The hire car is booked for 10.00 am. We arrive at Yenibosna right on time to collect only to find out I have booked the car for 12.00 pm. We sit around for a few hours and the day is pushed back. Shell is understanding.
The whip is a Peugeot 2008, brand new. There is no fuel in the tank and I have 21km to find a service station.
We are heading to Gallipoli and ANZAC cove. If you are Australian, this is some sort of requirement. There would be some sacred rule broken if we did not go there. I wonder if this is why I feel no obligation to make the journey.
The speed limit is either 30, 50, 70, 90, 110 or 130. A decent range but especially problematic when no one knows what speed to be doing at any point in time. I settle for 110 and I am overtaken at speed and overtaking at speed.
Eventually, we are flagged down by the Police for speeding. Fortunately an Australian in a hire car with a UAE driver’s license is too much to process and they wave us on without a ticket.
ANZAC Cove is everything I expected. A tiny beach surrounded by steep bluffs. A slaughter ground. I have read a few books on the assault on Gallipoli, a remarkable shit show. I wonder why I feel no emotion here and I don’t understand why. Apparently visiting this place should stir something.
“All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.”
John Steinbeck
Shell has a snake encounter while going to the toilet in a secluded spot right after I warned her to be careful of snakes. Google tells me it was either a black whip snake or a black viper based on Shell’s description.
We head to Kilithibar and catch the ferry to Çanakkale. I love catching a ferry. Being out on the ocean and crossing the water to get where you are heading.
We are almost at Hüseyinfaki when Shell suggests we stop for dinner. There is a roadside outdoor restaurant a few kilometers ahead. We pull over and find a whole mutton on the spit. There is no menu, you are served mutton for two, yoghurt, flat bread and a salad. Possibly the best mutton I have eaten. Sitting outside in the cool mountain air, it is a postcard moment, and I don’t care if it is cliché.
We head up into the mountains and arrive in the perfect Turkish village, Hüseyinfaki. We shower and head upstairs for a late tea before falling asleep to the complete silence that only the middle of nowhere can give you. And dogs howling. And the call to prayer. Sweet silence.
