New Music is an exercise in discovery. Once a week, I select an album out of my Bandcamp deep dives and write a few paragraphs about it.The only rule: it has to be something recent, released within 90 days before publishing date.

https://lavidaesunmus.bandcamp.com/album/think-of-the-lie

Nostalgia will be the first word that comes to your mind when listening to Home Front. The Canadian group has no qualms about listing their obvious influences (The Cure, New Order, Suicide, Echo & the Bunnymen), which infers confidence while letting you know there won't be many surprises.

Is writing music with a definite timestamp a self-aggrandising exercise? Perhaps, but when said music delivers both on the songwriting and the emulative fronts, one must acknowledge life's simple pleasures.

Home Front's lean debut, Think Of The Lie, doesn't hide behind any fictive reprogramming of its time machine. It’s classic post-punk and synthpop that will put a smile on the faces of both niche audiences and the occasional listener looking for a top-quality ride back in time.

Track to play: "Flaw In The Design"

Think Of The Lie by Home Front* *Released by La Vida Es Un Mus 2021, United Kingdom

New Music is an exercise in discovery. Once a week, I select an album out of my Bandcamp deep dives and write a few paragraphs about it.The only rule: it has to be something recent, released within 90 days before publishing date.

https://n5md.bandcamp.com/album/from-stasis

Stasis — a period or state of inactivity or equilibrium.

Considering Dryft’s more than half-decade hiatus, From Stasis seems like an appropriate release title while also carrying a message of continuity from an artist that was never motionless in his other pursuits.

With this latest output, n5MD label owner Mike Cadoo awakens an old alias and reminds everyone that industrial music can be a vehicle for emotional release. In between the expected crushing sounds and moments of shimmering cold light, Dryft also creates remarkable IDM moments of danceable syncopation.

But From Stasis’ real allure is Cadoo world-building dreamy crescendos and moments of longing that transport into the cockpit of a spaceship, entering an event horizon of expectation and infinite possibilities.

Track to play: “Contour”

From Stasis by Dryft Released by n5MD Records 2021, United States

That’s not what this piece is about. Or maybe it is, in a way.

If you’re looking for my Best of 2021 list, go ahead and listen to the latest The Juice Show, or order the newest issue of The Juice Zine. Both contain most of the releases that caught my undivided attention this year.

What I aim to present below are nine records that I overlooked. They either didn’t enter my radar when I was writing/talking about music throughout the year or if they did, they didn’t make the cut for a multitude of reasons.

I guess you could call this an honorary mentions list. However, I find that reductive, as some of these albums hold their ground against some of the artists who stole the show this year. And that’s precisely why I would hate for them to be omitted from anyone who follows my writing.

To help with navigation and individual preferences, I’m splitting things into genres.

For the ambient/electronic fans:

https://cortini.bandcamp.com/album/scuro-chiaro

After a move to Portugal, Italian artist Alessandro Cortini, of Nine Inch Nails fame, seems to find remnants of solace in SCURO CHIARO.

Drone with more guitars, where melody counterbalances and sometimes even overpowers the underlying tension.

Track to play: “CHIAROSCURO”

https://a-ton.bandcamp.com/album/dialogue

Built on the premise of music as a conversation, *DIALOGUE *sees Luke Slater go back and forth with a wide range of artists, creating long-form compositions that owe a lot to improvisation.

Ambient as a genre doesn’t always lend itself to musical projects of this sort, so definitely, this project caught me off guard.

Track to play: “DIALOGUE#1”

For the alt/indie lovers:

https://sonlux.bandcamp.com/album/tomorrows-iii

The ending chapter of a trilogy album, *Tomorrows III *shows Son Lux perhaps at their most deconstructive.

Still, this doesn’t obscure the grandiosity of the trio’s compositions or the capacity they have to explore new landscapes.

Track to play: “Come Recover”

https://hekamusic.bandcamp.com/album/a-ep

heka elevates her sound in *(a) EP, *a four-track intimate journey that borders on a psychedelic carrousel of melting faces and memories.

As the London-based artist’s trademark lo-fi aesthetic gets more refined, so does the density of her music and her voice’s very welcomed newfound tonalities.

Track to play: “(a) dab”

For the hip-hop/rnb crowd:

https://ar-contour.bandcamp.com/album/love-suite

Contour is a master at creating melancholic and seducing ambience.

His Weight EP was a brief introduction to South Carolina’s artist pensive soul, Love Suite expands on the beats and the maturity of his minimal production and writing.

Track to play: “Labor Of (feat. Blue November)”

https://mckinleydixon.bandcamp.com/album/for-my-mama-and-anyone-who-look-like-her

Virginia’s McKinley Dixon decimates drumless tracks with the same incisiveness and relentlessness that he deep dives into jazzier beats, reminding me of why I fell in love with records such as To Pimp a Butterfly.

