The Life of a Vagrant Pharmacist: Turkey Part 5

After arriving back at JoSiTo camp on about March 23rd, I decided to ask about a job in exchange for free food and accommodation. This decision was not based on the fact that I was low on money. I have never worked in a kitchen/restaurant, and I have never worked in exchange for something besides money, so I decided to give it a shot. The biggest drawback for me was that I would be committed to a location for the next three weeks. Three weeks may not seem like long to many of you, but travel time can be precious time, and I had already been in Turkey for a little over a month. After talking with Tobias, the owner, I decided I would help out since Easter holiday was approaching and the camp census would be up for a couple weeks.

My job would be a little of everything...preparing food and drinks, serving, collecting dirty dishes, washing the dishes when the permanent hire was off work on Thursday's, and taking orders from the front bar where the food and drinks were ordered. Also worth noting was that I made my first ever cappuccino as well as cup of coffee! It took all of one shift to get everything down. (If I learn something that quick, there's a decent chance I will get bored with it that quick as well.) The first day was quite entertaining and consisted of a soap fight and dancing in the kitchen...no complaints at that point! My shifts are every other day, and on working days the hours are 7am-11am and 6:15pm-11pm usually, leaving plenty of time for climbing during the day...which is generally what I did unless it was a rest day.

With Berger and Thiebout in the kitchet at JoSiTo.

I realized a week into work that I left my scuba diving certification card in the US and decided to have Mom mail it to me. The expected arrival time was five days...except it had to go through customs which wasn't always time sensitive, and the mail man only comes to camp once a week on Wednesday's. Approximately seven days after it left the US, it was Wednesday, and there was no package for me. And as predicted...at that point I was starting to go just a bit stir crazy at JoSiTo. It was a little over two weeks since I started and I had the rest of the week to go.

I usually thought of JoSiTo as "JoSiTo Island" because that is exactly what it felt like after being there off and on for nearly two months. Everyone knew everyone's business. In fact, we joked about starting a JoSiTo Gossip Column to print once a week...to be written by Tenzin since he was worse than any girl about knowing everyone's business. Saturday nights there was always a party at one of the other climbing camps that is just a short walk through the woods. (These usually produced a source of gossip for Tenzin to feed over on Sunday's.) The owner of this camp broke his leg two months ago due to his girlfriend forgetting to tie a knot in the end of the rope and the route being too long for his rope. I'm not sure how far he fell, maybe 15 feet, but it landed him a broken leg and some interesting new dance moves (all one-legged). Also worth noting for any climber reading, a week after having his cast was removed, he climbed an 8a+ (5.13a) in his running shoes...incredibly impressive in my book considering I can't climb anywhere near this...anytime.

My second to last Sunday we had a group beach day. Five of us took a car, Nasim (who has been at JoSiTo three years but doesn't always give the best directions) in shotgun telling Thiebout to go right or left at the last minute, and Edward (the American who is also always right) contradicting her directions from the back seat. I had a tiny hangover and it was about more than I could manage. When we arrived at the beach I took the antisocial route and listened to my headphones and napped part of the day. With a group of nine, decision making is impossible. Finally around 6pm of no one coming to agreement on a movie or tea somewhere, I notified everyone I was getting on the bus and anyone could come that wanted to join me. :-) It was a good decision...I was in dire need of some alone time and the group that stayed with the car didn't arrive home until at least 9pm. I had officially reached a point of needing to steer clear of the island life. I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday being anti-social and reading in the woods and heading to town to the beach. I offloaded a box snowboarding clothes to the post office to be mailed home too. It's amazing though that my pack doesn't seem to get any lighter or smaller. My packing skills must have just been extremely efficient when I packed in the US due to the thought that I needed as much as possible.

My last days of work passed quickly. I regained my social abilities and went climbing the last few days there. Nasim and I had some much needed girl chat at the crag on my first day back at climbing and it gave me extra travel and climbing motivation. And it was a good decision to climb those days because I surprised myself with some extra power that was gained after two months of off and on climbing. This is only going to make sense to climbers, but I have managed to onsite three 7a's which is quite ironic because I've only sent three 7a's in my life. I decided I should jump on an over hanging 7b that was recommended called Greek Gift. It was an incredibly pumpy line for me with pre-hung draws and a bolted line perfect for taking whippers...of which I took a huge one while pulling rope up to clip a draw and slipping off of the subpar tufa horn I was hanging onto. It was a long, adrenalin spiking route and I worked up most of it but was pumped and came down right before the last roof I needed to pull. When I got to the bottom and was changing shoes, I kid you not, I was almost in tears from the adrenalin and excitement of climbing. :-) It was a great feeling.

My last day in JoSiTo, I rounded up some Turkish assistance and booked a bus to Bodrum using Mustafa's credit card and Mumtaz's Turkish to English translating. Then Thiebout and I hitch hiked into town to the market. A truck stopped to pick us up with a Romanian climbing couple driving. We chit chatted on the drive down. They were from Brasov, in Transylvania, where I just was two months before. I told them I was headed to Kalymnos that night. They proceeded to inform me that they had friends at JoSiTo, also Romanian, who were leaving for Kalymnos that night and had a VW with Romanian plates and I should find them and see about a ride. When I got back to camp I immediately ran into them as they were about to get in their car. They offered for me to ride with them to Bodrum and then we could catch the ferry together to the island of Kos and then Kalymnos. It sounded like a brilliant plan so I jumped in the shower and packed my bags in preparation for about a 10pm departure. I enlisted the help of another Turkish guy at camp and he called and cancelled my bus ticket for me.

It was sad to say good-bye to all the friends I made but I am certain I will see quite a few of them again in the future!