By the time I left Greece, everyone seemed to want a piece of my soul.
My family hoped I’d find Jesus. Others Sufism. A Jehovah’s Witness even approached and asked if I knew the real name of God.
“I’m not really …” I began to say before he cut me off, and dove headlong into a sermon.
All these messages reminded me that I carried a god of my own. A god that spoke through silence: that accepted all people, of all colors, and all religions. A god that did not recognize any lines that divided – be they on a map, in scripture, or within a man’s heart.
That thought was interrupted by a different voice, eerie and bellowing, seemingly coming from everywhere. Nowhere.
“Allaaahhhhh Ekberrrrr!” it cried, and I rushed to the bow of the boat.
A large castle loomed above the scene, flying a blood-red flag, emblazoned with a single moon and star.
I had arrived in Turkey. I felt a hand grab my arm.
“This way,” it guided. It was my new host, a Norwegian transplant by the name of Nils-Hoegh Krohn.
I had met the retired economics professor in Crete and watched in awe as he befriended the world like a man shot from a canon. After spending some time together, he invited me to stay on his 37-foot sailboat harbored in the Turkish town of Bodrum.
For nearly a week, I slept folded in the tiny space of the ship’s bow. Each morning, I was prompted from sleep by a deep claustrophobia, that sent me to bolt upright. I would hit my head and curse. This usually woke Nils, who took it as his cue to begin humming.
Within moments the Norseman would flick the switch of a CD player, and crank up the Norwegian equivalent of Celine Dion, who wove tight-mouthed vowels into ear-melting ballads.
It was hard to believe I would want to leave that leisurely life of sailing and swimming in Bodrum’s turquoise waters, but after a week of being insulated from the real Turkey, my wheels were itching to spin.
I thanked Nils and started my ride north.
The first few days almost killed me, as the roads in Turkey exist in a spectacular state of disrepair.
Mile after mile I chattered over bone-crunching potholes, bumps, dips and waves.
I ascended one hair-raising climb after another, struggling with headwinds from every direction. When I finally reached the outskirts of Lasos, I felt like a man devoid of a skeletal system. I drooped over my bars and became convinced that I’d the first man to ever die of terminally chapped lips.
Then a small, white flash caught the corner of my eye.
It was a puppy, perhaps 8 weeks old, sitting just inches from the roadside.
The only thing that separated it from the miles of empty countryside was a small piece of broken rope hanging from its neck.
When I approached, it rolled over, exposing the pink of its belly. I touched him, and the wiggling white of his tail signaled complete and utter submission.
I picked him up.
A farmer passed, and I pointed to the creature in my arms. I hoped that recognition would fall upon his face. Instead, he grimaced. He motioned me to throw it away like trash. I ignored his actions and dug into my bags. I found an empty olive container and filled it with water. I set it on the ground. The pup stuck his tiny nose in and began lapping as if he hadn’t drunk for weeks. After the water, I pulled out a block of cheese the size of his entire body. He ate nearly half of it.
After he was done, I picked him up again and looked into the tiny blue eyes staring back at me. They seemed like portals to another universe. He had no idea what was going on.
As I held him, I looked out over the open emptiness and a profound reality descended upon me. There was no such thing as a shelter here. No place I could bring it. No adoption service. No safe place. Only the slim possibility of the animal learning to fend for itself and feed out of a garbage can.
This reality brought a struggle.
Was this the best I could do? Some moment of kindness?
I felt as helpless as the creature I held in my arms.
I walked from the road, and rested him in the feathery nest of cool green grass where he drifted into a deep peaceful sleep. As I tiptoed away, I had to initiate a deep denial. I turned and looked back one last time, to catch him lifting one eye at me. He did not stand, or try to follow. As I climbed on my bike, he gave me one last look before putting his head down and going back to sleep. That look seemed to say, simply, “Thank you.”
Within a week, the turning of my pedals had planted me deep in the Turkish countryside where I’d transformed into a kind of rolling freak show.
People dropped what they were doing, to shout, point and stare.
“Merhaba! Merhaba! (Hello! Hello!)” the children shouted as they ran to the roadsides to stick out their hands for a round of passing high-fives.
When I stopped they would ask, “Wey are you from?”
“California,” I’d respond. This caused them to step back in astonishment.
“America?” they’d smile back.
I hopped on a bus and it dropped me off at one of the best-preserved ancient cities in the world, Ephesus. As I walked in awe along the marble sidewalks, promenades and columns, I stepped back in time to the year 600 B.C.
I rounded the corner and was visually overtaken by the 25,000-seat theater. When I approached, I tripped over something in the road. They were the perfectly preserved tracks Roman chariots carved 2,000 years ago.
I bent down and ran my fingers along the smooth grooves in the marble. The electric winds of history passed through me like a tornado. This was once a city of more than 250,000 people. The capital of Asia Minor. At that time the Ephesians must have thought this place was the center of the universe. A place of unprecedented virtue that protected it from the very winds of change.
But no place is free from change.
In the 3rd century heavy silting began to fill the city’s harbor. Despite heavy dredging, the silt finally pushed the city 10 kilometers from the sea.
Losing its viability as a key commercial trading center, it began a steady descent until its decline in the 6th century A.D.
I looked up again at the crumbling columns and promenades. I thought of all the people over the ages who clung so fearfully to the illusion of permanence.
Then I thought of America.
No place is free from change.
I finished my 400-mile bike tour along Turkey’s west coast, and decided to celebrate with a visit to the small Turkish Island of Bozcaada. Known for its laid-back atmosphere and small local wineries. I sat on a rooftop terrace of a tiny pension, sipped a glass of wine, and thought about my journey.
My mind raced to a night I had spent soaking in a natural hot spring in the town of Pamukkale.
As I lay under the stars in an ethereal white calcium carbonate pool, I looked over a landscape that reminded me of all my favorite places: the hot springs of the Eastern Sierra Nevada, the mountains of Colorado, the grasslands of Wyoming, all mixed with the vibrant cultures of Zanzibar and Kathmandu.
Turkey had captured my heart.
That night, in that tub, it occurred to me that I was the luckiest man in the world. This prompted a laughter that seemed to echo through the universe.
I was nearly at a point of laughing myself to tears, when I noticed a presence. It was a dog. A black-and-white stray who seemed to frolic in my laughter. He ripped up and down the side of the mountains with a kind of boundless exuberance. He was happy, just like me.
Happy to have some connection, some form of contact.
This caused me to laugh again. How wonderful, I thought. What a miracle it was for the two of us to be awake, alive, breathing!
Turkey
May 1-16, 2006
Bodrum, Iasos, Didym, Kusadasi, Ephesus, Pamukkale,
Izmir, Candalari, Oren, Assos, Bozcaada Island
Mileage log: 9205-9605
Elevation: Sea level-1200 ft.