Comparisons aside, this might be 2021’s most underrated hip-hop album.

Track to play: “make a poet Black”

For the metal/punk headbangers:

https://staticshockrecords.bandcamp.com/album/paisaje-interior

Colombian reality crash-landing in Australia via Paisaje Interior, a record that does everything a good hardcore album should do: takes a stance against injustice and delivers a belligerent amount of grooves to make you go wild in the pit.

Mundo Primitivo created a sonic cocktail molotov, while also using album sales to help those in need.

Track to play: “La Fuerza”

https://wormwitch.bandcamp.com/album/wolf-hex

Although I usually like my black metal raw, cathartic and atmospheric, Wormwitch convinced me to lighten up and sip from their multi-layered WOLF HEX melting pot.

With no need to go into long-form songwriting, the Vancouver band introduced varied influences into their music without forgetting that guitar riffs are at the heart of a great metal song.

Track to play: “The Wolves of Ossory”

For the jazzheads:

https://ejthackray.bandcamp.com/album/yellow

Confession time: I forgot to include this one on my best-of list! So here’s me redeeming myself by praising Emma-Jean Thackray’s colourful and free-spirited album *Yellow *as THE jazz record you should not miss.

As a longtime admirer of UK Jazz, I must say Thackray’s “dancefloor-angled take on jazz” is exactly what the London scene was missing. Her debut is fusion jazz at its best, striking a perfect balance between spiritual and fun.

Track to play: “Venus”

It came to me upon attempting to slide the phone into my shorts’ back pocket.

Something was blocking it: the cycling gloves. The ones I had used for the bouldering earlier that day, in Ihlara. Bouldering, rock climbing…I had a rope!

A thin nylon rope, 5 metres long, that my mum got me from the drugstore months earlier. I used it to hang my wet clothes whenever I stayed in places where there were no options other than to do a hand wash in the bathroom’s sink.

With a crucial gentleness in my movements, I took the tablet and small bits out of the ripped tote bag and slid them into the rucksack. After, I tied the groceries bag to the sack and fastened the straps around it.

Lastly, I tied one end of the rope to the rucksack’s top handle and the other end to my waist bag. The most critical knots I ever tied in my life.

With gloves over my hands, I rolled my body to face the ravine’s shoulder on my right and kneeled. I felt the tuff-made surface. It was soft enough, as expected. I clenched my fists.

The first punch was thrown in fear. It didn’t do much.

The second one managed to dig a small cavity. I dug it a bit deeper with my fingers. The tuff broke into gravel much easier than I imagined. Digging a hole large and deep enough took no longer than a minute.

Another couple of punches, lunged at short distance, reaching up. Another hole.

Just a bit higher up. A hole just enough to fit the tip of the shoe, that’s all.

I created a ladder. A mere four holes, going up half the rock wall.

With my left foot tucked in the lowest cavity, I lunged my right foot up the ravine to give me enough balance for the climb. The shoulder wasn’t more than a couple of metres high, but it would require serious grip.

I grabbed the top holes with my hands, and slowly moved my right foot to the middle one, which would be my primary lifting mechanism.

It was now or never. Letting go meant tumbling down the ravine, possibly off the cliff.

Hold on, don’t let go. DO NOT LET GO.

I could feel the inside of the cavities with the tips of my shoes, they were steady. Thrusting myself up, I reached for the ledge with my left hand. I felt my right foot sliding. There wasn’t enough depth to hold my full body weight on one hole, so I had to act swiftly.

I grabbed the ledge. My right hand followed immediately. I pulled myself up, my head just above the rock. I held on and frantically felt the wall with my feet, trying to find the top holes to propel the rest of my body up.

I’m up. I’m up.

My body was lying on the side of the ravine’s shoulder. My muscles were taut. My whole body ached. The whole affair took less than five minutes, but it felt as if I had just climbed for hours. Every part of me wanted to lay there and just calm down, but the clock was against me.

I got on my knees and turned around. There was a small boulder just a few steps ahead, big enough to stand on. The pull on my waist was felt as soon as I got up.

The bags.

The rope tied to my waist bag was on full stretch. The little leeway it had provided for me to get up on the side of the ravine was over, and I couldn’t risk pulling my stuff up while standing on tuff or gravel, as the movements could make me slide down.

Crouching and lightly sliding the rope along the edge of the rock wall, I managed to get one foot on top of the boulder and stand up. That would have to do.

Nylon is a terrible material for a rope, and I was about to find that out the hard way.

With the rope still tied to my waist bag, I firmly held the end which weighed me down and pulled as much as I could. The rope came up to my chest. I alleviated the grip on my right hand, to reach for another chunk. I couldn’t hold it.

