It’s not a food I eat often back in Canada (though I do enjoy it) but it’s super popular here. It’s very versatile, and Turkish cuisine has made a lot of delicious dishes out of it, many of which are my favourites. The eggplant dish in Eğirdir was a particularly delicious variation.

Afterwards, we thought about swimming but it was getting a bit cool, so we instead just decided to walk along the peninsula. Our part of the peninsula is a bulge right off of the main land. It is connected by bridge to what is technically an island, called Yeşilada, which is the furthest point out into the lake. It was once a Greek community, before the population exchanges at the time of the founding of the Turkish Republic in the 1920s when they were all moved to Greece. It still maintains the Greek flavour in its architecture, though.

Looking out from Eğirdir at the lake in the evening.

Mountains in the distance.

Lakeside relaxation.

The road just outside our pension. Narrow and quaint.

 Between us and Yeşilada is another outcrop, a simple bulge of park stretching out into the water. And it just so happens to be called Canada! I don’t know why, and everyone should keep in mind that in Turkish, ‘Canada’ would be pronounced ‘Janada’ because of that’s what the letter ‘c’ does. But still, we thought it was hilarious and bizarre, and so we made a point of watching the sunset from there [And fitting that this would be my first blog post since Canada Day - Happy belated Canada Day, friends!]. And what a beautiful sunset it was! Over the calm lake, with mountains to frame it, I think it was the best sunset one I had seen in Turkey up to that point (though more equally amazing sunsets are to come when I finally get to blogging about the Black Sea coast!).

Watching the sun begin to set from 'Canada'.

Sun going down! So calming!

The sunset again, from another part of  'Canada'. Thought it was funny that there were some real hoser-types out on the beach, camping and sitting in the water in lawnchairs, seeing as this is 'Canada' and all.

Last rays of sun.

 It was so calming to be along that quiet lake. After Canada, we headed along to Yeşilada, where we just walked along the water, and enjoyed the calm. Eventually, as it got darker, we bought a bottle of wine (from a 13-year-old, I swear) and relaxed away the rest of the night.

A cat up on an old Greek-style wall in Yeşilada. As you can see, he doesn't look very happy with me taking his picture.

But look, he's a cutie after all!

Little blue boat sitting calmly on the dusky lake.

 Next morning, we wanted to get up in good time to get going on a hike, but ended up kind of dragging our feet. There was a great buffet breakfast of delicious foods – including my new favourite, rose jam – and the whole lake-town-feel was making us drag our feet. Anyway, we eventually headed out and walked along the waterfront highway south of Eğirdir. Eventually (and happily – the highway was rather smelly and busy with exhaust and cars) we reached the turn-off to head up into the hills. We hiked up a steep switch-back road high up above Eğirdir, finally reaching a little farm village called Akpınar. Almost directly above Eğirdir, it had a good view of the city and the peninsula below, as well as some of snow-capped mountains around the other side of the lake. Already it was beautiful.

Headed up the mountain, looking back on the spit that is Eğirdir.

Eğirdir and Lake Eğirdir below.

We had heard from our pension down in Eğirdir that Akpınar was known for its Turkish hospitality and enthusiasm for visitors, and we were excited to experience this when we got there. However, even as we were entering the town, we got a sense that something was amiss. We heard wailing from a nearby house – it sounded like one or more women were sobbing. What seemed to be a slow but steady stream of villagers was coming from the village itself up towards the house where we heard the crying. It sounded to us as though someone had passed away. In such a tiny village, there is no doubt that everyone in the town would know the deceased, and we could feel the weight of the tragedy even as we passed through.

The mosque minaret in Akpınar.

A house in Akpınar.

Looking out from Akpınar at the mountains.

The Turkish flag blowing with the high lake mountains in the background.

Another cool Akpınar home.

 We then continued on, leaving Akpınar, up a road that led higher up the mountain of Sevri Tepe. Up til now, the road had been paved, but soon that gave way and we were just on a little trail. There was a steady but slight incline, but it was incredibly pretty. Trees had thinned out considerably, and we found ourselves in a mountain pasture. Green grasses and wildflowers abounded, and a nice breeze was blowing, cooling us despite the intense, hot sun. We ate lunch in the shade of a tree, and Jess frolicked in the flowers singing broken pieces from The Sound of Music soundtrack because she was reminded of Austrian mountain meadows.

Grassy meadows up the hill.

