Never Hungry in Turkey

At our local Finike market, these women worked hard, making delicious ultra thin crepes filled with cheese, spinach or mushrooms.  They worked all day but still had time for a bit of fun for a picture.

It is amazing how provisioning (read eating) takes a primary role in our lives.  And it is fun!  When we get to a new anchorage, part of our exploration is the selection in the local supermarket.  What new treats does it have?  What familiar foods are available?  

The best, by far, wherever we go is the farmer's market and local street food.  Here's a tour of what  Turkey has to offer.

We travelled to our neighbouring town's market, Kumluca, by local bus to try something a little different.   Honey, olive oil and various ground nuts at this booth.  Honey sold dripping on combs.  We bought a pine honey - the bees feed on pine nectar.

The simit man at our local market.  He carries his table on his shoulder and his simits on his head very neatly arranged, just so.  Simits are like thin, sesame clad bagels.  Fresh, they are delicious!  On a rainy day, the simit man covers his treasure in plastic.

The simit man is very short.  His legs move quickly in short, fast steps, over curbs, through puddles, while his head stays motionless.  

These sausages are beef, not pork.  Pork is almost impossible to come by in Turkey, although our friends did know of a wild boar vendor in Fethiye.  But sausage of a highly processed, bright pink variety is available. Not sure what this guy was selling.  We didn't try it.

On our Turkish road trip that I have yet to blog about, this bazaar in Gaziantep was incredibly entertaining and colourful.

A special hot mulberry juice sold by this guy with a specialized thermos on his back and the spigot at his waist.  I purchased a glass and passed it around.  It was supposed to improve digestion, eye health, lower cholesterol, aid in weight loss, boost immunity etc.

Colourful spices heaped in pyramids always look attractive but time has been spent on the one on the left.  It's a fashion plate.  The mound of nuts beside it are pistachios waiting to be made into baklava - a specialty of the city.

We gorged - and then regretted it - on an assortment of not-so-sickly-sweet, fresh baklava.  The variety on the same theme  was amazing and overflowing with pistachios.

Hanging like Christmas decorations, necklaces of hollowed and dried aubergine, peppers, tomatoes and zucchini, are waiting to be filled with some rice mixture.  I thought they'd be great on the boat but humidity would likely make them a lovely home for mould.  

This market had every plant part available for any ailment you can think of.  Admirable was that every part had a purpose. There was very little waste.  Even cherry stems were dried and good for something or other.  Our tour guide was a firm believer in tea concoctions for what ails us.  She was determined to treat the food poisoning that half of us suffered from later in the trip with a tea of some sort.  Problem was, we had no appetite for an unknown flavour at the time.

We finished off our trip to the bazaar with a wild pistachio berry coffee served in a coffee house in a cave.   The roasted berries are ground into a paste.

Caves are dark so this doesn't show well.  It is a ornate cup, carved cup and saucer with lid for the small cup of caffeine-free "coffee" inside.  Thick and a little creamy.  

Nothing like fresh bread right out of the wood oven.  Hopefully, the guy squatting has clean shoes!

Bushels of pistachios  - roasted, with or without salt - outside the baklava cafes.

And then a demonstration of rolling out the tissue paper thin pastry for baklava.  Progress was made from thicker to thin super smooth dowels with an upper body workout by this baker.  He was bathed in sweat by the end.

One sheet of baklava pastry at the end of the process.  The dowel has many sheets rolled around it with a dusting of special flour between.

It felt like silk!  After all that work, he munched it all up into a ball and discarded it.  Good to know that  all our hands were not considered hygienic enough for the finished product.

Turkish people drink an incredible amount of tea.  If we ever had to spend more than a few minutes in a shop, we were offered tea as we waited or were being served.  No wonder you can purchase tea leaves in such huge quantities.

Freshly picked almonds.  The pod, later shell, is soft and pliable.  The almond inside is also soft and sweet.

An array of sweets, nuts, dried fruits are at every market.

The spice market in Istanbul.

Not edible but just as colourful as fruit is fruity soap.  

Istanbul, the biggest city in Turkey, also had the biggest piles of baklava.  Each pastry store along the pedestrian street  tried to make a castle of pastry bigger than their neighbours.

Doners are everywhere in Turkey - a cheap and tastey street food in chicken, beef or lamb - but nowhere bigger than Istanbul.