The rope started sliding back down through my left hand. On a last desperate attempt, I grasped harder with my fingers. It hurt.

Not enough. The rope slithered through my hands. I felt the rucksack hitting the side of the rock wall. I could feel the heat on my palms, from the friction.

Nylon, a terrible material. The only things standing between my hands and a nasty rope burn were my old cycling gloves, covered in the same dust as the rest of my body.

Letting the bags behind was not an option.

I grabbed the rope again and pulled, this time all the way up to my face. There was only one thing left to do.

I bit the nearest end of the rope, holding it firmly between my teeth. As I eased the grip on my right hand, I felt the weight pulling my neck down. The pain of holding a big part of 15 odd kilos in between my teeth shot all the way down my spine. I wasn’t going to be able to keep the position for long.

I reached further down and grabbed another chunk of the rope, pulling it towards my mouth.

Pull. Bite. Hold. Reach. Grab. Repeat. As fast as possible, before the pain was too unbearable.

I could see the top handle of the rucksack, the last bit of rope tied on it. Pull.

It didn’t move. It was stuck. If I let go of the bit of string between my teeth, it would all tumble down to the bottom of the ravine, worst-case scenario making me lose my balance and slide off the edge of the cliff.

I had to loosen it a bit, wiggle it around whatever was trapping the bags.I loosened the grip on my left hand and swayed side to side with my body. This meant the full weight was now being held by my teeth and my neck muscles.

It’s too much, I’m going to let go.

Grabbing the rope again with both hands, I pulled as hard as I could. There was less resistance. I could see the top handle again.

In a desperate effort, I held the full weight in between my teeth, bent my back forward and, just for a split second, reached down with both hands at the same time, which allowed me to grip a generous amount of rope. It felt heavier than before, it was stuck somewhere for sure, but at that point, all I had left was pulling. And so I did.

The grey and brown mass that suddenly sprung onto the top of the ledge put a nervous smile on my face.

It’s done.

I pulled the rest of the rope and grabbed the backpack. The plastic shopping bag was gone. The rest was roughened up and scratched but no severe visible damage.

I grabbed my phone and sent a one-liner text to my friends saying everything was ok, I was out of danger. It was a lie, but my chances were better now, and at that instant, I realised they’d probably panic if they read the first message alone.

With no time to spare, I untied the rope on both ends, tucked it in my waist bag, threw the rucksack on my back and looked up. There were a few boulders up ahead big enough to hold my weight and just when the rocks formed another wall too steep for me to climb, next to it, back on the ravine, was the fallen pine tree.

I hiked my way up, gauging every step, making sure there were no loose boulders or shallow tuff to send me back down. When I got next to the pine tree, I jumped down and got on top of it. I was back inside the ravine but with a completely different agenda. The same branches that seemed to entrap me on my way down now became steps of a ladder to bring me back up.

I moved swiftly. I felt reinvigorated and alert, almost as if going up was easier. Incredible what adrenaline does to your body and mind when survival mode kicks in.

I got to the top. Standing in the same spot where earlier I had assessed the risk of the descent, I told myself off for a few seconds, turned around and started to stride.

The dusk was fully settled, there was no time left to walk back the same way, I would get lost in the sand racing tracks or worse, trip over a rock and injure myself. I needed a fast way down.

At this point, fatigue clouded most of my actions, so my memory is not precise. All I remember is walking around for a couple of minutes, looking down, until almost miraculously I saw a new ravine. This one was shorter, and I could finally see a direct connection to the ground below.

With no sunlight left and covered in dust from head to toe, I threw myself at it, quite literally.

I started jogging down the ravine, and when the floor became unstable, I just let the tuff break and carry me down. I was sliding down a ravine again, but this time in control. I still had the gloves on so I used my palms to stop the descent, the same way a downhill skateboarder uses his special gloves on the tarmac.

Coming to a full stop near the end, I got back up and walked the last few metres to the valley’s ground.

I took a deep breath. Those first few steps on solid, horizontal ground felt immeasurable. I was Armstrong, taking a giant step, not for Humanity but for my peace of mind. Even breathing felt otherworldly, as if oxygen itself was this inexplicable force, invading my lungs in its purest form, making me feel as alive as ever.

I searched the rucksack for my headlamp. It was nighttime now, and I had to find a cave to rest my bones.

Absence of light always gives things a completely different aura. The wind was now blowing harder, and the trees — the same ones I had seen from the edge of the cliff earlier — were restless. I ignored the initial haunting feeling this gave me and kept moving towards the first carved house I could see.

Looking around, 360 degrees, my eyes scrutinising every rocky chimney that sprung from the ground. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for. The answer to the question I didn’t want to ask was already slowly crawling under my skin.