The peak of Sevri Tepe on the left, where we were headed.

 Up we continued, past a few farmers and cowherds – there were lots of cows, becoming more frequent, it seemed, the higher we got, and finally reached the ridge that allowed us to look off the other side of the mountain. We saw no other fellow hikers the whole way up. We were now so close to the summit, but the steepness increased sharply. The last few hundred metres up were intense and rocking but finally – finally! – we reached the summit of Sevri Tepe, joined the massive Turkish flag waving there, and saw the world below us. The views on the way up, which had been beautiful at the time, now seemed weak in comparison to what we saw at the summit. The lake stretched out below us to the north, and on all sides now we could see snow-capped mountains. It was stunning.

We reached a ledge and could look off the other side of the mountain. Highways below, but also pretty mountains. Jess still seems impressed.

Cow taking a break from hiking.

Hills and trees and mountains. You can see snow off there in the distance!

As we approach the peak, a lone tree.

Jess making a break for the summit!

Truly beautiful - looking down at Eğirdir, stretched into the water. The small green lump in the middle of the spit is 'Canada'.

Looking off the length of the lake.

Jess enjoying the view and feeling satisfied with our afternoon's work.

A panorama of the view from the top of Sevri Tepe.

 Of course, we took our time up there at the top. Finally, we headed back down. The area immediately below the summit was almost more difficult going down than it had been going up, since it was so steep. The rest of the way down the mountain we seemed to see a ton of wildlife. There were a LOT of goats grazing near the path – goats are so interesting because they turn up in the strangest places and where at first you only see one, you are soon seeing 20. Ah, goats. We also saw a tortoise walking purposely across a farmer’s dirt driveway. And as we got closer to Eğirdir, we even encountered a hedgehog. A wild hedgehog! It was so strange – I’ve never really thought of how they would live in the wild – I’ve only ever known them as pets or cartoons. I guess it was a young one, since it was so small. But it was an adorable little thing. The fact that we ran into a hedgehog in the first place coupled with the fact that it was so darn cute made me just laugh and giggle and laugh and giggle and laugh some more and Jess found that pretty amusing.

Goat sighting!

Nom nom, goat!

Suddenly there are goats everywhere!

Goats are good at hiding. There are more in this picture than you might first realize. Look closely and count as many as you can!

Tortoise friend.

A HEDGEHOG! A WILD HEDGEHOG!

LOOK AT THIS GUY

D'AWH!

 As we passed Akpınar again on our way down, our earlier suspicions about a death in the village were confirmed – we saw a funeral procession coming out of the village, towards a little graveyard just up the hill, led by the casket-bearers. We paused for a while up-mountain so that they could all pass. Akpınar is not at all a big village, so from the looks of things, literally everyone in town was in the funeral procession. It was sobering and sad after our exciting conquering of the Sevri Tepe, but also fascinating to see in real life.

When we finally got back down to Eğirdir and our pension, we had been up on the mountain for a full nine hours. We decided to take advantage of the huge freshwater lake at our feet to cool off while we waited for our dinner. It was a really quick dip, but a refreshing one, and it was nice to be able to swim – I hadn’t been in the water since I was on the southern coast a month ago. Then we finished off our evening with another delicious homemade meal, relaxing in our pension restaurant. It’s funny to think that you can have a ‘holiday’ in the midst of such an extensive travel journey, but that’s what Eğirdir felt like – it was a chance to recharge our batteries after Konya and before hitting up the big tourist destinations like Pamukkale and Ephesus. And so the next morning we were off, headed west by bus to Denizli and the town of Pamukkale.

Another look at the town of Eğirdir. Our pension was just behind this old building - has a lot of character, doesn't it?? 

Real Time Update: I’m posting this from Hopa, a Black Sea border town on the Turkish side of the Georgian border. Tomorrow, I will end a full five months in this country, and head off for new adventures in the Caucasus.  To think that it's already been this long is incredible - I don't know where time has gone! And I'm sorry to be saying goodbye to this country, with kind and welcoming people, so many hidden gems, and a diversity of environments, histories and experiences. Now is not the time, I don't think, to do a full analysis and reflection upon the country and my time here - not only is it still fresh and unsorted in my head, there are enough thoughts to fill another full blog post, to be sure. For now let's just leave it at this: I'm sad to say goodbye to Turkey, and I can't wait to come back. In the meantime, onward to new adventures in Georgia!