The fish boats in Istanbul in the Golden Horn.  Fish and bread is a famous dish - not sure exactly why. 

Perhaps it's the idea of getting a lightly breaded fresh fish grilled on these ornate boats and served at the simple street side tables.  A thin slice of fish on a hunk of bread was all it was.

Alican introducing Tom to limits fresh from a roving street vendor.  The best!

Tea served to Tom and I as we perused the sweet shop for nuts in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.

A slow-cooked stew served in individual ceramic pots and heated in fire table-side for the show.    It was a served with drama.

Turkey had no shortage of interesting edibles.  We have missed photos of the double tea kettles which puzzled us.  And lahmacun, a simple street food that we often had for lunch - about $2.50 CDN a pop.  And so much more.  Some delicious, some not so much but all interesting!

A Cold Winter - A Change in Plans

Our marina, beautiful but, oh so wet and cold.

 I know commenting on a cold Turkish winter to friends/family who have endured a longer, much colder one in the Canadian north is just a bit soft.  But here goes...

We chose Finike, Turkey because it was reported to have a warm and protected microclimate - warmer than Tunisia and warmer than further west along the Turkish coast. However, it was one of those winters when the locals make exclamations like, "It hasn't been so wet in thirty years!" or "Usually we play tennis every day but it is too windy!" or "It's never this cold!"  It was not all that comforting to know that what we were experiencing was so unusual - more frustrating than not.

That's snow on our hatch.  Looking up into a very grey sky.

And it took awhile to melt!  It looks nothing like the piles in Toronto but their is no insulated house with central heating to cozy up in.  Our fibreglass home sits in cold water.

Cold temperatures with copious precipitation is not pleasant when you live on a sailboat.  Especially one with 110 volts in a land with 220.  We ran our tiny, anemic space heater 24 hr a day purchased when Florida was chilly but we couldn't invest in a big, blasting heater purchased in Turkey.  Luckily, our American friends had an extra larger heater that they kindly lent us.  We could sit in the salon bundled in multiple layers with some comfort.  And bed was laden with four blankets.

Storms with south winds brought enormous waves which crashed on the marina mole and kicked up the sand to make a muddy sea.

Finike Marina has a very protected harbour which did prove to be important during these southern storms.  Also an incredibly diligent staff who cruise the docks on bikes in all weather to check boat lines and furled sails many times a day and through each night.  

The cold would have been okay, if the skies had been blue a little more often.  But instead of the - reportedly - usual rainy day followed by three or four days of sunshine, it was the other way around.  Sadly, our explorations in Turkey were, therefore, limited - we are fair weather explorers.  Although we loved the Turkey we saw, we didn't see enough of it.

But the winter, along with other things, did make us solidify our plans.

When we arrived in the Med, we were overwhelmed by the depth of history, the stunning natural beauty and the variety of cultures.  We could, and many cruisers do, spend years here.  The vast majority though are seasonal cruisers - going to their Northern European homes in the winter! and cruising the Med in the five or six warmer months.  Many return home again over the scorching and crowded summer and only cruise in spring and fall.  But we have chosen to be liveaboards, at least for the next few years.

We were surrounded by spectacular snowcapped mountains.

Very beautiful.  The snow got deeper and deeper...

And crept closer and closer.

And so, we have decided to head west, making the 2019 sailing season our last in the Med.  We will sail to the Canaries, Cape Verde and then recross the Atlantic to land somewhere in the Caribbean.  From there are timing is loose but our intent is to continue slowly west.

Besides the winter weather, the unpredictable roaring or nonexistent wind and the summer crowds, we are reluctant to leave.  The Mediterranean has so much to offer! and we feel we have barely scratched the surface.  I'm sure we'll hanker for a castle or cathedral or two as we head west.  But for now, we're excited about moving on.

Hiking North Cyprus

Taken from the peak of St. Hilarion Castle (732m), North Cyprus offers views of a rugged mountain spine, a narrow green coast with rolling hills and a beautiful, blue sea.  A hiker's paradise!

