oh sweet bosphorus, how you elude me.

The ruins at efesus.

Istanbul

My rich and wonderdful trip to turkey is winding down. Many things have come to pass, including some Pamuk novels. I am currently in istanbul and going to the airport in the morning to catch my flight home. I have covered a lot of distance since my last entry, mainly spent in the back of a SUV eating baked pumpkin seeds and watching kilometers pass, as we toured through turkey. Gas here is absurdly expensive at $8/gallon. I also learned a lot more about our driver / shitty ass guide, Mutlu. Apparently inbetween his career as a goat herder, and long haul truck driver, he did a bid. 5 mos.

How do I know this? Well, we just happened to drive past the prison he served time in and he dropped it casually into the conversation. “Here prison, 5 mos.” Foto loco and I unanimously voted not to delve deeper into his sordid past.

Prior to dinner the other night in the charming and quaint village Alicante, he finally broke down having had too much of us and ran off in a tissy. I wasn’t to see him again until the next morning when he drove us to the airport, causing us to nearly miss our flight after missing TWO airport exits!

However dear reader, I am jumping ahead of myself. This was Mutlu’s 2^nd mutiny on the bounty Katzenstein and frankly, we were used to them (he had thrown a hissy fit 500km earlier and threatened to leave. He ended up getting food poisoning that night) That said, there was pretty much nothing that could ruin my night, for I was to sleep in a WINDMILL. That’s right. Renovated windmill. Quaint turkish town. BOO YAH. My bed was in the shape of a giant circle (where do they get sheets?) and the sat cable was 1000 channels deep (it would turn out that NONE of them were in English, I checked).

That morning I was trying to communicate with the hotel manager and find out how long it would take to get to the airport. Since HE didn’t speak English and I hadnt exactly mastered the Turkish, I eventually resorted to my Pictionary skills and busted out the moleskin I have carried in my back pocket this whole trip (thanks K) and started drawing.

Being the son of an incredible draughtsman, I was up to the challenge. If you have ever played Pictionary with me, (which would be once, at 4^th of july party, bc I absolutely HATE the game) you know that I completely fail at this game. And, indeed, I failed to intone the meaning of my scribbles to my friend at the hotel. My drawing of an arrow, a plane, and a watch made him only smile, perhaps thinking of yesteryears when pigs could fly.

I digress back to istanbul.

My dreams of a cross continental run were dashed in earnest today when I left the hotel with every intention to run across the boshporus, but was unable to locate a bridge that crossed the body of water, which separates asia from Europe. Is there a more apt body of water for me to “run” across? I think not, kind readers. I think not.

The run was not a total loss. I ran for a short bit until coming across a doner stand (gyro) and decided I needed a conciliatory treat. Then it was fresh pomegranate juice. Then it was another doner (different stand) and of course another juice (larger size) to wash it down. Before I knew it, I was back at the hagia sofia which my hotel is conveniently located is the shadow of.

Tonight foto loco went rug shopping and ended up buying several carpets, on a whim. After drinking two bottle of horrible Turkish white wine (is white wine ever good?) our host invited us to dinner with his friends visiting from Chicago. “Dinner” soon turned into a raki (read Turkish uzo) fueled party. We ate at a charming 4 table fish restaurant that is owned by a friend of “Carpet man”. There was a whole slew of characters at the table and by the second bottle of raki landed on the table, foto loco and I knew we had hit upon something special. A meeting of old friends who also happen to be the Turkish international carpet elite. There was, of course, “Carpet man” who was dressed impeccably and who was drunk instantaneously; his sidekick who talked about smoking pot and had hair down to his shoulders and spoke perfect English. Then there was the rogue german carpet dealer who gets air dropped into Afghanistan (wonder if he runs into Sebastian?) to find those coveted afghani carpets. Then there was the Chicago carpet crew, one of whom had grown up in Istanbul, befriended carpet man and his sidekick somewhere back in gradeschool. He had married an American and now lives in Chicago and runs the ULTIMATE Turkish carpet store. His two sidekicks were corn fed Americans who guzzled raki like it was miller lite.

It was a nice way to end the trip here, in turkey.

The Story of Mutlu, our Turkish guide

We are not alone.

