It was fig harvest season in the valley, and there was rack after rack of figs drying by the side of the road. Early in the afternoon while I walked, a local farmer waved me over to his side of the road. I went over and shook his hand. He introduced himself as Nasuh and motioned to me to sit down in the shade of his garden’s awning. He offered me some chilled watermelon. We sat in the shade eating the chilled watermelon and dried figs, but I was mainly interested in the pitcher of cold water sitting on the table. I greedily drank what water he offered, and was disappointed that he didn’t seem to realize just how much I wanted the rest of it.
He spoke only a little English and I spoke only a little Turkish, so we limited ourselves to friendly small talk.
As Nasuh and I were in the middle of chatting I spotted the two Polish guys walking down the road towards us. Somehow during the day I had passed them and not realized it. I called them over, introduced them to Nasuh and invited them to sit with us in the shade.
Since Darek and Piotr didn’t speak Turkish, I ended up translating into Turkish what they said and translating into English what Nasuh said. Because of my poor Turkish and their poor English, communication was difficult, and sometimes Nasuh would look at us as though we had said something kind of rude or had turned down his hospitality.
After our snack Darek, Piotr, and I resumed our walk, chatting together for about 3 kilometers . Darek and Piotr liked to walk faster than I did, and it was probably easier for them with their lighter packs, but I was finding that the weight of my pack didn’t matter as much as long as I walked in a straight line and on flat ground.
When we crossed through a grassy area with some shade trees I told them I was going to take a break under one of the trees. So we said our goodbyes and they continued on.
I took off my pack and rested under one of the trees for about 10 minutes. When I stood up to begin walking again, I felt relaxed. The small villages I had been walking through had thinned out, revealing an idyllic little valley surrounded by hills and full of trees and farms.
After walking for another hour, I came to the edge of Germencik, a small town of about 10,000 people. Two boys, 10 or 12 years old, stood at the side of the road underneath the city limit sign watching me as I approached. The younger one was leaning on a bicycle.
The older one swaggered across the road and asked me for money, eyeing my backpack and the few possessions I had dangling from it such as my evening sandals, my jacket, and a couple of other items. None of it was valuable to anyone else, but if I lost my evening sandals I would have to wear my hiking boots in the evening and I definitely did not want to do that. Everything I was carrying was valuable to me.
When I told him I had nothing for him, he began to grab at the objects dangling off my backpack. I started walking faster, telling him again that I had nothing for him. He started to fall back, and I thought I was rid of the boys. But then they both seemed to realize they could use the bicycle to harass me more efficiently.
The older boy called back to the younger boy to bring the bicycle forward and ride alongside me so he could take over while the older boy rested. The younger boy started pedaling towards me. However, the bicycle was too big for him and he had to stand up in order to pedal. When he did finally wobble up to me begging for money, he tried batting at the backpack with one hand while hanging onto the handlebars with the other. Since he had only one hand free, he had to resort to words rather than actions, and his begging became more and more desperate. I figured I could outlast him as long as he was on the bicycle, and after a few more minutes they both gave up on me. I entered Germencik alone and relieved, but in a bad mood.
There is a commuter train that runs between Denizli and İzmir, two of the larger cities in western Turkey. The tracks that run between the two cities generally run parallel to the highway I was walking on that week. On the other side of the railroad tracks, a couple hundred meters to my left, I saw a large mosque. I thought, Okay, I’ll go check out the mosque, even though it’s kind of early to settle down for the night.
I walked onto the mosque grounds. Soft, cool, green grass grew underneath huge shade trees. The grass was long enough to reach my mid-calf. I could use the fountains and the bathrooms. There was food nearby, everything I needed for the night was there.
I plopped down next to the fountains and gulped water from my bottle. I wiped my chin dry and turned on one of the faucets to clean up a bit. I figured I would wait until the sun went down and then find a place on the mosque grounds to camp.
Just then a man walked up, apparently to pray in the mosque. “Merhaba,” he said. He introduced himself and asked what I was doing.
I said, “I’m walking across Turkey, and I started just a couple of days ago.”
I expected him to smile and laugh and not take me seriously. Instead, he matter-of-factly said that he had come to the mosque to do his prayers. He invited me to a feast his family was giving—a sünnet (circumcision ceremony) for his son. He was headed there after prayers, he said. I eagerly accepted his invitation. As a stranger, I felt quite honored to be invited to such a personal family event.
“Wait a few minutes while I pray,” he said, and went inside the mosque.
When he came out from his prayers, I pulled my pack back on and walked with him the couple hundred meters to his house. There were dozens of people milling around in his packed-dirt courtyard, waiting for the chicken to come off the grill. A few dozen people were also seated at long folding tables with white paper tablecloths tacked to the tables.
The man proudly showed me to a seat and walked over to the grill so he could get me the first plate of chicken. I began to make small talk with the people seated around me while I waited. The man brought the first plate of chicken to me and handed it to me with a flourish. It was still pink inside. I smiled and took the plate anyway, because I wanted to be a gracious guest.
I quickly became the center of attention as the other guests turned to me and questioned me about my walk and who I was.
I took part in the festivities for about an hour and a half until my belly was full of chicken, rice, and çoban salata. There was also plenty of rakı (aniseed liquor) going around and I drank my fill of that, which was a mistake as I am not much of a drinker.
At about 5:30 p.m., just before the ceremony itself, I began to feel a little embarrassed that I might become the guest of honor at someone else’s party, so I told them I needed to go as I needed to finish my walking for the day. I put on my backpack and walked unsteadily out of the yard, shaking a lot of hands as I went. I walked to the main road, which was only about 100 feet away, and leaned against a wall because my head was spinning from the rakı.
I had wanted to go back to the mosque for the night, because it was so comfortable there. However, I had just told everyone I was leaving town.
I continued leaning against the wall for 15 or 20 more minutes, trying to clear the cobwebs from my head before walking on to the next town, Erbeyli, a small village of about 2,000 people.
—
In 2012, Matt sold off or gave away almost everything he owned. He strapped whatever was left to his back, flew to Turkey, and walked across it. Every foot, from one end of the country to the other. Along the way he slept in mosque gardens, dined with strangers, and stumbled into refugee camps.
This is the story of that journey. We’ll be publishing one chapter each week from his book. If you would like to read the whole thing at once, you can purchase his book titled Heathen Pilgrim: Walk Across Turkey on Amazon.
