Artvin-Kars

Artvin-Kars

We go behind the green mountains that we have seen  2 years ago from the other side of the border (Georgia-Armenia), to the deep valley shaped by Chorukh river. We take a minibus from Trabzon to Borçka and our adventure begins. We learn that the last minibus towards Karagöl has gone and we have 25 kilometers to go before the sunset. After buying some warm bread from the bakery, we start waiting by the side of the road to find a vehicle going towards the way the Chorukh flows. Someone greets us. “Hello brother,” “Yes, we are going to Karagöl.” He is hitchhiking also to go to his home in a village and we get in a car together. When we reach the place where our roads divide, the car stops in the middle of the road; whoever goes to the same way with us, cannot pass without taking us. We get on a pick-up truck and reach the road to Karagöl.  Even without making an effort to wave our hands to hitchhike, we are in where we want to be. We start smiling and cannot stop for the following ten days. We intend to walk for a few kilometers but it goes in vain. After just a few steps we take, another person takes us into his car. A motorbike lover traveler-spirit; he says that he combined his passion with his occupation and traveled a lot while working for a company. In this way we meet Sefa and have a companion for 2 days. There is a facility serving mainly for excursionists and 25 TRY is asked to...
Steppes of Anatolia

Steppes of Anatolia

                We walked on mountains of Aegian Region, travelled in the green fields of Marmara. Now, we are in the steppes of Central Anatolia.                 We sent our last telegraph from Jade farm (stop). Just after, we worked in the construction of adobe house for two days in Yeryüzü Eco-village. This was the fourth construction we have participated since the beginning of our journey. Now we are ready to settle.                 Yeryüzü eco-village named their home as “Burcu”. That’s the name of the architect. We were together with a crowded, nice group of people… We have posted their photos on our website though. Also we ran into “Recognizing Plants Around Us While Walking In Nature” event. With guides from Zeytinburnu Medical Plants Gardens we have examined the plants with their names in Latin, which I can not remember now, and categorized as what is edible, which is drunk as tea, which one directly kills us. It was nice. At night, we sang songs and danced while playing bottles.                 Then we went back to Jade Farm as we promised before. Actually, we were planning to make Tarhana Soup there but we couldn’t. By the way, we spent a couple of days by working in the garden and asking questions to Berin. Berin’s farm was so green, because there was too much moisture. Humid every night. Also there are too much caterpillars this year. We were hearing their sound while they were eating leafs. They will become American Butterfly when they grow. As they don’t have any natural hunter up here, they ate all the trees. American Butterfly imperialism!                ...