Sabine and Monica are going away on holidays today so are up early. We are in the car by 07:30 and 15 minutes later say our goodbyes...Sabine has her ticket booked back to Australia from Tel Aviv, so even if she has to go back early we are hoping to still meet me in the middle of Turkey to say "goodbye". But I'm keeping my fingers crossed she will join me for the rest of the walk...we will see.
The Taxi ride back to Taksim gives me a wonderful tour of the back streets of Istanbul! Being peak hour the traffic is awesome and our taxi driver does a pretty good job of avoiding most os it.
Then it's onto a bus for the last stretch and I watch in horror as we keep going and going and going...
It appears a lot further than it looked when I caught the bus in the other day! I have a place to stay with couchsurfing in Taksim and I'm still confident I will still make it by tonight.
Jumping off at Atakoy I get straight into it. It's now 10:15 which meant the trip back just took 2½ hours!!! Still without a map of Istanbul I head in the direction of Sultanhamet, the location of the Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque.
It isn't long before I have no idea of where I am or which direction I should be going. All the streets look the same and none of them go in a straight line for more than 100m. Nightmare! Trying to ask directions is near impossible as well, everyone just wants to direct me to the nearest tram station...so I'm on my own.
Using my shadow to roughly navigate my way through the maze of alleys I'm pleasantly surprised to finally get a positive response from a passer by...
"Yes, yes, the Blue Mosque. Keep going straight down this road for 3kms and you are there."
Wow! I am closer than I thought :)
Sure enough 40 minutes later there I am standing inbetween the Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque. It had taken three hours and this was my first rest. Two days off have done me wonders, my body is feeling great :)
I lie down on the grass and enjoy the feeling of having made it this far. Istanbul is my last major landmark before the Middle-East and the home stretch.
Another girl from couchsurfing had told me that if I was in this area around lunch to give her a call and meet for a drink...so I do :)
Taking a bit long to finally track each other down, Eylul has to be at a play put on by her language school and invites me along. I know Taksim is only an hours walk from here so I figure why not.
Eylul has a great sense of humour and keeps me entertained walking down to her Uni...
Now, I normally don't even like plays in English and it turns out this one is in French! Yippee!!! And to make it even worse they decide to give the audience a complete rendition of the life of Attaturk...in French as well!
After fifteen minutes I'm ready to shoot myself wondering why I left the comfy grass next to the Blue Mosque where I could have been lounging at a cafe having a beer...
And I'm pleased to see Eylul feels the same way. She has tied her scarf around her throat and is making motions like hanging herself :)
Finally, over an hour later there is a semi-break (not really a break but someone paused to take a breath) and we make a run for it.
Walking me as far as the bridge, Eylul leaves me to it and takes the ferry home. Crossing the bridge and making my way into the side streets towards Taxim I have a very strange thought...
This is the first time on the entire pilgrimage I have been walking through streets I know! It is a slightly strange feeling...
Making it to Taksim by 7pm, Ozgur is going to be late so I go for a beer, celebrating my arrival to Istanbul proper. Eight pm she finally shows up and takes me to one of her favourite drinking spots in the area. It's pretty cool! I love big cities!
Ozgur has a great smile and loves to use it...maybe even more than i do. And that's a lot :) To the other customers at the bar we must look like two teenagers stoned for the first time, cracking each other up every two minutes...
A couple of drinks later Ozgur wants to show me one of the clubs close by, but still having my bags and crap with me I'm more keen to head home first and have a shower. So agreeing to make it quick we taxi it home...
All showered and ready to go, lying on the couch in Ozgur's apartment we have the classic "should we go or should we stay" conversation. Neither of us seem very fussed either way and after a couple of "you make the decision, no you make the decision"'s later we get far too comfortable and the decision is made for us... :)
No comments:
Post a Comment