Cappadokya cave hotel and the evangelical tour group from Alabama. Where? Alabama yall and just look at that full moon.

It was a long day for me, the photo assistant. A race of kilometers versus sunset to get to the top of a natural stone outcropping subsequently carved into a castle sometime in the dark ages. We made it to the castle, after speeding some 150 kilometers. With no moments to spare for idle nut and fruit buying el foto loco threw down the Turkish lire and got us all tickets to the top. Very quickly, I felt like I was in that race where you RUN up the stairs of the Empire State building, except that I was carrying some 40 pounds of camera gear (ok fine, the bag of snickers and one of the cameras is mine) and the stairs were carved out of volcanic rock and sometimes missing. We summitted with maybe 2 minutes to spare. Foto loco got off his shots and we packed up and set out towards to our cave hotel.

We made it to our enchanting cave hotel carved into the side of a mountain, after many tight turns that our VIP SUV had to circumnavigate. Foto loco was meeting with our guide for the 5 day trip, who was busy describing just exactly why it would benefit us to pay him in cash. Having heard enough I opted for an auditory change of scenery and settled down in front of the fire in the main “cave”.

I was just getting settled and drawn back into Pamuk’s novel “Snow” when a loud group of, who other than, Americans tumbled in, bringing with them several of the local dogs and cats from the street. Leave it to the good will of this evangelical tour group’s do gooding to warm these flea bitten shivering animals within the confines of our cave hotel. Allah Ackbar!!

In turn, each of these tour groupees came over & wished me a warm welcome, in Turkish no less! They also made sure to make eye contact with me and praise me, with the warm light of their gospel. Their astute travel sense, my beard and wild eyed look must have convinced them that I was a local Haji. They did however, completely disregard the English novel I was gripping with dismay, in my non-handshake hand.

I mean really! I am in Turkey and reading Pamuk. Tomorrow I will ride in a hot air balloon and I am staying in a “cave” hotel. I buy back carbons, I am the ultimate tourist.

10.26.2007

-Today was simply a beautiful day. It started at 5 in the morning with a hot air balloon ride over a valley with some of the strangest and most breathtaking landscapes I have ever had the chance to photograph. The day ended, several beers deep, sitting in my cave hotel, listening to a traditional Turkish musician. Oh dear reader, please allow me this one tender and sentimental moment before I return to my usual medio pollo self. Habla con Ella has a scene in it where Caetano Veloso plays for an intimate group of friend at a dinner party. I was quite taken with that scene and had pretty much come to the realization that I would never attain this experience, but simply relive it on video (much like my childhood love affair with Martha Plimpton). Tonight changed that, with the experience of sitting and listening to this gentleman play for friends, it was otherworldy. “While my eyes go looking for flying saucers in the sky. . .”-

After, quite literally, shooting the moon, foto loco and I learned the true story of the “fairy towers” rock formations we had just finished photographing, from Mutla, our guide. This version was definitely NOT in our Rough Guide or Lonely Planet (however, metaphorically speaking, both titles are appropriate). We had first experienced these “fairy towers” from 1000 feet, in our hot air balloon but el loco foto was not satiated and needed a closer look. Later that day, after driving down, through, up and over several windy back gravel roads at dusk, we finally came upon these strange rock outcroppings.

Formed a bazillion years ago by 3 volcanoes that erupted at the same time (kinda like that thing kids say “what is the everyone in the world farted at once”) and poured lava over the land. Fortunately for the Ansel Adams that lays deep and hidden, in all of our hearts, one of these volcanoes was not like the others. It’s lava was less erodible than its counterparts and so, through the ages, most everything has eroded except for parts of the land which consist of special volcano #3. Add to that some rivers, wars and rain, we have left a valley of, what foto loco described as, 100 foot asparagus, or as Mutlu proudly declares“Penis Valley”.