After our chock-a-block road trip in Israel, it was a relief to get to low-key, quiet North Cyprus.  Sadly, this relaxed atmosphere is only for tourists.  Cyprus is another politically tense and complicated country.  Because of it's strategic position in the eastern Mediterranean, it have seen numerous invasions and changes of power.  Most recently, Turkey invaded the country in 1974 in response to a coup d'etat by a Greek party that wanted Cyprus unification with Greece (and years of Turkish Cypriots reportedly feeling ignored and mistreated by the dominant Greek population). The island was divided by the UN-maintained Green Line, one third for Turkish Cypriots and two thirds for Greek Cypriots based on the population ratios at the time. Turkey is the only country that recognizes North Cyprus as distinct.  We could only fly to South Cyprus from Israel and we could only fly to Turkey from North Cyprus.  Crossing to North Cyprus over the island border, passports are not stamped - rumour has it that Greece will refuse entry to anyone who has a North Cyprus stamp.  None of this continued rancour effected our stay which was peaceful and relaxed and full out outdoor wonder.

Our dear friends on dock in Finike who own a house in North Cyprus arranged a driver to take us from the (South) Cyprus airport to our (North Cyprus) AirBNB, - also suggested by our friends - a rental car to arrive first thing the next morning, and a driver to the North Cyprus airport at the end of the week.  They recommended trails, sights, restaurants etc. etc.  All the hard work of research and organization was done.  We felt like spoiled VIPs!

Spring was on it's way.  The wildflowers were bountiful.  A few shots of them first.

Anemones, I think. Maybe iris?  Gorgeous blue, in any case.

These are considered to be a weed.  They grow everywhere in Turkey as well.  The goats and sheep won't eat their tough leaves but they are striking.

Mandrake - a squat mauve bunch of blossoms on a platter of huge, not-so-pretty and usually insect eaten leaves that hugs the ground.  

Teeny, tiny wild orchids.  Very lovely

North Cyprus is a hiker's paradise with less developed coastline than the south part of the island, and craggy, rough mountains within spitting distance.  Many of the mountain roads are one lane wide.  Guard rails are essentially non existent with precipitous drops on the passenger side - that's my side.  Every day was an outdoor adventure!

Within walking distance of our home for the week was Bellapais Abbey founded by Augustine monks who were expelled from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem when Saladin invaded in 1187.  Our knowledge of history is much richer because of all the geopolitical connections.  Quite amazing!

The abbey has a tumultuous history including corrupt practices by the monks.  With the Ottoman invasion it became derelict and only the church remained.  The British used the refectory as a rifle range.

It is now a peaceful tourist attraction with a beautiful view. 

The sweet village of Bellapais, with narrow lanes hugging the steep slopes of the mountains and a stunning view of the abbey and coast. 

Bellapais is also on the tourist map for this rather humdrum house called Bitter Lemons where Lawrence Durrell, one of our current favourite authors, lived from 1953-56.

Three castles sit on the highest peaks of the ridge of Kyrenia mountains.  St. Hilarion, "a picture-book castle for elf kings", formed the template for the fairy-tale castles of King Ludwig in Barvaria and Disney's Magic Kingdom.

Beginning as a monastery and converted to a castle by Byzantines to watch for Arab raids and finally a palace for Lusignan royalty.

An odd tourist attraction and monument.  A Turkish tank fallen off the narrow ridge road during the Turkish invasion.

Another hike, another pretty scene.  Being a Muslim country, the churches in North Cyprus have been allowed to decay but they make striking ruins.

A very orderly single file herd of goats returning home without guidance by dog or shepherd through fields of wildflowers.

One of hundreds of wild donkey at the eastern tip of the island, the 70km long Karpaz Peninsula.  He put a wet smudge on our window looking for food.

Someone was quietly trying to practise their faith in this....

 tiny chapel in the middle of nowhere

Just happened upon an underground tomb on our walk.

Girne is said to be the most attractive town on the island with this round harbour taken from the next door castle ramparts and backed by the mountains.

The Shipwreck Museum's prized possession: a 15m-long Greek merchant ship from 300 BC!  Discovered by a sponge diver in 1965.  The cargo included 400 wine amphorae and thousands of almonds preserved in jars.  Very cool!

Grin Castle guarding the harbour entrance.

Beach and...

... rolling hills for another hike.

And finally, Buffavento Castle.  The second of the three castles (we drove to the third on a very scary road but it was too late to explore) the name means "buffeted by the wind" and indeed it was.  Through a downpour, it appeared hauntingly shrouded in cloud.

We climbed to the top as the cloud gradually cleared.  And what a climb it was!

We loved our hiking on Cyprus.  It's nice to know that friends have a home there. One day we might be invited back!