Californian Matt Krause will walk 2,100 kilometers (1,305 miles) from Turkey’s Aegean coast to its border with Iran to not only become better acquainted with the landscape, culture and people but also to share what he finds with the world.
From lush fig orchards to craggy mountain ranges and bustling metropolises to rural villages, Krause’s solo journey will lead him across the manifold landscapes of Turkey.
But Krause is neither a stranger to risk nor the country he will venture through for the next several months.
In 2003, Krause quit his comfortable office job in Seattle to pursue a Turkish woman (whom he soon thereafter married) he had met on an airplane to İstanbul. Though adjusting to life in Turkey proved challenging and his marriage eventually fell apart, he left six years later with a deeper understanding of and love for the country and its people.
“I originally went to Turkey for her [his ex-wife], but even though my relationship with her is over, my relationship with Turkey is not,” Krause shared in his book “A Tight Wide-open Space,” which was published last year.
After returning to his job in Seattle, Krause said colleagues and friends peppered him with question after question about “political, cultural and every other sort of difference you can imagine between Turkey and the United States.”
But Krause said Turkey taught him people are people.
“Take that mom right there,” he said, nodding to a headscarved woman who was gently nudging her children out of the cafe where we were chatting. “Many people back home would ask about her political beliefs, whether she loves or hates America. But I guarantee she doesn’t spend even three minutes a day thinking about that.”
“She loves her kids just like parents in Los Angeles love their kids,” Matt said as we watched her fix the small boy’s askew graphic tee. “Sure, many things are different, like culture and language. But we get way too caught up on these differences, and that is what stops us from really connecting with people around the world.”
That is why Krause, who said he wants to do something in life that has meaning, has once again decided to trade in his mundane desk job for an adventure in Turkey.
“This walk is my way of putting my life where my mouth is,” said Krause, who will put his belief in people to the test in Turkey. “If I want what I say to have value and not be the hollow sentiments of theories from living in Turkey a decade ago, I need to respond to these questions with action. So I’m walking across Turkey.”
Matt has no idea where he will rest his head for the
next several hundred nights he spends in Turkey.
“As of February this year, that was my biggest fear — where I am going to stay my first night in Kuşadası?” Krause admitted. “It kept me up at night.”
When Krause sought the advice of a fellow adventurer living in Turkey, she told him, “Just knock on the first door you come to and get it over with.”
Krause plans to sleep on the living room floors and in the yards and farms of locals, the stories and traditions of whom he wants to document and tell the world about via his blog www.heathenpilgrim.com along his journey.
And when Krause finds himself between sparsely populated villages or in the thick of some precipitous forest, he will simply sleep beneath the stars, or beside the road if there is no conveniently romantic field or pasture.
“Open skies — that is what I am most excited about,” said Krause, who would conjure up images of Turkey’s countryside on those nights he had trouble sleeping. “I would imagine being in the middle of nowhere on the Central Anatolia plateau at night. Big skies. Stars. Boom.”
While Krause’s lodging plans are essentially nonexistent, his cross-country route is meticulously divided into 11-kilometer increments and “lay-over cities” to allow for downtime. “After all, the point is to get to know the locals,” he said. Krause, who spent 10 months preparing for what he calls “Turkey, Round 2,” has also broken down his journey by climate and elevation and has included narrative descriptions of each leg of his journey on his blog.
But trekking across Turkey is not enough for Krause. Once he has completed his adventure, he plans to write at least two books — one about the execution and logistics of his walk and the other about the people and places he encountered.
Krause estimates the trip across Turkey will cost him $10,000, $6,000 of which will come from his own pocket. He hopes to raise the rest of the money through Kickstarter, an online funding platform for creative projects. As of Aug. 23, Krause had raised 54 percent of his goal with 37 days remaining.
Open invitation
Krause will embark on his cross-country walk on Sept. 1 from the ferry docks of the Aegean port town of Kuşadası. And everyone is invited.
“You can walk however much you want. You can walk 10 minutes, or you can walk three hours,” Krause writes on his blog. “Hell, if you want to keep going and walk across the entire country with me, that’s fine too.”
For those interested in joining Krause on Saturday morning, he will leave the ferry docks at precisely 8 a.m.
“Please show up having already eaten breakfast — at 8:00 a.m., I’m going to start walking across Turkey, not across the street to sit down for breakfast,” Krause cheekily adds.
Krause’s journey will take him east through Konya, known for its religious significance, southeast to Adana, near the Mediterranean Sea, and then east again to Şanlıurfa, known for its open plains and unique cuisine. From Şanlıurfa, Krause will pass through Diyarbakır and wrap up his adventure in the eastern province of Van.
Warm-up for Iran
But Turkey is just a warm-up for Krause’s next goal: to walk across Iran.
Most people would either gasp or scoff at the idea of an American traveling to Iran, which is precisely why Krause wants to do it. “Nearly 1,000 tourists with proper visas visit Iran every year without any fuss,” Krause said. “But everyone focuses on the few who have been detained in the past for illegally crossing the border.”
After taking a few months off to finish his books on walking across Turkey, Krause would like to begin his journey through Iran in September 2013.
Source Zaman.
