"Our" Beautiful (squatted) House by the Waterfall! - The story about the traveling band Caspian Caravan and the Journey Over Land to India Part 11

Time to get on to the next chapter in the story from about when I travelled overland to India with a band, funding all our expenses with music. A journey that took 1 year and 8 months, through 32 countries!

Last Episode On The road With The Girls

Tortum Gölü, Turkey

June 2011

In the last episode I left the guys for a bit to go travelling with the Spanish Girls. In this episode we meet up again with the guys. We had looked at the map before splitting up and decided we would meet again at the spot "Tortum Gölü" - gölü means dam, and there was also written there was a şelale, which means waterfall. We didn't know anything about the place, but we would often just look at the map and if there was written something nice like waterfall we would go check it out! This was before smart phones and stuff you know..!

I don't remember exactly how we met up and who found the house. I think the guys (Jeff, Sparrow and Matt) came before us and already found the house. How we found each other I also don't remember, but I remember sitting at the café by the dam, looking at this view, waiting for the others to turn up

Turned out that the Tortum Waterfall is the largest waterfall in Turkey!

The waterfall is fed only from the surplus water from the Dam and thus now functions only for a very short period during the months of May and June when the water level of the lake is exceptionally high. During the other months the bed of the waterfall is almost dry.
Wikipedia

Luckily we were there in June! Solely by change!

We had to cross the bridge that goes right by the waterfall and underneath the rainbow! A magical passage, that made you come out soaked on the other side!

Strangely, even though it turns out that the waterfall is only functioning for such a short time of the year and the fact that it's the largest waterfall in Turkey and it's really beautiful, there were not many tourists or visitors at all! And those there were just stopped at the café and didn't go for walks beyond the waterfall.
So what met us on the other side, somewhere under the rainbow was an incredible beautiful landscape, with small walking paths to little houses. Very fertile, with fresh water springs and the wild river running behind, and almost nobody around!
The guys had found this little "house" which was not really a house at all, just an empty hay shed, with big spaces between the planks of wood, but for us it was the most beautiful little house that we moved into for a bit!

There even was a fresh water spring coming out right under the house, so we had running drinking water!

view

There was a door with a padlock underneath, which of course we didn't touch. But we borrowed the space for a second room :)

We tried to ask around about the house. Of course it's not nice to just be moving in on someone's property. If it's just for a night I usually don't have a problem with it, if you can see the space is not used, but we were so comfy that we were gonna stay at least a few days, so we better ask around!

We ended up meeting the very friendly neighbours and we were welcomed with big open arms! We had to communicate in the sparse Turkish we had picked up along the way, but we made out that it was no problem for us staying at the shed a few days, though we couldn't really figure out if anyone knew who it belonged to..
Trespassing is hardly a thing in Turkey anyway. If you see a stranger on your land, the custom is to invite him in for tea!
Turkey is the most hospitable country I have ever experienced!

Blanca and Gemma helping in the field of our neighbours

music break

And as always invited for a taste of their own honey and youghurt!

the first strawberry!

These neighbours were two old sisters, living together. Never married. They were the sweetest old ladies living together in such a beautiful place and house! I really loved their little tea space with the sweetest little clay oven!

Fatima

Culture exchange! :)

Back at our house with shoes under the roof

Celebrating Sparrow's 25th birthday

The house from the Garden

And this was our back garden waterfall

Other creatures living here too though! (fortunately not in the house) We were so fascinated by this guy!

We went for a little hitchhiking trip and got a ride in the digger of an excavator!

Then one day we finally found the owners of the shed, or they found us - and invited us for tea at their house!

Where we met and played and danced with his whole family!

This was really one of my favorite places we stayed in Turkey. So friendly and warm people! It was so nice to be staying together as the bigger "traveling family" (we were 8 staying together at the house) in such peaceful and beautiful surroundings. I really enjoyed traveling with the Spanish girls, since they were so good at getting getting to know the locals, to communicate and share!

So thank you to all that took part of this trip of the journey!
So much love!

Thank you for stopping by! <3

@frejafri

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