After what felt like an absolutely luxurious sleep I woke up to another sunny day on the Çeşme Peninsula, in the tiny town of Çark. Breakfast was fresh tomato and cucumber, with bread, olives, cheese, jams and of course, Turkish coffee.
I neglected to mention that when I arrived yesterday, there was a younger guy in the bunch of hosts who spoke very good english- I thought he was the "young son" of the family who owned the Pansiyon. Not the case.
An avid windsurf racer, Yiğit was in town for the weekend, taking a break from his university studies in Istanbul, where he was born and raised. He was kind enough to join me in the courtyard last night and with the help of google maps, gave me the virtual tour of Istanbul. Home to over 15million people, I realised I really had only seen a minute part of this massive city. I certainly believed Yiğit when he said it's best seen with a local.
The generosity of this part of the world (as demonstrated in Cyprus) surfaced again, as Yiğit was kind enough to drive me into the town of Alaçatı (on a 4x4...a first for me!) and show me around. The hospitality of strangers ceases to amaze me, as the tour included Yiğit picking up a lovely bottle of Turkish wine for me to enjoy during the rest of my stay in Cark (and market fruit and veg and my laundry detergent- like I said...the generosity is surreal).
The area of Alaçatı is rammed packed with holiday goers in the summer time- drawing Istanbul's rich and famous. Getting to wander the narrow streets of this old greek town made me feel like I was walking a movie set. We stopped for turkish coffee in the town centre- Yiğit described there being a similar tradition to reading tea leaves, but reading the remnants of a turkish coffee by placing the saucer over top of the cup of 'sludge' and turning it over to reveal "your future." His grandmother knew how to read the coffee grind pattern.
Having seen oodles of these glass decoration thingers, I siezed the opportunity to ask a local what on earth they were for:
Legend has it that there was a woman with a third eye in the centre of her forehead. This eye would separate from her forehead and travel around the world and return to her, bringing the wisdom of the future and therefore good luck in anticipating future events. So in effect, this is a collection of symbolic glass eyeballs on strings. Get yours now!
The afternoon brought little wind, so I took a stab at stand up paddle boarding. I did not enjoy it. There was enough wind to make it near impossible to steer and I barely managed to stay directly parallel with the point on shore from which I left. It was a constant battle against drifting out to sea. I think it might be better tried on a no-wind, flatwater day.
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| The sunset and moon rise over the surrounding hills. |
I had a quiet meal back at the Pansyion under the tree lights with a new wine to try.
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