Black Sea Day 5: Giresun Continued

Another Use for Our Saucepan

We woke up to a flock of geese enjoying the morning. They are per usual incredibly loud but incredibly cute. Usually, we wake up to dogs or cats outside our tent so it was a change. We only know certain animal words in Turkish and after this day and the next, kazlar (geese) entered our vocabulary. To this point, we had köpek (dog), kedi (cat), balık (fish), and aslan (lion). Aslan thanks to Duolingo which does not always teach the most useful things. Nevertheless, Selim took a swim and bathed after with our saucepan in what he called the waterfall next to our tent. I wouldn’t necessarily use that word but it sure paints a pretty picture.

Kazlar (geese) playing in the deniz (sea)

Me doling out the precious spoonfuls of Nescafé

*Saha* Selim. In Tunisia, after someone takes a shower you tell them *saha* and they respond *yatik saha. Saha* means “health” and *yatik saha* is giving the person health in response. It’s Tunisian Arabic. And yes, this is the waterfall.

Me playing photog. Selim told me where to stand.

This is the extent of what I have to port. A French solo female cyclist later told me I was lucky my bike wasn’t too “chargé.” True.

We had a full day to cycle thanks to no other obligations! Mid-morning, we took an Ayran break. Speaking of which, we just got further confirmation this morning that Ayran is widely available and not expensive in Germany. I’m not sure about any other countries. The closest equivalent that I’ve had in the States is plain kefir.

This is why you see mostly pictures of me

Finding and Giving Coins

For lunch, we stopped in a town to buy some fresh, wild mushrooms. I think they were around 20 TL for a plate. We bought some cream and parmesan from a supermarket, found a park, and made some pasta. After lunch, Selim cleaned up our dishes using water from a nearby çesme (fountain). While, I was waiting, I noticed there was a lot of trash in the çocuk park (playground) and decided to clean up. I found a five lira bill! Yes! My biggest find in Turkey so far. Before then, I had found 5, 10, and 25 kurus coins (less than 1 TL) on side of the road but never a bill. Actually I got so excited in finding coins that at one point, I decided to return the favor. After a month I had come to terms that it wasn’t very useful to continue carrying 2 pounds of random foreign currency probably worth no more than $4 USD in Jordanian Dinar, Egyptian Pounds, Moroccan Dirham, Swiss Francs, Shekels, etc. I even tried to exchange it at one point and the man laughed at me when I showed him my bag of different shapes and sizes of coins. Anyway, I said OK we will give it back to Turkey. So I started dropping it along the road especially near places I thought people would find it easily. At one point, Selim joined me (there was really a lot of coins) and I passed a couple of teenagers hitchhiking. I put it in their hands and they looked at it as if they couldn’t believe what happened. Selim passed them behind me and did the same thing. They said Alhamdulillah (praise be to God). I hope they weren’t disappointed that it wasn’t Lira. I figured it might be interesting for people to find the different coins and then maybe do some research into where they came from. That was at least my idea. An educational mission. I know I would enjoy finding a coin from a random country.

I saw these mushrooms the day before in Giresun which gave me the idea.

Final product, bowtie pasta (makarna) with a mushroom cream sauce

I felt pretty accomplished because Selim enjoyed it though he’s not used to eating mushrooms.

Çay in a çay evi (tea house) after lunch. Time for us to charge our devices. There was also a café associated with the mosque right across from the park, as well, but we skipped that one as we were both wearing shorts.

Jellyfish and Plastic Bags

At some point during the day, we passed a pier and decided to take a gander. We looked over the side and saw sooo many jellyfish. I had never seen jellyfish swimming like that, only washed up on the shore. It was pretty neat! But then Selim told me something that rendered the moment a bit depressing. Not on purpose, he just thought of it. But if I became a bit more obsessed with plastic bags later, it started here. Maybe you have guessed the connection but if not, I will explain. Evidently, plastic bags in the ocean/sea look just like jellyfish. News to me but sea turtles eat jellyfish so when they see plastic bags, they may think it’s a delicious meal and ingest it. Unfortunately, that is not good for the sea turtle and may kill them. 🙁

Post-lunch cycling. I took this picture!

Para Yok (No Money)

After a full day, it was time to find a camping spot. We were along a road and to the right there was some property then the beach. We stopped to have a look but spotted a chain walling off a driveway that made it look like a private beach. A man came towards us and asked us if we were looking for a camping spot. He was the owner of a restaurant right along the beach. It turned out, it wasn’t his property but his friend’s who he assured us was very friendly. He assured us “para yok” meaning no problem, we could stay there for free. He took the time to tell us where the bathroom was and where we could find fresh water. Amazing! One of the prettiest campsites we stayed at. There was even a swing. Icing on the cake is that we would have a nice conversation and çay with the couple who lived there the next morning. I’ll write about Ahmet Abhi and Aynur in the next post.

After settling in, I headed to the supermarket to grab something. Turns out Google Maps didn’t have the correct location for the store. A kid around 13-years-old must have noticed I was cycling in circles and asked me on Google Translate “do you want to ride bikes together?” It was very sweet. He ended up showing me where the grocery store was.

I got back to our campsite. Another day in the books!