i have spent a long time trying to get at the truer-than-truth of my three day trips out from sundance -- to tahtali, demre, and olympos. but that is slowing me down so much. and i want to write out the stories to make room for new experiences. so here are just the facts.
day 1 was tahtali. this was vaguely a disappointment.
i did not realize this, but the mountain that overlooks this campground is in fact mount olympos, _the mount olympos of greek mythology. here this mountain is called tahtali. it is not quite the highest mountain in turkey, but it does tower over antalya and often pokes through the tops of the clouds on account of us being so close to sea-level, where the weather sits low. there is a gondola that runs up the top two thirds of the mountain and takes you up in a little under ten minutes.
one of the books i brought with me this trip is the Dharma Bums. it is one of my favourites, and when astrid and i were first getting to know each other i told her so. "it's about this guy, like me, and his friend. they go climbing mountains together. as a metaphor for enlightenment. get it?"
she got it. "it's awfully a boy's book," she said.
so i would stand on top of turkey. what's more, on the trolley i would write a piece called Nine Minutes To The Top Of Mount Olympos. that didn't pan out, though. as soon as i got on the trolley -- saying to myself, hmm, this looks severely swiss-made -- no sooner had i gotten on the trolley and taken my ticket out of my wallet to give to the man with the radio did a tall man in mountaineer's pants and a wool shirt come up and introduce himself to me. recognized my bank card as being canadian: he has one himself. his name was Wile, and he was one of the project engineers. he's going to be working on the whistler trolley cars for the 2010 olympics. and yes -- swiss-made.
it was late in the day and we were in the shadow of the mountain going up. the towers were about eighty or a hundred feet high. it was a fast ride -- and when we went over the cable towers the trolley surged forward and then dropped and the kids all squealed. we went from being over green pines, to getting closer to the tree line where only the tough trees lived solitary on the sides of cliffs, up to where it was just loose rock, gravel and snow. the trolley, which was the size of a small school bus, red and grey inside with a textured floor, had a stereo setup that played sinatra and also linda ronstadt.
at the top of the mountain it was _cold and there was snow and we were up above the clouds. but we were also confined to this little brick patio with empty ceramic pots at each of its corners, and there was nothing up there at all except a restaurant with the house wines in a wooden rack near the entrance coming in, and a plexiglass display of swiss army knives. in front, the mountain sloped down to the ocean and sundance bay. behind, the mountain range reached back and disappeared under the clouds. kids threw snowballs on the rooftop terrace. below, a girl in a fur-trimmed vest posed for a picture. but that was about it.
interesting to see the clouds from up top. and cool that night was falling on the one side but it was still day on the other. further down the mountain range you could see the one higher peak poking up through the clouds. there was a radio post about a hundred feet off, which still took the trouble of flying a turkish flag. all told, though, a pricey day and a _slog walking up the mountain to the base station -- hot sun, 8km of 10% grade, and i forgot my water (causing me to have to court death drinking from the bathroom faucet).
on the way down we passed a gondola coming back up, empty but with two men riding on top of it, leaning against the suspension arm. they were sharing a loaf of bread which they dipped in sauce. by the time i got back down on the dark side of the mountain it was very much night and the moon was rising. i found sundance by following the reflective brick road.