A few minutes later I came across a hoodoo house that seemed fit for purpose. I went inside. It had several divisions and an upper floor, all with their own window-shaped holes carved along the rock…this created a lot of draft and all sorts of swooping noises. The first thing that popped in my mind was the Blair Witch house.

The floor was sandy and didn’t look very comfortable, and ultimately there was no real door or anything stopping wild animals or bugs from getting to me during the night. I could try to access the upper floor, but I had already explored similar carved hoodoos and knew the steps would be either blocked or broken to stop people from going up.

I can’t sleep here. This is creepy. It feels wrong. And I don’t even have water.

This was such a stupid idea to begin with. What was I thinking?

At last, a reckoning. I came to terms with the circumstances, and accepted the only one thing left to do: walk back to Göreme.

And so I turned my back on the Rose Valley, using the visual map I had in my head, from hours earlier on top of the hill, as guidance. I switched off my headlamp to avoid attracting attention to my walk.

The clear night sky, with all its stars and round-shaped moon, was now my only sources of visibility. Everything looked grey now, almost pale, under a dark blue aura. I thought about the multicoloured spectacle I had witnessed earlier. It was a stark contrast.

I eventually found the road. Seeing the town lights from afar gave me hope, but the whole walk back into Göreme lasted a good two hours.

I was severely dehydrated, starving, and grey from head to toe. Dirt and dust continually found their way into my eyes and mouth. Several bruises and cuts covered my arms and legs and painful soreness affected most of my muscles. Had to stop several times either because of cramps or to alleviate the weight from the rucksack — the pressure of the straps over my shoulders felt like rubbing salt on open wounds.

There was an overall sensation of desperation progressively weighing on me at each step.

But I made it. I walked inside the first nice-looking hotel I could find in the centre of Göreme, ironically annexed to this gigantic hoodoo. It was pleasantly illuminated from outside, and I could tell they had a rooftop veranda for me to relax on the next morning.

As I stepped in and walked across to the reception counter, I looked inside my wallet: I had eight liras left. This was surely not a cheap place, that much money wouldn’t get me far.

Behind the counter, a young Turkish man greeted me with a friendly face but a look of confusion.

My appearance left very little to wonder: I had been through hell and back, and there was no point in asking me about it.

I asked if they had any rooms available. He nodded in accordance and asked for how many nights.

“One night only.”

He pointed me to the mezzanine that overlooked the hotel lounge, the room would be on the first floor, and asked if that was ok. Breakfast was included.

“I don’t have much cash on me. Do you take visa?”

He nodded favourably, went around the desk and asked if I’d like for him to carry the dirty bag up. I politely declined.

While he led me up the stairs, I asked about checking in procedures and payment. He looked back at me, with a smile on his face.

“Don’t worry. We do that tomorrow.”

From time to time, when I’m having a tough day during my travels, I remind myself of that smile and the relief it brought me, along with the feeling of being safe.

A genuine smile is all you need for good fortune.

I wrote this travel memoir as a thank you note to the people of Turkey, who welcomed me with open arms, drove me across states, put food in my belly and sheltered me from the night.

May their smiles guide others into safe journeys.

Previous part:

https://mirror.xyz/0x778b5DeBb5127a7B6F87e28E7033Dd54F6d1Ffaa/6N1ahQc57lHYBwcrSETDa0fuYRSYkYS83F2oOTjpu2c

Finely scouting my surroundings, I began to understand there was no clear path down.

A few ravines and dry water ruts seemed to be walkable. One, in particular, caught my attention as I traced it down with my eyes: it was wide enough, and even though I couldn’t exactly tell where it led, the valley’s ground was visible further down.

I moved closer. From the top, I gathered this was going to be a steep descent. As the ravine didn’t cut in a straight line, my line of sight was only clear for some 10 metres down, up to the first curve, where a fallen pine tree laid. Even though I could see the ground down ahead from where I was standing, the point where the ravine and floor met was not visible. Still, this was my best chance.

The gravel under my feet required a meticulous scan at every step. I zigzagged my way down, as the weight of the backpack and the bags on my hands made it difficult to hold a steady pace and balance.

I reached the collapsed tree in a few minutes. Up and close, it was visible that this was a full adult specimen. There were still dry pine leaves attached to its long and solid branches. It had probably dropped due to soil erosion during the last heavy rains.

Walking over it was difficult but necessary, as the tree occupied the whole trail. Both the bags on my hands and my feet kept on getting stuck on branches at every step.

Past the tree and after the first curve, the ravine got narrower and cut deeper down in the hill. There was another turn a few metres down, which meant I still couldn’t see the end of the path, but from the estimated distance I had roughly calculated, Rose Valley’s ground shouldn’t be more than 40 metres away.

