I had planned on staying at Eski Foca. Its jagged black rocks that, when the Meltemi blows, make a howling whine said to be that of the sirens of mythology. Odysseus had had himself tied to the mast to resist them as he sailed past on his way home. But, the road was closed and I wound up in the pleasant little fishing village of Yeni Foca to the north.
The ferry – the previous evening – had been comfortable despite quite a big sea running. I got talking to some tipsy Turkish couples who’d been over to Chios on a day trip.
Among the few cars onboard there was baby blue Bentley with Ukranian plates and a retired German couple who were driving a converted – and massive – fire truck to Thehran in Iran. ‘We”re a bit worried about the bit through Iraq.’ the wife had told me.
Coming into Cesme on the Turkish coast it became clear that the flag manufactuers were having a boom time.
Flags are everywhere here. Even on lamp posts.
Docking I saw that foot passengers were steadying themselves on Pedro’s roof bars. Keen followers of this blog have noticed that Pedro does in fact have roof bars. While G never admitted her mistake about the a/c she did concede that the car looked ‘naked’ without the bars. So as a surprise one Christmas I’d fitted them in the street. And not for twenty-five quid I can tell you!
Queues for immigration, then for customs where chassis numbers and dates of manufacture for Pedro were entered into a database, never to be seen again. Green card inspected. Passport stamped both for me and for him. And then I was finally, after two hours, out…but the car was still inside the dock. I went back in and through the now unguarded immigration gates to rescue him. Finally found the way out, but the main gates could not be opened until a special guard returned from the toilet…another twenty minutes.
When he finally turned up he said ‘Got anything in the trunk?’ I said yes, thinking here we go. A long day already, about to get longer. But he said ‘Okay then you can go.’ and whistled to the soldier to open the gate. He’d probably had a long day too.
The hotel was a business travellers place. It was cubic. Everything was on a massive scale and square. The atrium was a football field by a football field by a football field in dimensions. The furniture was square, my bed was square, even the toothglass in the bathroom was square.
I thought, I’m in a Minecraft nightmare, I gotta get out.
Outside it was a balmy night. Down the street I found a guy locking up a trike and scooter rental place and asked where I could get a taxi. ‘Hop on’ he said pointing to his quad bike ‘I’ll give you a ride, I’m going that way.’ He dropped me at a very nice steak restaurant. But I was past eating and just had a beer.
Soon after leaving Cesme you come into a startling landscape reminiscent of those I had seen pictures of in the desert states of the US.
In the far distance a couple of large trucks pulled out ahead of me. They’d come out of a cement works, and were trailing clouds of white dust that I could barely see through. I had to get past them but they were really motoring. I spent quite a long time on the wrong side of the road bouncing around on the rough and narrow tarmac. I guess we we all doing about 80mph. Then I got past and into clean air. They blew their air horns at me and Pedro tooted back.
Ater a while, you start to approach Izmir, local capital. The outskirts are filled with heavy industry and a great deal of polution. Even the vanes of the wind turbines are coated and stained brown.
The smells were not great either. I was taken back to my chemistry class. Ammonia, toluene, butyric acid – which smells like vomit – but mostly the smell of burning rubber. All very nasty.
Now we came to some of the biggest office buildings I had ever seen. They looked like university or research buildings but I couldn’t be sure. The scale was enormous. Gargantuan and built, along with the literally hundreds of residential blocks, all on steep hillsides.
The road itself, even though I had opted to drive off the main highway was now four lanes and a massive engineering feat. They have moved mountains – literally – to keep the grade shallow. It was road-building on an epic scale and I wondered why it was all really needed.
Yeni Foca was full of small fishing boats. But it was cold and none of the outside restaurants were taking any custom.
In the back lanes I found a hole in the wall kebab place and ate on the street.
Reaching my room, a loud clattering from outside. A big helicopter was filling up a giant bucket from the harbour. It was then followed by another helicopter. This went on for much of the afternoon. Obviously a fire somewhere needed putting out.
Later that evening I wandered around a bit wearing a fleece. It was very windy and only a few stalwarts were braving the weather. I called it a night.