The Bus to the Capital

My last days in Antalya were amazing. Part of me wishes that my last weekend would have been boring and uneventful so that I would want to get out of town. Instead I had one another great weekend filled with fellowship and blessing. My last day at Tomer concluded with an Ice cream party and sad goodbyes. James left for Istanbul on Friday and Andrew left to visit his family in Greece earlier in the week. Luckily the Bultema's were looking for some help with housework so I spent a few days at their place cleaning out storage areas and scrubbing off carpets. The work in the morning was followed by cool afternoons in the pool and dinner on the balcony overlooking the mountains and the sea. As I packed to leave, I couldn't help but feeling it was the beginning of the end. I am beginning the trip towards Holland.

I decided to leave Antalya by bus. I have never ridden a Greyhound before in the states so I had no idea what I was in for. However, I was not anticipating the sophistication of the Turkish bus system. I had booked on Kamilkoc (pronounced 'Camel Coach') one of 20 or so bus companies that operate out of a bus station that puts the Gerald R. Ford International Airport to shame. Every half hour in the evening and early hours of the morning, 20-25 buses park, unload, and reload passengers and luggage then depart again for another destination. Hundreds of Turks (I saw no foreigners) stand milling about with their luggage sucking down cigarettes as if their very lives depended on it. At 12:00 sharp I left Antalya with an imposing armada of buses traveling to destinations all over Turkey. The buses themselves are state of the art. The seats recline deeply and are soft and comfortable. The cabin slides across the road like it is gliding on air. There are attendants who come by serving packaged cakes and soft drinks in flimsy plastic cups just like an airplane. It was as though I was on a great road-bound cruise liner sailing into the endless black night. I all felt very surreal. Only 15 minutes outside of town I fell asleep.

At 3:30 AM I woke up to discover we had stopped and everyone was filing out of the bus. We had arrived at a Turkish rest area to re-fuel the bus and give everyone a chance to see how many cigarettes they could put down in 15 minutes. The were a few fast food doner places as well as a convenience shop. There were probably 15 other buses at this station and the entire place was packed. 50 or 60 people were standing around participating in the aforementioned smoking contest and the rest were scarfing cay and cheap doner. I would have preferred to just stay on the bus and nap, but I got up the initiative to get out and explore. It was downright chilly outside of the bus. The temperature read 15 c. (60 F) and I discovered we were in the middle of nowhere surrounded by absolute blackness. Thus I quickly retreated to the comfort of my bus seat and fell back asleep. At 5:30 I woke up again to watch the sun rise over the Anatolian plateau. Finally at 7:30 I arrived at my destination: Ankara, the capital of Turkey.