The Overnight Hike to Ağva (60 km East of Şile)
One of the best hikes ever... We had a lot fun, not
only in putting up the tents and feeling away from civilization,
but also in the hiking we did.
We set our tents in a kind of sandy area, which offered
protection from the strong winds of the Blacksea. There were
about five tents of the hiking club, which could take only about
two people, and tents of other people. But the most envied one
was the huge tent which could take 5 people but in which, only
Yalın and Onur stayed. I am sure they were very comfortable in
Mr. Carter's tent... (By the way, Yalın told me that he
personally wanted to thank Mr. Carter) Anyway, it was quite
enjoyable to set your own home away from skyscrapers.
After setting up the camp and eating our lunch, we set out to explore the area. We hiked by the great waves of the Blacksea. Some of us got wet while trying to walk more closely to the sea. Then we came by a steep 50 meter hill and since there was no other way by the coast, we climbed. We followed some paths and came by a raised rocky area by the coast. We were not only hearing the magnificent sound of waves but also we could watch them hit the rock and fly about 10 meters high. It was a magnificent view.
In order to have a better look at the fantastic view of the waves
crushing against the rocks, most of us got closer to the sea.
There was a spot just by the sea that no water splashed at for
the first 20 minutes of our presence. However, later, a giant
wave came and all the rocks up to 10 meters away from the sea got
wet along with about 15 hikers.
After this fun
but "cold" experience, our advisors decided that we
ought to return back to the camp. However, upon discussing that
we wanted to go on exploring the coast with the advisors, we (8
hikers, including myself although I was wet) were allowed to
continue in the guidance of Ms. Moore. So off we went.
We hiked for
about 4 hours after getting wet. Since it was quite hot, our
clothes dried pretty quickly. We continued along the path which
went just beside the sea. There was not much to be seen except
the magnificent view of the Blacksea. When the path finally came
to an end and we could not advance further because of the
branches all around, we turned back. This was not the end of the
hike however, since we decided to return to the spot where the
rocks met the giant waves and try to climb the rock, hiking just
beside the angry waves. Again, our path was blocked by thick
branches and thorns. While coming down from this place to finally
head back to the camp, an interesting and quite funny incident
took place. Yalın was just in front of me, and Sinan behind.
We were walking on a 40 cm wide path. There were bushes on our
left and the sea on the right. We were advancing cautiously, at
least I was. Yalın stepped on some soil which I thought was just
about to slide of the hill into the sea. I was cautious not to
step on the same spot so that I would not go flying into the sea.
Had Sinan been close to me, I would have warned him but he was
not. So he came and stepped on this unstable soil and he slid
since that path was not designed to hold his weight. He held on
to some branches and bushes and saved himself but his face was
thorn in several places. So we didn't have casualties, but had to
look at Sinan's bruised face for a few days.
After returning to the camp, we started cooking our food. There
were several groups for cooking and eating and ours was the
largest group--we were 6 people. We had mushroom soup as well as
nozzles and tuna fish. My advice to you is not to try to
cook nozzles if you are an impatient person. We had a nice
cooking plan at first: Our group had two stoves and two cooking
sets. While I cooked the soup, Sinan would deal with the nozzles.
Cooking the soup only took about 15 minutes and the nozzles would
have been ready once we had eaten our soup. However, Sinan made a
small mistake: While trying to filter out the water, he spilled
all the nozzles and half of our dinner was gone. As he said later
to me, inspired by a song of Orhan Gencebay, "Hatasız Kul
Olmaz," or "Everybody Makes Mistakes." After the
unfortunate event, we got some more nozzles from another group
and cooked them in our two containers--it took us an hour to cook
our food. This time, we managed to filter the water without
spilling the nozzles with the help of Mr. Slodki. We were all
hungry by then and ate like, like, like, ...
At night, we
lighted a fire and singed songs, cooked bananas and sucuk on the
fire. We had a very good time until the rain started. Then we ran
to our tents, put our backpacks and stuff into our tents and
gathered around the fire to hear some scary stories before going
to bed (actually, into our sleeping bags).
Finally we went to bed. We understood that we were quite unlucky
that we had spilled the nozzles: Two dogs came barking around our
tent, ate the food and nearly ran into our tent for more. By the
way, I knew that it was a full moon on that night and this was an
ideal mood to tell scary stories. Thinking that Sinan could be
angry at me and destroy the tent on us, I decided to keep my
thought to myself. I was only able to sleep after "the
dogs" had gone to sleep.
In the morning,
I was awakened by the sound of the waves and the singing of the
birds. I decided to get up early, hoping that I could have a
short walk. I was out of the boring air of the tent in seconds
and saw that Yalın was up too. We chatted for sometime and I
told him out the terrible night, and the full moon. Later I went
to get some water, which was needed for both cooking and washing,
from a nearby place.
After eating
sausage sandwiches for breakfast, we put down our tents and
packed our backpacks. The hike was over, except for the sleepy
return home on the bus.