Food was pretty much the only thing on my mind. Even without any clear idea of what type of conditions I was going to find inside the caves, vivid images of sausages lightly toasting by the fire and instant soup boiling in my small cooking pot kept popping up in my head.

Hunger gave me the confidence to pick up the pace and hike with more assertiveness. As I made it past the second bend, I told myself firm ground was just around the corner.

My left foot felt it first, but it didn’t take long for the right one to surrender, inadvertently plunging me into my fall.

In a fraction of a second, I was on my back, sliding down the ravine. The soil beneath me had just given in to my weight, pieces of tuff budging all around me as I tried to use my hands to stop my drift down. My backpack turned into a bobsled, commanding my direction and preventing me from firmly exerting my strength. I was a turtle on its back, after being pushed down a gravel slide.

I planted my feet on the ground firmly, dug them in the tuff. I stopped.

The taste of dirt was all over my mouth. My whole body was completely grey, covered in a thick layer of dust and sand. When moving my hands to clean my face, I realised I was still holding on to the bags: the groceries plastic one seemed ok bar a few holes, my tote bag had a big tear on its back…I freaked, assuming my tablet was broken, or worse, buried somewhere along the ravine. I reached into the tote bag. To my relief, the tablet and all the bag’s contents seemed intact, albeit also covered in dust.

And then I looked ahead.

An instant immersive heat took over; it felt as if I had just walked into a sauna. My heartbeat spiked up. I could feel the dirt on my hands thickening as my palms got sweaty.

I became overwhelmed with a nauseous sensation. In my head, I started playing all the possible scenarios. I cursed incessantly as if that would stop my brain going on overdrive.

Keep it together. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

Ahead of me, at a mere 3 to 4 metres distance, were the tops of several pine trees. The ravine I had been hiking down didn’t meet the ground in a smooth slope. It ended in a cliff.

Judging by the average height of an adult pine tree and the fact that I was slightly above the tallest one, the drop from the cliff would be over 20 metres.

I was less than 5 metres away from falling off. Death or severe injury were real possibilities.

The heat dissipated, the sweat covering my body suddenly turned cold and sent chills down my spine.

Think. Just think.

The soil was unstable, so any sudden attempt to run back up the ravine could result in me sliding back down and off the edge of the cliff. Even if I was to take my chances, the inclination was not in my favour. It would be more like scrambling, and I couldn’t rely on any visible rock protrusion to hold my weight, as they could detach from the tuff and send me falling to my death.

The backpack and two bags were also a significant problem. They limited my moves and added a considerable amount of weight to carry up.

I planted the bags on the ground and carefully slid the rucksack off my shoulders, which allowed me to roll on my side and better analyse the ravine behind me. Part of the fallen pine tree was above me, after the turn, which meant I didn’t slide more than 10 metres. I just needed to get back to the tree: its weight and branches would hold me on the way back up.

It was too precipitous for me to stand up, and with the option of climbing back the same way out of the picture, I figured my best chance was to try and climb over the ravine’s shoulder, as I had done earlier to get out of the sandy race track.

Two obstacles to my plan: there were no grooves or fissures in the rock walls within my vicinity, and there was no way I would be able to climb with the backpack and bags on me.

I rolled back and faced the cliff, taking a moment to observe the trees ruffling at the edge, and the shadows of the spires merging with the Rose Valley’s ground in the distance. A daunting sight, which served as a reminder of how dangerously close I was to having to rely on the moon for natural light.

I took a few deep breaths. Keeping a cool head was vital.

I took my phone out of my waist bag (yes, another bag). The moment demanded some realistic and pragmatic decision making. If I was going to do this, there was a considerable chance of death or severe injury.

I sent the same text message to two of my best friends.

It was as desperate as it was selfish. At that moment, it was inconceivable to put myself in their shoes when they read my words, the sense of impotence and fear they must have felt on knowing about my predicament. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I had to let someone know what I was about to do and where to find me in case things took a grim turn.

In the message, I wrote that if I didn’t text back within 5 to 10 minutes, they should assume something had gone terribly wrong.

What I didn’t mention was that I still didn’t have a plan to get out of the ravine. I just knew I had to come up with one and execute it within 10 minutes.

Previous part:

https://mirror.xyz/0x778b5DeBb5127a7B6F87e28E7033Dd54F6d1Ffaa/1ByUvEMzQ30lvvTpcdfpqA3dK1zXQJ9x03Epy9r6yKc

Final part:

https://mirror.xyz/0x778b5DeBb5127a7B6F87e28E7033Dd54F6d1Ffaa/-Jp0zeUIz8a5oMV26shgL6EzTU-EtKLp9ZnamktetlI

I grabbed my backpack and went for a much-needed dip in the Melendiz, the river that runs through Ihlara Valley.

