by Guy Stagg
When I ducked below the water, I could still see the stars. They were closer now, floating on the surface of the lake. I breathed out, sank down, and watched the metal dissolve. Water sluiced cool through my fingers, the taste of reeds becoming the mineral flavour of mountains, blue and black and plunging deep. I felt as if I were leaving my body, or falling into the night.
From here my route lifted towards the southern slopes of the Taurus Range. I spent the first week of August crossing the mountains: five days of shaded pathways, overgrown lanes and villages hidden in valleys; five days of lakes and streams, of gorges and waterfalls, of rocky riverbeds strewn like carnage.
On Wednesday afternoon I reached the Yazılı Canyon, which guarded the entrance to Lake Karacaören.
It was already late when I approached the canyon’s upper rim – the sun low and the shadows long. Footpaths rose over steep pastures and sloping terraces before disappearing among banks of trees. I walked hard, hoping to make up time, but the paths were confused and I kept having to double back on myself.
Finally I joined a cobbled track leading to a hamlet of rough-built houses with animal pens outside. I expected the houses to be occupied in the summer months, but they were empty that evening. The pens were empty too, the dead earth littered with the droppings of absent animals. A few weather-worn clothes hung on a washing line, and a stale smell edged the air, mixed from crumbling stone, flaking paint, scattered cinders and fouled water. Otherwise there was no sign of life.
I left the hamlet at seven, climbing fast through thickets of pine. Boulders shaped like ruined fortifications blocked my path, but eventually I reached the edge of the canyon. Then the trees parted and the landscape was revealed.
Lake Karacaören lay seven hundred metres below. On my map it resembled a child’s drawing of a dragon, with three legs, a coiled tail, and an armoured head nosing north. Seen from this height, however, it resembled the body of an angel: wings splitting the valleys, limbs dividing the forests, and robes splayed out as if fallen from the sky. West of the lake the sun had snagged on a ridgeline, meaning the valley was in shadow.
I needed to get off the canyon before dusk and guessed there was an hour of light left at most, but I wasn’t sure how long it would take to reach the campsite on the valley floor. Two hours? More? To my right a series of limestone shelves slumped towards a wall of pine, trails scrambling over the rock and zigzagging into the trees. I began edging across the loose scree and shattered cliffs, licking my lips and chewing my cheeks and urging myself onwards. Yet when I tried to go faster I lost my balance. Three times I tripped, three times scraped the skin from my palms. On the final occasion I sprawled towards a precipice, seventeen storeys of empty air opening out in front of me.
When I entered the woods, the sun was setting and darkness poured into the valley. The pine bark went orange, the pinecones too, while the air was dim and drowsy. Jogging along the path, I set off snickering streams of needles.
The deeper I went, the more frantic the noise of cicadas. First it was a brittle lisp, then a dry hissing, and soon every branch was shaking with the sound. I listened to them rattling round my head, louder and louder, as if armies of insects were scouring the forest with sand. As if the air itself were seething.
By the time I stepped onto the valley floor, dusk was here. The mountains closed in, forming a corridor of stone cliffs, with a torrent leading to Lake Karacaören. Now I could hear nothing except the thrashing of water.
It was past nine when I arrived at the campsite. Shallow streams enclosed the space, each one bridged by a wooden deck. More decking hung from the trees, with tents pitched on top as if suspended from the ground. Children crawled along the raised walkways, under hanging branches rigged with lights. I watched them in a dizzy state of disbelief, for I felt like I had stepped into a fairy kingdom, or drifted off to Neverland.
Then I pitched my tent, fell to sleep, and dreamed I was a boy again.
Something had shifted in the last month. More and more I was grateful for what went wrong in the Balkans, because it made me appreciate the kindness I was shown in Turkey. Although I knew that I was vulnerable here, there was freedom in this knowledge, because rather than closing in on myself, I had no choice but to ask for help. And, passing each evening with strangers, my confidence began to build. Meanwhile the scale of the country meant that I walked with little thought for the future, learning to be patient again. I felt smaller now, but safer too, and though I had found no reason to continue my journey, I could forget about the question by simply hiking one day at a time.
