1st of May, 2022.
Places have just move themselves in Goreme. Seriously. For some unexplained reason, I cannot find the exit of the town towards Göbekli Tepe. And that after going up some really steepy roads. I try to get some information from cars passing but some people are just too ignorant to understand anything.
Finally, an angel decides to stop by and help me. Even though he was going in this way, he takes me down in the other direction, driving all the way outside town and after an intersection, so I can have better chances. How sweet!
Unfortunately my next lift is just completely the opposite. Two idiot guys going to Kayseri. When I am putting my backpack in the back sit, the youngest one, who came to “help”, kind of comes behind me and gets real close, almost humping me. What a hell? I feel so stupid that I didn’t say anything, making a real scandal of it, just taking my backpack out of the car and tell them to go to hell.
When we get stuck in a police checking point. The driver shows his “badge” of judge to the police officer, asking to be released and pass straight through. The officer is a bit reluctant but in the end let him pass. This is an absurd! Nobody should have this kind of bullshit privileged. Nobody!
These assholes drop me off in the highway, kind of the exit to Kayseri. I decide not to walk to town because I most likely would have to cross the entire town in order to hitchhike in the other end. But the young man who was already hitchhiking when I got here, do that. I pass by him when some minutes after he left, an elderly man picks me up.
Now, this is funny. This man can speak some English and he drives me all the way to Pinarbasi. We stop in a restaurant and he pays for my lunch, while he has some tea. It is a huge restaurant but they have almost no food. I have some rice with beans and some sweet rice for desert. Then he starts talking with the men working at the restaurant and I notice he is really worried about me hitchhiking again. Dear, Loki! And he even ask a very elderly man to take my backpack to the road! What the hell is he thinking? That I never carry my own backpack and men are doing that all the time for me? It is just so ridiculous how men think we women are so weak… No man, I repeat, no man could live the life of a woman for one month! One week!
In a few minutes a young man stop his car. Ramasan is going to Kahramanmaras and tells me he is a police officer. He looks like a very neat man. But I have this feeling by the way he looks at me that something is not right. And I can feel that he is nervous in my presence. Men are just ridiculously weak.
We make a stop for him to fix his car in some place where there are many mechanic shops.
A bit before he drop me off, because he cannot speak English, he translate in his phone that he would like to have sex with me. FUCKING DISGUSTING! No, seriously, I wonder where the HELL this men take this idea out, that a woman, any woman, would simply have sex with a stranger who just picked her up from the road. I have to tell, I think I would rather come back as a mouse in another life than as a man.
I don’t use any bad words to not be rude but I give him shit! Telling this is outrageous and I am extremely offended by his insinuation, plus that as a police officer he should be helping and protecting people, and not doing this kind of shit. As usual, he apologies many times and says he didn’t expected me to react that way. I don’t give a shit!
The next young man who picks me up looks completely different of the police jerk officer. He is very relaxed, wear easy going clothes, has tattoos and jewelry, and his car is all messed up. But the most important thing is how he is also completely different in his character. He is just very kind and helpful, not a jerk at all. So that is for you people who go judging people by the way they look. Stereotypes, people! Follow your heart and not you eyes!
He drops me off just outside Gaziantep, but he makes sure to drive me around the city, so I am quiet close to the exit towards Göbekli Tepe. I just have to walk a little bit.
While I am walking, a very nice man pull over his car and offer to drive me all the way to the exit. Yay!
There I stay for quite a while. Nobody stopping.
Mehmet it seems like a nice guy when he smiles at me and tell me he can drive me to the next town, Nizip. And not that he is not but, you know, after you get to know people for even only a few hours, you get to know who they really are behind the first impressions.
Mehmet is going to feed his dogs in the house he has on the road around here. He lives in Gaziantep but has the dogs here to protect the house in construction. They are two Pitbulls, male and female, and he gives them, all at once, kilos of chicken. Poor babies.
It is quite late now so I know I will not make to Göbekli Tepe. Mehmet offer me to stay in his unfinished house for the night. I accept because I believe it would be safer then just camp somewhere by the road.
We go to Nizip and have some lentil soup. There are so many baklava shops in town and to this day I regret so much, but so much for not having asking him to get me one baklava. Why? Because later on he tells me that Gaziantep is the best place to get baklava in Turkey. And he buys some beers and other snacks for us to eat later so he really wanted just to buy some stuff. I am sorry but I have to say that this is one the my biggest regrets in life. I love baklava!
When we get back to his house, he starts to tell me about his life, and some people he knows, some mafia guys and some weird things. I can see he has some deep issues in his life. And even though I consider join him at first, to a short trip he is going tomorrow, to a nice place near the river, his friend’s house, and carry on with my trip to Göbekli Tepe later, I realized I better not to.
It seems to me he would like to keep talking all night but I am tired and need to rest, so I go to sleep. He stays over. But go back to Gaziantep some time in the middle of the night. I am not sure why.
In the morning he drops me off somewhere in the road.