5th of May, 2022.
After eating my apple, I go downstairs to get some tea and have it with the last slices of my cake. I leave the gas station around 8 o’clock.
Around 9.30 a van stops. I am a bit suspicious about the driver but because I also think he could simply be also suspicious about me, and about my English, I decide to get in. He is only going about 70 Km further, to Pülümür, but right now I think it is better than nothing.
He is not a bad man after all. We pick up an elderly man on the way, but only a few kilometres before Pülümür. When I get off the car it is raining. Luckily for me, for the first time in my travels (at least that I can remember), there is a bus stop where I can stay protected from the rain and still do my hitchhiking at the same time. But unluckily for me, the guy who stops and I get in his car is an idiot!
OK, perhaps he didn’t do it on purpose. But, come on! Couldn’t he have told me he would go first to Tercan (which is a 60 km detour, meaning 120 back and forward) and only after he would go to Erzincan? When I asked him before getting in the car where he was going, he only said Erzincan. Grrr! But what can I do now if it is raining quite strongly?
After only a few kilometres, the rain reduces significantly, right by the time I see an OK spot for hitchhiking across the road. I ask the driver to stop in a parking place, only 200 metres ahead. I had explained to him before that I had not time to go all the way to Tercan and back, so he understood when I asked him to stop.
Four super cute Shivas come to greet me when I come out of the car. Laugh. The biggest one (photograph) keeps trying to eat my small backpack, and using his paw to open it. Super cute! It is still raining a little bit so I am hoping somebody will pick me up soon!
I am holding my sign which says “Uzungöl” but as soon a van stops (in about 5 minutes time), I ask the driver if he is going to Erzincan. He says yes!
Turgut is a nice man. I think that at the beginning he is a bit afraid of me. What makes no sense because he shows me a short video of him, about 3 years ago, at the gym and he looks massive. Laugh. Anyway, he drives me to Erzincan and drops me off in a gas station, at the entrance of the city, just by a sign which says “Trabzon”. Laugh. I knew that this whole Trabzon region’s name (where Uzungöl is located) and the actual city would get me in trouble at some point.
At the gas station, while I am eating my lunch, the attendants look at me with a very suspicious look, and I wonder why. Why they have to be so different from the lovely people from the Opet in Tunceli? But soon enough they ask me questions and then everything is OK. One of the guys at the cashier even gives me some tea!
It seems that they all were asking to the clients if any of them were going to Trabzon. That is because when one comes inside and his answer is “Trabzon”, all of them ask him if he could take me there. He is a bit reluctant. Why? Only Jesus knows. But after a while he says I can come. Yay! Will be?
As soon as I get in the car, I ask him about Uzungöl. It is when he tells me he is going to the city of Trabzon, and not simply to the region. What? “Yeah, baby. No, baby.” – by Joey, from Friends.
At the first few seconds I was like What the fuck…? But them after I was more like Ah, what the fuck! After all, the weather is shitty anyway. Either the rain is following me for the last few days, or it is raining all over Turkey! Damn it! So that is how I decide to go to Trabzon instead of Uzungöl. It is not like I was dreaming of going there anyway…
So I am a bit suspicious about this guy. He keeps calling his friends and telling them about me. And also the way he looks at me. Ill, I even saw with the corner of my eyes, the profile photograph of a lady he was talking on Whatsapp, and she was naked, showing the top of her body, but only her back. Disgusting!
Because of that, I start telling him about my friend in Trabzon, with whom I will stay tonight. That is not entirely true. There is a friend of Havva, a guy called Omer, who lives in town and she gave me his number, telling me I could stay with him if I was in Trabzon. Luckily, she wrote his name, number and Trabzon on my paper, so I am showing that to the driver.
I don’t know if it was my “strategy” or what, but he stopped asking me questions and stuff. And we arrive safely in Trabzon. He drops me off a bit after the entrance of the town.
I walk to the first hotel I see, a fancy one, and ask to use their wi-fi. I plan to check directions and call another Havva’s friends, a University’s teacher, whom she says can speak a good English so he can help me.
Well, I get the directions to the city centre: about 1 hour walking. To the left. But them I also get directions to where I can hitchhike to Rize tomorrow morning: about 1 hour walking. To the right. Now, I was not much into visiting Trabzon anyway; the weather will be shitty tomorrow again (and it is still now); the Soumela Monastery (the most famous attractions of Trabzon) is about 10 Km away; plus Havva’s friend don’t pick up his phone. Because all of that, I decide to go towards Rize, pass by a pharmacy and try to buy my pills (because I have already exchanged the money anyway), and just spend the night in a gas station by the road, as I supposed to do last night. Well, I did that, it just ended up much better than I though.
Just one more thing about this hotel: the young man who helped me to plug my computer is so cute! He is tall, with an athletic body and a nice deep voice. Miau! When I am leaving the hotel he calls me Madam (how cute!) and ask where I will spend the night. I actually want to tell him if you want with you, babe!, but I don’t. Just kidding!
Walk, walk… I buy my pills. Walk, walk, walk… I cross the University Campus and get to the side road to the highway. I see a hotel right away and decide to ask in there if I could spend the night in their lobby, using my computer, so I don’t need to freeze all night in the gas station.
Şahan and his employee are very welcoming and friendly since the moment I enter the hotel. Şahan is always smiling and tells me I can stay in the lobby for the whole night, no problem for him. How lovely! He tells his employees and me that I can have tea, coffee or water whenever I want.
So here is where I am writing this text now, at the lobby of the hotel.