Our travels seemed to have entered a strange and slightly hair-raising phase.
The region we’ve now driven into is getting close to the Georgian border, and is known as the Georgian Valleys. It lies at the eastern end of Turkey’s Pontic Alps, which stretch along the Black Sea coast and reach their most impressive altitudes in the north east, a region that contains the Kaşkar Daği National Park.
To be honest, ‘valleys’ seems a bit of a meek and mild description. What we’ve found ourselves motoring through is a vertical landscape of precipitous gorges and narrow ravines. Great masses of rock tower above us, and wild water flows everywhere in furious, muddied, churning chaos.
There are some mornings we really do wonder why we bother.
After a few wonderfully relaxing days winding down amidst the fairy chimney landscape of Göreme, we are now back on the road, heading for north eastern Turkey.
After the comfort of our hotel and it’s luxurious hamam (Turkish bath), we are now in our tent. It is 2am, and it has just started raining. It’s only gentle, but as our tent has proven itself to be not completely waterproof, we’re hoping the rain doesn’t get any heavier.
It is 5am, icy cold, and as the first birdsong begins the dawn chorus, I have the feeling we’ve stumbled upon our most interesting recording location in Turkey thus far. Which is utterly unexpected as there is not a tree or bush in sight.
Preparing for this field trip, we had visions of forests full of birdsong. So we’ve aimed for the green spots on Google Earth. This is not one of them.
Another near-endemic to Turkey we’ve enjoyed hearing is the Rüppell’s Warbler, Sylvia rueppelli. Actually it is only a visitor to Turkey, wintering in the north-east Sahara, and found here and in neighbouring Greece during the warmer months.
Leaving our village pension at 5am for our morning recording location, we were treated to unusual duet.
The village we have been staying in is high in the Taurus Mountains of Turkey, and has numerous Nightingales roosting in the dense shrubs found in gardens. In the pre-dawn darkness, they could be heard singing across the hillside.
On this occasion, another voice joined in. The muezzin began singing the traditional call to prayer, the Adhan, from the village mosque.
We are taking a day off in Silifke, south of the Toros (Taurus) Mountains – our next destination.
We are both feeling tired and exhausted from the early morning starts, attending to work and being on the move. We have another week ahead in the Toros Mountains, then we can kick back and relax in Göreme (Cappadocia) for a week or so. From there, we will make our way to the Black Sea Coast for our last 10 days. After that – volcanoes willing – we will be off to Sweden via Germany.
On the shores of Lake Köyceğiz in SW Turkey is a small forest of Liquid Amber trees, Liquidamber orientalis.
Known also from the eastern states of America, these trees are also found at rare locations in Turkey, and are famous for being the source of the Frankincense. Indeed in ancient times, the resin from these Turkish trees was taken to Egypt for ceremonial use.
The first tinges of light were seeping into the east. But even with the dawn, there was little burst of dawn colour, just a soft pink wash over a leaden sky. The air down here in the marshes on the southern coast of Turkey felt humid and heavy, leaving one’s skin tacky.