Let the story of Mutlu, our guide, begin:
“So this rock like penis. Very famoz. The womans, they like have secs. Powerful.”
Foto loco interrupts here “Excuse me, women like to come up here and have sex next to the rocks formations at night?”
“Yes – the sex, secs. With some nice friends and ladies. Drink some beers and then smoke hashish. Hashish. Then we eat a little.”
“Eat a little?” interjects FL.
“Yes, the sex” and then in a whisper to the valley, his breath visible and rising in the twilight, Mutlu repeats “seeeeeeeex” and closes his eyes. He then performs a number of hand motions. “Then you climb up to top and have sexs.”
“Up to top?” FL replies.
With my infinite knowledge and understanding of Aphrodite, I add “yeh man, they climb onto the top of the rocks, lay down a carpet and do it!!”
“NO!” replies Mutla, with an unforeseen even greater understanding of Aphrodite. Seeing the stark confusion on our eyes, he then adds, “The car” and he hits the roof with a closed fist.
“Then many girls – have – seeex.” Smiling, he inhales the last of his cigarette and puts the car in drive.
He turns to Foto Loco and says, with a crooked smile of his brown gumless teeth,
“Very Fresh.”

Penis Valley, Turkey 10.26.2007

i call this photo "where the hell is my assistant!"

and i call this one"down here boss!!!"

My Surf ‘n Turf is Turkish

I am deep into the rural bosom of turkey. We jettisoned Istanbul in search of two hydro plants nestled high up in the craggy mountains located towards the eastern edge of the country. After a relaxing flight we landed in a dry and dusty valley, surrounded by snow peaked mountains. Our client here is quite accommodating and good natured, while completely lacking in the language known as English. That’s fine, the only Turkish word I have learned is tamam, which is utterly useless because it means OK. No matter what language you speak, you know what OK means. Sigh, oh well. OK, let us continue. One of the only English words our kind host knows is “mulatto”. DO NOT ASK ME how he came up with this word, who taught him this word or LORD KNOWS WHY he would need to use it. No comment. Ok , so with these few sentences I have blogged so far, you must understand that most of our conversations consist of the words, in varying combos and languages, of “ok” and “mulatto”. Mulatto is actually quite a diverse word and quite applicable to many many scenarios, not just what kind of hookers you prefer.

Just sayin’

Invariably our client’s definition of mulatto has a wide range of meanings: mixed, mixed bag, two parts, a combo, a group, sharing, my beard and not to be left out, wireless internet. Tamam, Tamam. Most recently, el foto loco asked what was for dinner, kebab, chicken or fish to which our client retorted “mulatto!!” which I can only take to mean that we will be eating some variety of Turkish surf n turf for dinner. I hope.

I digress.

We flew to a small city by the name of Erzincan (Air Zen John), pop. 200,000. I could not help but notice the flack jackets, m-16’s and razor wire that lined the two (teeny tiny) hydro plants we are visiting. The plants produce a total of 10 MW. Very small. Most plants we have visited usually produce upwards of 500-1000 MW. These plants are located outside of town about half an hour, accessible only by jeep on crooked little rocky roads that switchback their way up the steep mountains surrounding this valley.

Why so much security for such small outputs? Well, I learned the answer to that question as we hopped back into the jeeps to climb to the top of the peak and have a look see at the source water for these hydro plants.

A small, well armed battalion of pimple faced soldiers for hire set out in front of us to make the way was clear. This side of the mountain? Yeah, it’s safe. Tamam, tamam. That other side? Just over the peak? Nah, not so safe. If you have been following the news, then you know all about Turkey chomping at the bit to bomb the hell out of a small Kurdish “terrorist” group known as the PKK, which has taken refuge over the border, in northern Iraq. On our bumpy, jumpy ride up to the peak I discovered that we are a scant 300 miles from the Iraqi border. Amazing! Granted, it is all rugged mountainous land, with virtually no roads, but still. There have been no PKK attacks in the area where I am working, but they have been known to take refuge just on the other side of that peak, over there.

“You have the zoom lens?” “Uh, yeh.”

Now, I am certainly no Susan Meisales. My trip last year to El Salvador was so ridiculously different than hers, even in intention. Hell, I am no Sebastian Junger either, who is currently embedded with an Afghani military patrol. None the less, when you travel enough you begin to encounter dissent. And often enough, that dissent goes hand in hand with violence and unrest which begets military action, war, what have you.

I, in a small way, continue to encounter these situations: Northern Ireland, going for a run after work, and I happen to run across a bridge that puts me smack dab in the middle of the worst violence N. Ireland had seen in 10-15 years; Sri Lanka; Colombia, Venezuela and now the PKK. In all of my experiences, I have never felt in danger or at risk but when I learned how “close” to the Iraqi border, it gave me pause.