As I descended from the plateau, I wondered about the cause of all this kindness. Perhaps it was the remoteness of my route – some of the villages had shops, but never restaurants or hotels. Perhaps it was the Islamic emphasis on hospitality, or the Turkish fondness for strangers. Or perhaps Ramadan was the reason. Many of those I met were fasting – hungry and thirsty from sunrise to sunset – and the curiosity in their expressions was mixed with concern. Their religion was not ritual or prayer, but the practice of sympathy performed day after day. And their faith was something felt as much as thought, a habit inscribed in the heart.
On Friday morning, my last in the Taurus, I tramped between a series of high hamlets. Men with carved features sat in the doorways, and when I asked for directions to Antalya, they pointed me south without saying a word. Except for Mustafa, a fruit farmer with a beautiful moustache, who beamed and motioned me to follow.
He led the way out of the hamlet, chattering over his shoulder. Somehow I could understand every word he said. I had been in Turkey almost two months and perhaps absorbed a little of the language. Or perhaps I was sunsick, confused, more tired than I knew, and our conversation was nothing but nonsense.
Mustafa’s farm lay in the lee of a ridgeline, the hillsides draped with orchards and vines. Passing the gate, he offered to show me round. Then we circled the site, plucking down fruit and taking bites to test for ripeness. As my guide worked he made a growling noise that I guessed was a laugh. The air smelt new here, the shadows damp. Summer had been cool, Mustafa explained, and the crop was two weeks behind schedule. The apples were not ready yet, nor the grapes, but the plums were ripe enough to fill a pair of plastic buckets.
Footpaths rose into the woods sheltering the farm. After the tour, we carried on hiking, Mustafa splashing through the yellow-green foliage, while I struggled to keep up. He was sixty-four, yet his legs were strong and his stride relentless. He showed no sign of tiring, either, though he walked in silence and dabbed his forehead with a spotted handkerchief.
Forty-five minutes later the path levelled and we came to a clearing on the crest of the ridgeline. Mustafa pointed ahead, to where the ground fell away.
‘Antalya!’ he said.
I could see no city. But I could see the mountains collapsing towards the coast and the jagged peaks becoming level plains. See the slopes becoming flats, the grass becoming scrub, and the pinewoods thinning to copses of carob and bay. Fruit farms hemmed the base of the range, a pleated canopy like the spread of a skirt. Beyond lay the sweated skin of the Mediterranean, twitching in the heat.
This was it. After seven hundred kilometres I had reached the end of Turkey. My calves were clenched, my thighs burning, but I did not notice, because the rest of my body felt slack with relief.
‘Antalya,’ Mustafa repeated.
‘Evet,’ I said. Yes.
Beyond the clearing stood a two-room hut with hardboard walls and a roof of corrugated iron. There was no electricity or running water, though a stream flowed past the front door. Mustafa told me he built the place twenty years ago, claiming it had withstood snow and storms and the wild winds off the sea.
Rugs were laid on the floor inside, with more rugs hanging from the sideboards. A blue water butt balanced on one worktop, alongside tins of food and jars of olive oil. Bags of grain bulged on another worktop, and bungee cords belted the jerry cans into the corners. Mustafa’s wife stood in the middl
e of the room, small and stout and shaped like a spinning top. Motioning me to sit, she brought out plates of pilav, pide, stuffed vegetables, raw salads and homemade ayran mixed from water, yoghurt, ice and salt – so cold it stung behind each eye. After that came more fruit, as well as wafers, tea, and cigarettes with a peppery taste.
When the meal was over, my host leant back against the wall, burping and breathing smoke through his nose. With each exhalation his moustache seemed to plume. He told me that, when he was a young man, he walked from here to Antalya in a single day. That’s right. Fifty kilometres: one day. The mountains made his legs strong, his lungs strong. Even now, said Mustafa, holding his chest and ballooning his ribcage, even now he had the lungs of a young man. Then he gripped his breasts and puffed out hard, smoke streaming from his moustache. It was the mountain air, he went on, the mountain air kept him young.
I nodded, my eyes pinching from the cigarettes.
‘Fifty kilometres. One day. You understand?’
I smiled. Mustafa’s wife smiled. Everyone was smiling.