As the afternoon slowly dimmed into early evening, I figured this would be the best time to catch a ride to Nevşehir, the town where I aimed to find a place for the night. The heat was becoming more tolerable for hitchhiking, and my hope was to be picked up by visitors leaving the Valley.

One hour or so walking down by the stream turned the imposing canyon walls into subdue hills, and eventually, I found myself out of the Ihlara grounds, just at the entrance of a troglodyte village called Selime. The number of sightseers walking around was enthralling to me, at the time unaware that this was yet another tourist hotspot, one where you can find the largest religious edifice in Cappadocia.

Oblivious to the whole apparatus, I swiftly made my way through random blocks of people and shortly after found myself on the village outskirts, next to a strategically placed souvenir store that faced what seemed to be a national road.

While inside the store asking for directions, a middle-aged man overheard me and presented himself as a tour agent. One look at me and he could tell I was not a potential customer, which he wisely acknowledged, in turn giving me the friendly smile that was all too familiar at this point.He explained his company had a minivan transfer for a group of tourists departing soon and there were seats available. The van was headed to Göreme, a nearby village to where I aimed to go. For a small fee, he’d ask the driver to drop me off.

The clock was close to the 6 pm mark, which meant both my chances and my will to hitch a ride were literally fading away by the minute, so I accepted the tour guy’s offer. He walked me out to the van, introducing me to the driver in Turkish.They asked me where was I staying for the night, to determine how much of a detour my drop off would entail. After explaining I had no accommodation booked, they suggested dropping me off at Göreme instead, together with the rest of the group, as according to them this town had many more lodgings on offer and was easier to navigate.

Göreme was already in my plans for the next day, so I acquiesced. The tour group arrived minutes later, everyone boarded the van and we drove off at 6 pm sharp. Got to love a well-programmed tour.

As an obvious outsider who had just crashed their ride, I felt the odd stares all around. But it didn’t take long for conversation to be struck with the man next to me, a Dutch national who was no stranger to Turkey or Cappadocia.

We chatted about our origins and what brought us to that moment in time. He was a Buddhist devotee on holiday, trying to learn a bit more about the origins of Christianity in the region as part of his research for a project which had no final materialisation defined at the time. His demeanour was calm whilst assertive, like an old family member whom you respect and cherish at the same time.

We talked about Buddhism and our travels for a bit. The subject of my lack of accommodation eventually came up. Visibly on a tight budget, I mentioned trying to find a cheap hostel for the night. He deterred me:

“I don’t think there are any hostels in Göreme, at least not the ones with dorms …it’s a bit expensive there, you’ll mostly find hotels and guest houses.”

I mentioned sleeping rough on a couple of occasions during my time in Turkey and that I was ready to do it again if it came to it. He seemed astounded by my nonchalant reply:

“Well, in that case, why not sleep inside one of the cave houses?”

“I thought the government didn’t allow people to live there…”

“Well nobody lives inside anymore, but the houses are still there. If you just walk out of town, into the mountains, you can see plenty of them carved around, you can just walk in.”

“Are you sure?”

“Just make sure you walk far out enough not to be disturbed. There are many houses in the valleys. I’m sure no one goes there at night.”

The minivan came to a halt shortly after. We all stepped out to a square surrounded by structures carved in monolithic stones — hoodoos they are called, or fairy chimneys. Hotels, shops, restaurants, local housing…all rock-cut or annexed to one of these big giants.

Everything was beige, brown…or so it seemed under the early evening light. Unlike the sandy-white and mostly uninhabited Selime, in Göreme you could tell the construction inside the rock had been reinforced over the years with wood and concrete. The aesthetic was still troglodyte, but a closer look would inform you that people were living in modern times.

I grabbed my rucksack from the trunk and said my goodbyes to the Dutchman. He wished me luck and pointed me in the right direction: a straight road shooting off out of town, with these pinkish hills in the background.

If I was going to spend the night as a hermit, I needed water and supplies. Images of a little fire pit popped up in my head. I bought canned sausages and a few other items from a local minimarket and made my way out of town, with the famous Cappadocia hills on the horizon and the sun slowly setting on my left.

Previous part:

https://mirror.xyz/0x778b5DeBb5127a7B6F87e28E7033Dd54F6d1Ffaa/yXk7Rc3Z1mcGWrFk87RgF37BC93Ln0cuInYo9DMY9d4

Next part:

https://mirror.xyz/0x778b5DeBb5127a7B6F87e28E7033Dd54F6d1Ffaa/6N1ahQc57lHYBwcrSETDa0fuYRSYkYS83F2oOTjpu2c

I stood on the side of the road for a while. Contrary to what I had been told, almost no cars were passing by.