Next time: (on a more light hearted note) I love you Turkish bazaar and your freshly squeezed pomegranate juices.

the turkish connection

It was a dreary night in nyc. Traffic had been bumper to bumper on the way to the airport which, to me, meant only one thing. No bulkhead seats on my 10 hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey. Eventually we arrived at jfk and passed through customs with our carnet, no problem. I don’t know why and perhaps it is just me, but every time I encounter a customs officer, they always ask “you look familiar son, do I know you?”

Hell no sir. Hell no.

Our flight was delayed 2 hours, but that was ok. I chatted on the cell phone and felt like a true blue frequent flyer. Then I settled down and read for a while. Soon I noticed that every Turkish person at jfk had suddenly lined up in front of the gate to the flight that I was on. El foto loco went up and asked the flight attendant if it was really general boarding to which they answered “yes” (with an implied “get used to it BEEYOOTCH” added for good measure). We got in line for our Turkish Air flight, about 300 people deep.

Once I set foot on the plane my heart sank a little. If it’s one thing I love about traveling it is the bad movies on flights which I would never watch unless I was stuck in a metal room, and forced to sit for say, 10 hours. The moment I got on this plane, I was asphyxiated by the smell of real bad BO and taken back to perhaps the 80’s. The décor on this plane was amazingly accurate for that decade. This plane was old. Real old. There would be no movies. Hopefully there would be beer and Hawaii 5-0.

10 (exciting) hours later I stepped off the plane after what had actually been a decent flight. I was able to put most of “No Country For Old Men” behind me and I was completely ready for Istanbul. And baby let me tell you, Istanbul was ready for me.

Having navigated the slalom of drunk Turks hoping to make a buck off me, we shoved off in a taxi. “Hotel Amiral please”. “No Enlgihs” Great.

A few minutes into our journey on “Kennedy” ave. we hit gridlock traffic. Soon I heard the sires of multiple police cars behind the taxi. Cars began moving out of the way (unlike NYC) and the police escort shot past us. I was jolted out of my “gaze into the Turkish countryside” when our cab driver jumped our little car to life screaming “GO GO GO” and downshifted into 2^nd (from first, mind you) and jumped out into the road, chasing the police escort. After a few near misses with other taxis vying for our position we were in hot pursuit of the envoy.

Turkish cars were jumping out of the way of the police. I was happy to be sitting in the back seat. El foto loco was in the front, leica dangling from his neck as he white knuckled a grip on the door handle. If seen from above, the police escort looked like this. Police car, custom pimp my ride Audi, police car, small Turkish yellow taxi filled with men screaming like little girls. Well, at least one little girl.

Turkish music blasted in our cab and we weaved through stand still traffic at 40kph. The Audi, which was being escorted, held a very important Turkish military general, or so we were able to glean from our cab driver. Actually, it really could have been anyone in that car. Nothing like playing charades with someone driving a car through tight traffic.

From time to time, when the police car we were following would swerve into a car trying to pass the brigade I would catch a glimpse of the Audi. It’s license plate?

“0007”

As we neared a stoplight several minutes into our tailing job, the police in the car in front of us kept turning around with more and more frequency, giving us, what I have come to know as the Turkish “hairy eyeball”. Finally the popo made an evasive traffic maneuver which was meant to send us into some hedges along the side of the avenue. With our front tires dangling a little in the ditch, our driver turned to us with a big smile and said, with a big smile “FINIS”.

Well, eventually, we made it to our hotel safe and sound. While unloading our bags in front of the hotel a high school sports team came running out dressed in matching uniforms. I smirked and made my way to check in. This morning as I headed down to breakfast I learned the hard way that our hotel is completely booked, saved for el foto loco and my rooms, by the South African junior Karate team. Breakfast had been annihilated! HAAAAAYAH.

Ok, into Istanbul I go!


hagia sofia, under construction for the last 10 years


steep ass hill my hotel is on!


well hello there!!


inside my castle with my harem


view from my room. the blue mosque's minaretts peaking into the night sky


goodnight!!!