‘Elli kilometre,’ he said again. ‘You understand me?’
I laughed. We all laughed. I never wanted to leave.
‘Bir gün,’ Mustafa repeated. ‘Anlıyorsun değil mi?’
‘Evet,’ I said. ‘Anlıyorum.’
When I arrived in Cyprus it was too hot to walk on the plain. Instead I climbed into the mountains and crossed the country at a thousand metres. The temperature was not my only reason for staying up high: since Thessaloniki I had been anxious about bars and clubs and restless summer crowds, and this way I avoided the holiday resorts along the coast.
The Troodos Mountains run the width of Cyprus’s southern half, from the Chrysochou Bay in the west to the Bay of Larnaca in the east. I began walking in the second week of August, rising from the island’s western shore between valleys of cedar and hillsides of black pine. As I neared the summit of Mt Olympus, I passed Kykkos Monastery (a palace of polished stone founded by our old friend Alexios Komnenos) and Throni Hill (where Archbishop Makarios, first president of Cyprus, lay buried in a hilltop tomb). On Saturday afternoon I reached Pedoulas, a sloping village crowded with churches and chapels, including the Church of the Holy Cross, the Church of the Fithkia Cross, the churches of St Marina and St George, the chapels of St Paraskevi, St Panayiotis and St Raphael, the Virgin Mary of Vorini Chapel and the Church of the Archangel Michael.
This last was the one that I wanted.
The church was built from rough-cut stone, the timber roof angled down to one side. It resembled a stables or barn, with a wooden door at the front and a hanging bell round the back. Inside, the air was baked.
Stepping through the door was like walking into a tapestry. Murals covered the interior with pictures of saints and scenes from the Gospels. There were ranks of apostles in robes of red and gold, gold and red. There were twin portraits of Constantine the Great and the Empress Helena, their haloes large as moons against a backdrop of midnight blue. And there was an archangel in Byzantine armour, its bronze wings filling the wall with feathered metal. At the front, the wooden templon was inked with patterns and the wooden altar wrapped in rich damask.
Standing opposite the altar, I thought back to that other Mt Olympus, in Greece. Three months ago, hiking in the foothills of the range, I met a Cypriot shepherd named George. He was small and slight and alive with worry, and he urged me to visit the Troodos churches. But, when I explained that I was heading to Jerusalem, his face became sour. Surely I knew that Israel was home to the Zionist plot that had crippled Cyprus’s economy?
I asked whether the financial crisis was also to blame, but George slapped his forehead. ‘Kabbalah,’ he said. ‘Black magic.’ Then he added: ‘The Kingdom of Satan.’ Then: ‘The son-of-a-bitch USA.’
I had a similar experience on my last afternoon in Mt Athos. Approaching St Andrew’s Skete I met three Romanians in canvas fishing vests. They were chubby and cheerful, nodding their bald heads in harmony.
The chubbiest of the three spoke English. He asked where I was from and then told me he was travelling to Britain in autumn. A holiday? No. A work trip? Not quite. Raising a hand to his neck, he opened the collar to reveal a metal cross hanging off a chain. Its arms flared out from the centre, the shape vaguely familiar.
‘International conference of Templar knights,’ said the man.
Was he a Templar knight? He was! His friends too? They were!
The knight showed me a photo on his phone. It featured seven adults standing in a cellar, each one wearing a white mantle quartered by a red cross. ‘Romanian Order of the Temple,’ he explained, grimacing with pride. ‘Bucharest Chapter.’ He pointed at the woman in the middle of the group, who held a sword so long it grazed the cellar ceiling. ‘My wife,’ he added. ‘Chapter officer.’
The second-chubbiest Romanian began to speak. He told me the order was meeting in Edinburgh to discuss the crisis facing Europe. When I asked what crisis, he announced, ‘Europe has too many Muslims. Muslims has too many babies. Britain, Germany, Romania – soon we has no Christians.’
‘The Christians are tolerant,’ the chubbiest man added. ‘The Muslims are not tolerant. In Saudi Arabia, the capital of Islam, women cannot drive. Twenty-first century and still they cannot drive.’
‘Muslim values are not modern values,’ the third man, the least chubby, chipped in. ‘The Templars must quit Europe of the Muslims.’
