A month ago I felt the strong desire to leave Europe and to travel, alone. I choosed to buy a one way ticket to Turkey because I feel good in this country. I’ve been there four times already and missed the warmth of this country.
I have a friend who lives in Adana, Mümin Karabas, so I went to visit him. Adana is close to the Syrian border, all felt super save. Adana is a crayz , crouwded and youg city. It was all the oposit about what I’ve seen in Turkey so far. We had to driveman hour to reach the cliffs, no walking. It’s all about driving, people are kind a lazy, they don’t see a physical effort as a well beeing for your body.
I spent four days there. I learned something about this other Turkish culture, part of it was to watch the cartoon the bad cat « Kötü Kedi Şerafettin » in the cinema. In turkish language without subtitles, a good experience.
After I left for Datça. I had to see this new paradise of sport climing and I had to see with my proper eyes where my best friend Mike Fuselier had his huge accident.
On the way to there I had my little problems with Pegagus airlines. When you’re stucked at airports and you have to spent hours at a place you didn’t choose, you start to think a lot. At this point I asked myself seriously why I absolutely travelled by myselfs. I felt bad, I was tired and I felt alone. I missed my friens so badly and I felt close to go back home.
Going threw this processus was not easy to me. I had so much time to think about me and the people surrounding me, about my recent situation of life and about the simple happyness.
For the last few months I was builiding my own place in Grenoble. Beeing creative in this way was really a rich thing to me and I felt fullefilled. I lost a lot of interests for climbing ; my mind was complety blown down by the results I got in the construction.
I choosed to leave France because I had to find out how much climbing still meant to me. And for that I had to leave my friends, my family and my daily occupations. I wanted to find out if I just climb because I feel like I have to, or because I still love it.
I wanted to feel if I probably reached the moment when you wanna do something else, starting a new chapter in life. Probably without climbing.
My body also changed a lot over the last couple of months, my interest and prioritys as well. I have no problems to write this down. In my eyes, I reached everything I wanted in climbing. I’m really proud of the things climbing teached to me and about the riche experiences I made.
I climbed in Adana, it was fun, but that’s it. Then I went to Datça, the new perle of Turkey. I arrived by bus, only with my small bag pack, on a Saturday afternoon. I arrived in the middle of the bazar market, what a great welcome. I felt that I arrived somewhere, that my heavy journey to reach Datça had a sense behind.
The lovley Swiss family Nicolat und my Turkish friend Zorbey picked me up by scooter and we drove up to theyr peaceful campground.
It was freezy cold and dry, the nature was outstanding and wild, I felt in love with the place. I directly took a bike and did a ride up to the huge cave where Mike had his 20meter fall to the ground. I crossed tons of olive and alamond trees. I was alone, it was romantic and epic. When I reached the cave, I strange feeling went throw my venes. I imagined the accident, the big drama while he was laying on the ground and I was speecless. Today Mike still has some broken bones in his feets, but he’s alive, more than ever.
We are lucky people. Mike is doing well because he always tried hard to reach his goals. He followed his dreams, he had a lot of positive energy and there was always a shining light at the end of the tunnel.
When you grew up in France or Switzerland or almost all around Europe, you can easely fullefille your dreams or follow your ambitions.
I learned, that in Turkey it’s kind of the opposite. Rules and laws can change from one day to the other. You can’t really construct something because you never know what will happens. Turkish people are lazy in the eyes of a Swiss. I don’t wanna do some analythics or to globalise, but I know now how hard it is for them to reach theyr dreams and to keep a good and positive energy.
Olivier and his wife went to Turkey three years ago. It has always been a dream of them to find a breathtaking cliff and to developpe a new climbing area around. They imported the way to do like they were used to in switzerland and they also had a lot of problems to built something. But they didn’t gave up and they bolted hunderts of new routes by the help of other route setters (a lot of them are french and Turkish). They built a beautiful place to stay, they created a little place paradise for climbers !
My first three days I climbed like hell. I had tu fill up my manquo of climbing and it felt soooo good. The lines are really pure, longue and demanding. It’s all about tufa climbing, all kind of. I was impressed how properly the routes were bolted, how save and accessible the spot is. Big up to the route setters .
After three days of lcimbing I asked myself again if this still is making sens to me. On my fourth day I motivated my friend Mike from Switzerland and Zorbey to have a look on a new huge cave. It tooks us several hours to make our way up there throw bousehs, trees and sharp plants.
I was speecless….I was on the bottom of a huge 150 meter high arch. Pretty, pure, breathtaking.
In the middle of the cave, there is THE line… the line I was always looking for. The queen line…
In two weeks I will go back to Datça with the luggage full of gear and together with Zorbey we will try to bolt this multipitch route. Ground up.
You see, my planlass journey to Turkey brang me to this line. Probably the moment to stop climbing is not here, but putting my own energy and soul in a future line, is defently here.
All the procesuss I went threw the last months makes sens now. I’m looking for more then just the physical effort of climbing. I wanna bold, I wanna create, I wanna put my soul into something which will stays there. And I wanna create something which is accessible to other people. I wanna give, the chapter of taking is over. Let’s move on.
Love life… 😉