Our next trip.

By John Kieser -
It seems as if with the increase in serenity in my life it is having a  diminished effect on my luck.  For the second time, a war is having an impact on our travel plans.   Last time, months of planning to cycle in Primorsky Krai went down the toilet with the war in Ukraine.  We ended up flying with the worst airline to Turkey to cycle Turkey from Kars, all along the Black Sea.

The airline left our bicycles in Addis Ababa. The bastards.  This turned out to be not so bad as an unplanned hike turned all along that coast turned out to be such fun.  The Black Sea Coastline is not "touristy" at all so we decided to hike the Mediterranean side as well which is more touristy but also swimming in history.

That is if this war in the Middle East does not escalate.  

When the Ottoman Empire started to break up in the beginning of the twentieth century by European encroachment, the one thing most Turks, especially Muslim Turks, could not handle was the encroachment of the Greeks.  Crete proclaiming its union with Greece, really pissed off the Turks.  So we will hike in an area that was Greek not so long ago.   

When you are in Turkey, two names cannot be ignored.  One is of course the present leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the architect of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.  Mustafa is everywhere and you cannot, not see, his impact on this country.

Read "Ataturk" by Andrew Mango on Mustaf before this trip so that I can understand the country a little bit more as our last trip opened up a whole lot of questions about Turkish people.  Sadly, I have never really taken any notice of the country and its people, possibly, on what they did to the Armenians.  But every coin has a flip side and I want to see what the fuss was/is about this great man.

Take for instance his name, Mustafa meaning the Chosen one. (One of the appellations of the Prophet).
Muslims did not have surnames when he was born, except as a sign of social distinction a second and even third name could be attached, later in life.  Mustafa was his "belly name", as it is announced when the umbilical cord is cut.

Ataturk's father was Ali Riza and worked at the Department of Pious Foundations.  I think that is such a cool name for a place to work at.  Just imagine introducing yourself, "Hi, I am from the Department of Pious Foundations".

Ataturk is possibly not even Turkish but Albanian.  (Albania was part of Ottoman Empire).




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