I wondered out loud whether they would liberate the Holy Land as well.
The chubbiest Romanian moved nearer. ‘We are Templars,’ he said, his breath hot in my ear. ‘We must quit Europe of the Muslims. But our brother knights, the Hospitallers, they will conquer Jerusalem.’
That afternoon I found the encounter funny. Now, standing in the Church of the Archangel Michael, I felt a tug of pity. For those who feel helpless before history, conspiracy theories are a perverse kind of empowerment.
It was warm in the church. I could smell warm wood, warm dust, and the grainy odour of ancient paint. Looking at the huddle of haloed faces, I remembered that this was Templar ground once. In 1192 all Cyprus belonged to the order. They had bought it off Richard the Lionheart, who accidentally conquered the place en route to the Third Crusade. But why did they decide to settle here? And what reckless ambition led them to found a kingdom? And how did an order of knights devoted to poverty – the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, no less – end up purchasing an island?
The first Templars lived off charity. William of Tyre, a crusader bishop, gives the standard account of their founding. His Historia Hierosolymitana records how nine knights remained in the Holy Land after the First Crusade, taking monastic vows and committing themselves to the defence of pilgrims. In return, Baldwin II lent them a corner of the rocky hilltop in the centre of Jerusalem known as Solomon’s Temple. Here they established their headquarters.
Within a decade the Templars had been endorsed by the Catholic Church. At the same time their Grand Master Hugues de Payens toured round France raising money and recruiting brothers.
The order grew quickly, like that other austere twelfth-century institution: the Cistercians. Hardly surprising, given that Bernard of Clairvaux – a nephew to one of the nine original knights – helped write the Templar Rule. Thanks to Bernard there was no drinking, swearing or gambling. Members were forbidden fur on their clothes, silver on their spurs, and gold on their horses’ bridles. Shoes and shoelaces were also banned, ‘for it is well known that these abominable things belong to pagans’. Hunting animals was likewise prohibited, whether with hawks or hounds (although hunting lions was still allowed), and members of the opposite sex were definitely off limits. ‘Avoid at all costs the embraces of women,’ Bernard wrote, ‘by which men have perished many times.’
There was a point to all this privation. The Templar Rule was meant to flatten social hierarchies, while voluntary poverty strengthened their communal ethic. That was the idea behind the order’s s
eal: two knights riding a single horse.
As with the Cistercians, the strictness of the regime made it popular among the nobility. This was a new generation of knights, eager to share in the triumphs of their crusading ancestors. It’s easy to imagine what drew them to the defence of the Holy Land, but the appeal of Templar piety is harder to pin down. At the time, however, parallels between military and monastic experience were commonplace.
The chroniclers of the First Crusade compared the army setting off for Jerusalem with a monastery on the move. By renouncing earthly possessions to endure exile and hardship, its knights resembled their brothers in the cloister, exchanging everyday pleasures for a life of denial and a death with meaning. As well as the regime of poverty, chastity and obedience, they shared a longing to submit, to suffer. This longing was familiar from the early stages of my walk, when I tried to make sense of belief through the tragic lives of pilgrim saints. Its consequences were familiar too, for many of these monks became martyrs.
Admittedly, the chronicles were written by clergy. It’s not clear how many crusaders actually held their goods in common or marched willingly towards martyrdom. However, during this period the devotional practices of lay and religious increasingly overlapped. In the same way that pilgrimage popularized the apostolic life, crusading gave ordinary soldiers a chance for saint-like feats of sacrifice.
Orders of knights were the next step. By directing the aggressive ambitions of the nobility to the service of the Church, they sanctified the status of the warrior. Some knights even joined the Templars to atone for their sins, turning military service into perpetual penance.
This fusing of martial and spiritual glory helped justify the order’s protected status. Its brothers were afforded similar rights to clergy: excused various tithes and taxes, and accountable only to the pope. They exploited this status for commercial gain, acquiring a vast property empire – nine thousand estates, according to one estimate – with interests in farming, manufacturing and shipbuilding. Having developed an early form of traveller’s cheque to spare pilgrims the risk of carrying cash, they also provided banking services to a number of European monarchs.