Ballikayalar Quartet - Prologue

'Once more he sipped his tea and committed himself mentally to the crowded day which he saw stretching before him...' - Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet.

Above: Bygone glory? The magnificent Haydarpasa railway station was the unlikely starting point for my most recent climbing odyssey.

If you spend enough time in the airports of Istanbul, fairly soon you will see the exodus of pilgrims bound for Mecca.  This happened to me twice, such that I can remember. Once, at Ataturk, thinking I was the last one charging towards my departure gate, only to be rushed from behind by a band of sandal-clad middle-aged men heading off to the Haj, impeccable and unashamed in their white robes. And again, as I attempted to arrive by taxi to Sabiyha Gokcen airport as the clock ticked down, my taxi pulling up well short of the terminal, the entrances blocked by a twenty-deep crowd flocking to hug off, kiss off and wave off their next of kin, resulting in a pandemonium absolutely unique in nature, which left the terminal security teams at a loss to quell. By some kind of osmosis, in which the international departures somehow merged through glass and steel partitions into one communal space, this chaos continued deep inside the airport, as at least twenty percent of the crowd, many of whom were having an airport interior revealed for the very first time (no doubt an out of body experience!) managed to penetrate the domestic departures, supposedly hermetically sealed from the overseas flights (including Mecca).  There is nothing like trying to shuffle patiently along the queue at an X-ray machine, removing coins, belt, phone and shoes, maybe an ice axe, only to see three or four devout pilgrims pile trance-like through the metal detector, oblivious to its purpose, bags and all, stunning both passengers and security alike - and remembering they are not even in the right terminal! 

Above: The 'Icarus' Flake. Dislodged by the earthquake in 1999, and wiping out one of the classic early traditional lines in the valley (while uncovering new, harder ones). 

Bearing this in mind, I stopped using planes and switched to buses.  After numerous tribulations including broken airconditioning, boxcar-style overcrowding and overpriced cay at Ismail'in Yeri, the regular motorway stop near Adapazari, I abandoned even this unhappy coach-paradigm in favour of the train and the Halk Otobus, or dolmus.  And soon, I was riding motorcycles and hitch-hiking too, as if to emphasise the full extent of my separation from travel by car.  McCluhan apparently said that we often look at the future through the rear-view mirror of the past - in this case my only guide was the oversize orange-green Yorsan billboard stuck like a stranded surfboard on top of a low flaky block of houses with the words 'Gelenekten gelecegi'* itallicised across it.  For once cheese advertising, it seemed, said it better than anything, as the sweltering halk otobus laboured up the hill into the centre of Gebze, the driver locked in an argument with two disoriented passengers which might be loosely translated like this:

Passenger: 'Does this bus go to the Industrial District?'

Driver: 'No way grandpa.' ('Which one?' would have been a fair question, as Gebze has more of them than residential areas)

Passenger: 'I want two for the Industrial District.'

Driver: 'I'm not going there. You need to change in the city centre and go back out.'

Passenger's Daughter: 'This bus always goes to the Industrial District!' (This, delivered with absolute zeal.)

Driver: (breaking sharply and opening the door with a hiss of compressed air, as horns blare from behind) 'I've been driving this bus for ten years, and I have never gone to the Industrial District! I know my job. If you think you know better, then get off right now!'

Passenger: (After a long pause, then offering a five-lira note) 'I want two tickets.'

Passenger's Daughter: (To no-one in particular) Allah-Allah!

Other vignettes flutter through my heat-soaked semi-consciousness as I continue on my way:

The bus stops in the middle of a crowded street, the driver's cabin exactly parallel to the cabin of another bus, going in the opposite direction.  The drivers - smiling, chatting - casually swap bank notes and cigarettes through the windows, while cars, delivery vans and water-carrying motorbikes quickly accumulate in an impatient frenzy of horns and cries behind them.  They don't seem to acknowledge it, and eventually move on, cash balances restored to an optimal array of denominations.   

Above: The brimming Istanbul docks as seen from a passing vapur.

I watch the city's landscape change the length of the twenty-six stops between Hayderpasa and Gebze.  The teeming, hilly garret-lined streets of Kadikoy melt into the generous white appartments of Erenkoy, the well-appointed stillness of Suadiye and then Bostanci's golden seafront, smelling of fish and fairgrounds.  Then, inexorably decaying as we pass through Idealtepe and out into the heathen planes of Cevizli, through Kartal, Pendik and the sunken slums of Kaynarca.  Tuzla's shipyards, red and deep, the dull stacks of containers and the dark hulls of dry-docked ships burnished by morning sunlight, remind me of my childhood and from the train's elevated position I can see the cranes working the docks and pick out sharp blue stabs of blow-torches as the welders set to work, and my desire is to get off the train and watch it all, until the sun sets and it is all a play of lights. 

I sit alone, scooping up menemen at the Canan Pastanesi waiting for Sonmez, as a bevvy of headscarved women exit the green mosque, heavy black coats buttoned to the throat despite the humid heat. It must be ninety degrees as a bulldozer continues to carve out the foundations for a new (larger) mosque nearby, scattering rubble-dust across the women as they file down the steps and into the road.  Sonmez arrives sometime after midday on the back of Mehmet's motorcycle, shaved and somewhat plumper than the last time we climbed in October.  But his smile is as enthusiastic as ever. 

We are on the motorcycle, helmetless, as we dodge potholes between the village and the valley, and the sun washes relentlessly over vegetation and asphalt alike.  There is, fortunately, a good deal of shade in the cliffs and we slowly march up to it, hoping it is not a mirage. 

Above: The Naked and the Belayed. Sonmez finds ways to adapt to the humidity having tempted me to lead a neanderthal route in the back of a cave.

Above: Decent proposal. Leading the interesting sport route called Tipis-Tipis (6a-ish) at the back of the cave opposite Pelikan (6c), one of our 'quartet' of routes.

Above: Rather steep going towards the top of the route provides the crux of an enthralling climb around the small overhang. Surprisingly, the rock is pretty sound all the way.

Above: Half of the quartet.  Pelikan (6c) follows the overhanging wall on the left of the cave, while the crux section of Patir Patir (6b) can be seen at the extreme right where the small cave splits the pale pillar.

To be continued...

* Translation: 'From tradition to the future' - a good metaphor for Gebze, except that the future, for the moment, seems as wrapped up in tradition as the past, thus boosting cheese sales and casting a complex social and cultural mosaic over the industrialised 'village' landscape one finds here.