The problem with puppies

The problem with puppies is that they love too much. The small puppy ball, barely a foot tall, cute as can be, eyes teeth paws and all, found us again as we left Cirali. The three of us had met the day before in a dirt street chewed up by its impending evolution to pavement, and brightened each others’ days in the dust with scratches behind ears, tiny teeth grins, and irrepressible laughter. We’d parted as friends, and were reunited as the same.

But there was a problem. Schooled by our first episode on the Lycian Way, apprehensive in our minds and penitent in the soles, we were eager to begin the day’s estimated eight hours of walking, so could offer no more than a quick greeting.

The problem with puppies, is that they love too much. Quick greetings are not in their manuals. We asked him to stay, but he followed us across the bridge. We gestured him back, but he pattered along after us toward the trail. We earnestly entreated him to return, but his oversized paws paced us on the path that took us around the riverbend.

Trekking town to town with Max was one thing. He was a grown canine, clearly competent in the alleyways of the world. Letting a puppy trick itself into the wilderness was a whole different story. We apologized, explained, and made ourselves gruff. Tough love. The end of Harry and the Hendersons made an impression on both our childhoods, and here we were. And remember that time Marty Stouffer had to drive away his cub? That broke my heart in a way that has never been fixed.

All around the world, the language of humans and dogs includes the vocabulary of stooping to pick up a rock. Do that, almost anywhere, and the dog will back away, familiar with thrown stones. Not this time. Thank god this puppy hasn’t learned that lesson. But it sure would have been handy.

My brother thought he'd talked some sense into
the little guy, but no. Here he comes again.

We were at a loss as to how to leave our four legs of friendship...until we got to the ladder. Paws don’t work well on those. I don’t know how Stouffer did it, because a day after meeting this sweet-eyed lad, it was already agony to walk away from where those eyes watched us without comprehension, and hear the mournful whines that carried for a surprisingly long time. Go home, puppy! The problem with puppies, is that they’re lovable too much.

Twas the eyes, the gut, and the ancient dead people that made me stay.

My biggest blister was filled taut with juicy intimations of sharp fluids bursting and leaking, gushing through skin torn away from exposed nerves. But we would have gone on.

Knees like battered bocce balls (strung together, tenuous and tight, with rubber bands from the faded newspaper that lay in the garden all weekend), were creaky enough to ask for a day off hiking the Lycian Way. But we would have gone on.

My shoulder, curled forward in Quasimodo consequence of my messenger bag, kindly requested a respite...but we would have gone on. Physical complaints were insufficient to stop our striding soles, but there is more to a man than his component parts.

Okay, it was basically the component parts. But chief among them: the eyes, stomach...and perhaps one other part, too tender to mention yet. (And forgive me any inadvertent implications of genderism; we all know women are more hardcore than men anyway, I just happen to be of the XY cast.)

One of the realizations that enlightened us to being lost, up in the mountains, without much food, no water, no supplies, not even warm clothes as the cold came on and the sun went down (read that story here), was the epiphany that the epic peak that had been observing us all day was indeed Mount Olympos. We imagined the gods chuckling at our plight, perhaps betting on our odds of survival. Ares thought we wouldn’t realize our predicament until it was too late, the cynical bastard.

The Prenses Svetlana, forgotten but not gone

But with Olympus the mountain comes Olympos the ruined city, a purported 30 minute walk from where we slept. It was actually more like 10. So we self-gifted a day for the expanses of meat and bread which Turkey provides on its plates, and poking lenses at the flaking paint on semi-forgotten Russian barques. (I know, a barque is actually a grand vessel with at least three masts, but it’s such a fun word I’d rather misuse it here than never get to play with it at all. Again, forgive me.) (And I can only infer its Russianity from the name, so if it’s an unfair assumption, you’ll have to forgive that too.)

The necropolis in Olympos

As the day checked its 401(k) to see if it was ready to retire, I explored what’s left of one of the six great cities that formed the core of the Lycian League. Olympos controlled the sea routes between Syria and Rome, got rich, and ditched the League to join a bunch of pirates under chief Zenicetes. The life of a pirate is always one of comfort and ease, and they all lived happily ever after. Until the Romans showed up, razed the city to the ground, and Zenicetes had to go light himself on fire. Harsh butt.

After that, the locals played a spirited game of “Who’s going to sack us next?” for a few centuries, until the river silted up and they got tired of being stabbed. But they left behind some nifty things. Ancient baths, a necropolis city of tombs spanning centuries and civilizations, and a 26 foot temple doorway which stands over a fallen pedestal that once bore a statue of Marcus Aurelius, in a wall that encloses only memory and grasshoppers.

Something tells me I have more to
say about this fellow...

All those stone memories brought a smile to my brain, but it was the puppy that made me laugh. What is it with Turkey and dogs? The floppy footed lad found us in a dusty street where workmen carried pipes and flagstones. You’d think no one had ever loved on him before.

But we had nothing better to do that day than pet a puddle of puppy in the Turkish sunshine. But then again, who does?

Lycian Way Day One, the part where we almost died

The beach was so beautiful, so open and warm, I had no idea that within a few hours I’d be calculating the risk of death by exposure, freezing to death in the mountains versus self-immolation by cuddling open flames.

(Read the first part of Day One on the Lycian Way, here)

Our impromptu guide dog, Max, had led us across five hours of pine forested mountain slopes to reach this stretch of sand, and the world seemed perfect. Soaked in calm, we found the path off the beach, straight ahead and clearly marked with the red and white waymarkers of the Lycian Way.

A sunbaked moonscape of loose rocks added to the day’s toll on our aching feet with its hard edges and rolling ankles, but it was a soft and satisfied late afternoon without space for complaint. We passed a waymarker or two and continued up the trail. Up, up, and up the trail. Climbing without surcease. We put our heads down and stepped, past purple stone mined for chrome, over washouts and rockslides, steps slowing. Don’t think, because thoughts will contain complaints. Luckily my brother wasn’t quite as committed to this.

(Read the rest on the vagabondurges.com post, here.)

Turkeylurky goodness, and the Lycian Way

Falling behind on my links here, but there are two new Turkey posts on vagabondurges.com, including part one of our beginning of the Lycian Way... Unless you hate dogs. Then nevermind.