One look at my watch confirmed what my skin was already feeling: it was almost 11 am and the July sun gearing up to exert its full strength. Summer temperatures can get close to 35°C in the Cappadocia region, so my small bottle of water and the lack of shade were becoming crucial factors in my decision-making.

I could foot it. Ihlara Valley, a splendorous 14km gorge cut into volcanic stone with a river stream running through its core and honeycombed by rock-cut churches from the Byzantine period, was less than 20 km away. I had no GPS signal to give me a more precise location, but from what I could figure from the offline map on my tablet it was pretty much just a couple of roads in a somewhat straight line.

With the heat and the added weight of the rucksack, it could take me up to three hours to get there, leaving just about enough time left to explore. But three hours under the midday sun in an arid region with nothing but tarmac to cushion my stride would feel like hell. I knew that because I had already been through such purgatory several times.

My train of thought was interrupted by the sound of an automobile approaching fast. I looked back: it was a small red vehicle, at least 3 people inside.

“No way are these guys stopping for me.” I thought, as I stuck my thumb up and put on the most convincing smile.

The car swerved and made a hard brake just past me, unsettling the dust on the side of the road. Inside were three young guys, cheerfully shouting at each other and glancing back at me through the rear windshield. It appeared I was the most amusing thing they had seen in ages.One couldn’t tell if they wanted to help or just mess with me, but these were the first people to stop in over half an hour, so I made a conscious effort to keep my hopes high while walking up to the front passenger side. I greeted them with an optimistic merhaba (that’s hello in Turkish).

“My friend, where you going?” The driver asked while the others giggled.

After hearing about my destination, they all turned and gleefully told me to get in.

“Ihlara not far, we take you.”

Being allocated the back seat seemed reasonable at first. However, this was a three-door car, which meant the front passenger had to exit and incline his seat forward for me to get in or out. In addition, there was already someone in the back, barely leaving enough space for me and the rucksack in such a small car…this triggered my traveller spider-sense. If these guys decided to start something, I would be virtually trapped.

These were also the youngest people to ever stop for me (even though there wasn’t a significant age gap between us), so I wasn’t sure what to make of their motives. I had mixed feelings about getting in the car.

Teenage me would never stop for anyone, why are these guys doing this?

Without giving it any further thought, I grabbed the backpack and got in. Two weeks deep in Turkey, after hitchhiking half of my way across the country with nothing but overwhelmingly positive experiences…somehow it didn’t feel that much of a leap of faith.

As soon as we drove off, the usual questions got thrown around. At this point, I could already compact my life story in a few sentences and explain my journey up until that point in a couple more. The boys had a limited English but that didn’t stop the conversation from flowing aimlessly.

They were fascinated by how many places I had already visited in Turkey and, all being football fans, my Portuguese nationality instantly sparked the usual shout outs to Cristiano Ronaldo and other fellow countrymen player references.

Football: arguably the best bonding token between males around the globe.

As we chatted and drove in what I estimated to be the right direction, I got more at ease. Despite their age, rough looks, obnoxious mannerisms, loud voices and the driver’s heavy foot on the accelerator, they were friendly guys, genuinely excited to meet a foreigner in such awkward circumstances. Still, I kept the tablet inside my tote bag, which meant I had no idea if they were taking me anywhere near my objective.

After a good fifteen minutes of driving, I expected to see the Valley coming up anytime soon, especially considering the speed we were at, but everywhere I looked out the windshield, all I saw were maroon hills and the occasional greenery spots.

This was a borderline desert, and I was in a car with three strangers and no easy escape route.

“Ihlara Vadisi, how long?”

“Very close!”

I grew impatient.

The car turned into a side road, to what seemed to be a local village. Weariness was starting to take over. My adrenaline was shooting up for all the wrong reasons.

At the bottom of this hill that seemed to be the village’s main street, my eyes noticed something on the horizon. Looking ahead, I couldn’t help it but let loose a sigh.

I blinked twice, in a theatrical way, to confirm it wasn’t a mirage.

The only way I can describe the scenery goes something like this: picture a Godzilla-sized construction worker who opened a gap into the land with a gigantic hydraulic hammer, as far as the eye could see, and then pulled each side away, just enough to create this canyon that beamed with life.

It was like the Earth itself was green on the inside; the dry brown from the surface just meant to throw you off. A snake-shaped oasis, engulfed by rocky walls. Stunning doesn’t even start to make it justice.

A minute later the car swerved once more, this time onto a parking lot with red stone pavement. Surely they all could tell the relief on my face and knew what it meant in regards to them; still, I received nothing but broad smiles in return.

I still regard those smiles, and many others I found along the way, as the most heart-warming physical manifestation of good fortune I ever came across in my travels.

