Turkey - Page 3

A view of Trabzon, looking out over the Black Sea.

Somebody thought it would be a great idea to open a seaside cafe beside a landfull, in Trabzon. I was gagging while taking this picture, I don't know how anyone could eat there!

On a busride to Yusufeli, I met a young Turkish man named Mustafa who invited me to stay with him and his grandmother in their home in the mountains. We stayed high up in a valley, ate vegetables, fruits, bread, cream, cheese and fish that we made or caught ourselves. They showed me incredible hospitality and it was the highlight of my trip in Turkey. Here is Mustafa in an abandoned Armenian cathedral, far up the valley from his house.

These Kilise (Turkish for Church) were built around 1000 years ago when this was Armenian territory. Now the Kilise are abandoned and very few people visit them.

These small mountain valleys are home to surprisingly quite a few people, their houses cluster around the streams and small narrow rock roads. There are remnants of old houses and terracing high up the hillsides, and most of the people live fairly simple lives revolving around agriculture, in tight extended-family households. Virtually all of the foods consumed are the products of their own hands. The one thing that bothered me here were the roles of women and men, women seem to break their backs in all the agricultural labour and household chores and men generally sit around and drink tea all day.

Mustafa and I catching Trout for dinner, high up in the mountain valley.

Mustafa in another small town near his, built on a hillside, where we went to visit some of his relatives.