Storms on the Black Sea

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The capital of Turkey was moved to Ankara in the 1923 primarily for strategic reasons, as it lies in the centre of the country. This left me night buses away from the Mediterranean in the south, and night buses away from the more rustic east. Still smarting from two night buses last week, I looked north to the Black Sea, and a quiet little town called Amasra. Four hours by bus and popular as a weekend getaway for Ankara locals, Amasra is sleepy and small and beautiful - so far off the foreign tourist trail I didn’t see a backpacker in days. This left me in a daze myself, exploring the town’s old streets and Ottoman houses, cliffs that dramatically look over the sea and ancient Byzantium walls and bridges that still form the basis of the town today. With India around the corner, I could see nothing wrong with sleeping and reading all day, eating Amasra’s superb seafood and famously large salads, and generally slowing down for a few days to catch my breath. About the only Gonzo action to be found was chasing chickens in the streets, and even then, the chickens didn’t seem all that bothered about being caught.

Russia, the Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia and Turkey surround the Black Sea, using it as a gateway to the Med. I can now understand why the Adriatic is regarded as one of the world’s cleanest seas, and why the blue Ionian Sea has so much appeal. While the Black Sea is big, it is not blue, nor clean. Under bright sun or menacing clouds, the water looked black, often with plastic bottles floating like cherries in a fruitcake. I tried swimming but was quickly surrounded by hundreds of floating jellyfish, the type that don’t play well with others. The Black Sea got its name from its heavy winter fogs and sudden storms. Over a small glass of sweet tea (with two customary cubes of sugar), a friendly local named Yilmaz looked up into the sky with his buggy eyes and said, “Rain.” It started raining a few hours later, and barely stopped for three days. The accompanying storms were magical, in that lightning and thunder kind of way. Far from being a washout, I retreated to my small room in a small hotel, overlooking the sea, and weathered the storm with Tom Wolfe’s 700-page “A Man in Full.” A great book, fortunately conversation heavy, because I wasn’t having too many conversations of my own. Foreign tourists being rare, I had to hack my way through ordering food and the like. It’s so rewarding to find something off the beaten track, away from tour buses or 18-year-old Gap students clutching their Lonely Planets. But as a solo adventurer, it can also get lonely pretty quickly. Before long, I found myself walking the streets during sunny breaks, looking for anyone to talk to and greeting people the way you might on a forest trail. Next time I’ll bring a friend.

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