Previous part:

https://mirror.xyz/0x778b5DeBb5127a7B6F87e28E7033Dd54F6d1Ffaa/lLhg3HXOjSkqIY_VE4KzT-jrvobD-rkGUm_6t9bbAwM

Next part:

https://mirror.xyz/0x778b5DeBb5127a7B6F87e28E7033Dd54F6d1Ffaa/1ByUvEMzQ30lvvTpcdfpqA3dK1zXQJ9x03Epy9r6yKc

https://mirror.xyz/0x778b5DeBb5127a7B6F87e28E7033Dd54F6d1Ffaa/1ByUvEMzQ30lvvTpcdfpqA3dK1zXQJ9x03Epy9r6yKc

It’s a weird sensation to wake up surrounded by strangers going about their business. Talk about “out of place”.

I was in Aksaray bus terminal. My overnight coach from Antalya reached its destination way too early for me to try and get anywhere, so I found a quiet bench, put my blindfold and earplugs on and napped until the hustle and bustle became loud enough to bring me back from dreamland.

The sun was still low, daylight felt kind on my eyes when I took the blindfold off and looked around. People were moving around, in and out, on and off, with serious looks on their faces. Nobody seemed to mind my scruffy-looking self lying on a bench.

The plan was simple: catch a ride to Ihlara Valley, about 50 km away, spend the day there, then get to the neighbouring town of Nevşehir and hopefully find a cheap place to stay for the night.

Hitchhiking had become a regular affair in my journey and Turkey had thus far proved to be very welcoming to it. From people taking me to have brunch by the beach, lunch with them on family birthdays, to others offering me a place to crash for the night, I was confident in reaching Ihlara in a decent amount of time. After all, it is a touristic hotspot in a deserted region — people tend to empathise more with hitchhikers when they find us in empty roads in the middle of nowhere. It’s a pity thing.

Another regular affair at this point, albeit a less pleasant one, was the long walks out of town to reach good hitchhiking spots — nobody gives rides inside urban areas where you can find other transportation options — or alongside national roads, sometimes for dozens of kilometres, whenever I grew tired of waiting for a ride. These walks, often under a blazing sun, made the 12 kg of my rucksack feel more like Sisyphus’ rock, occasionally leading me to question if the determination to push my limits and travel in such an unconventional way was not turning into self-punishment fuelled only by stubbornness to give in to exhaustion.

To counter these thoughts, I would often repeat to myself, like a mantra, a sentence a good friend once told me: “It builds character.”

As far as character goes, that morning I felt tenacious. Leaving the terminal behind around 8 am, I figured it would take me at least one hour to reach the other side of town. The Wi-Fi signal I got from the stationed buses — long-distance coaches in Turkey sometimes offer Internet and other modern commodities on board — allowed me to load up a map of the area, but GPS signal was not working so I had to rely on my compass and street names.

An hour or so later, I found myself on the outskirts of Aksaray. A long road with no nearby manmade structures presented itself ahead. Testing my luck, I dropped my bag and started giving oncoming drivers the old thumbs up.

On a typical day, I’d make a card with the name of my destination and a smiley face, in bold black lines, but this was the last stage of my stay in Turkey and after so many positive experiences I was feeling overly confident.

Despite it being a quiet morning, it didn’t take long for a car to stop. Upon knowing my destination, a young couple offered to take me as far as they could. They were both doctors on their way to work in the next town’s surgery, a good 30 kilometres closer to my goal. I jumped in, ecstatic about my good fortune and ready to answer all the questions they threw at me.

After thousands of kilometres on the road, riding with a wide range of personalities, the ritual had become familiar: people who pick up hitchhikers usually either have hitched rides themselves or, on the other hand, are curious to what makes a person stand on the side of the road at the mercy of strangers.

They want to know where you’re from, where have you been before, how long have you been doing it…your answers become very scripted after a few exchanges.

Adrenaline, I believe, also plays a part in the dynamic of hitchhiking: it’s about complete strangers interacting at close proximity in a random no-strings-attached scenario. It’s an instant adventure for both parties.

Occasionally, there are also people on long lonesome drives who just want some company. Those ones are more of an oddball, difficult to read, take a bit of time to understand if they want to hear your story or if they’d rather tell you theirs. They always make me feel more uneasy at first but tend to be the memorable ones. That is if the conversation ever flows.

The doctors dropped me off at a junction and pointed me in the right direction, taking the time to explain that Ihlara Valley was less than 20 km away and, as per its visiting hours, had just opened doors for the day. There was a good chance of getting a ride with other en route visitors.

As fate would have it, that’s not what happened at all.

Next part:

https://mirror.xyz/0x778b5DeBb5127a7B6F87e28E7033Dd54F6d1Ffaa/yXk7Rc3Z1mcGWrFk87RgF37BC93Ln0cuInYo9DMY9d4