Cukurbagli's Blog   My life in Turkey

It’s not often that I find myself having dealings with the clergy, a wedding, a few funerals, a christening but I never would have guessed that I would sell a religious man a motorcycle. It happened a couple of weeks ago, my friend Ahmet who used to be the Imam in the neighbouring village of Pınarbaşı called me and asked if he could come for a visit. Well of course, why not, he arrived a few minutes later.

Ahmet is quite famous, he is a young man who became an Imam (a Muslim priest) and performed these duties to the best of his ability as far as I know. Here he is making the call to Prayer.

While he was working as the Imam for the village he founded a rock band and began writing and singing songs on stage with accompanying musicians, something the Diyanet (the religious ministry) were very against.

In the end he was dismissed from his job and now seems to have a lot of time on his hands. Well he was quite interested in my bike, a BMW F650 GS Dakar model from 2004.

I had hugely enjoyed having the bike in my life, the roads to Kalkan and Finike having been resurfaced with nice smooth tarmac had become my playground. Lately I’d experienced a few little problems with it and went to great pains to tell him about them and make sure he understood that I was being completely up front about all of these. He was happy about everything and still wanted to buy it so I quoted a very good price to him (low and good in his favour) and he bought it. We went to the notary office in Kaş and sealed the deal. I didn’t think of it as losing money on the bike, I sold it for quite a bit less than I had bought it but because I had enjoyed it very much for 4 years or so I was very happy to pass it on to someone else to enjoy.

The next few days of seeing an empty space where the bike used to be were a bit sad for me so I started looking for another one. I found one that had a few small problems so it would interest me to put it right and once fixed I could have an enjoyable time with it. Another BMW, this time an R 1150 GS, another enduro style machine, this one a bit bigger both in engine size and general body size.

It was in the middle of Antalya city so I went to see it. I don’t know Antalya very well so I was a bit unsure of how to get there but it all worked out fine. A very small motorcycle dealer who only had three bikes on the front of his shop when I got there. Anyway he was very helpful and I went back a couple of days later to have a test drive and make a decision. I was surprised to find that I could put both feet flat on the floor while astride the machine and that helped to decide to buy it. The seller, Erkan, was very helpful and took me around the city to the notary’s office and the registration plate maker to get the official stuff done then to the industrial site area (sanayi) to get some mirrors. He also found a bike transfer company to transfer it to my house and I could drive my own car home, saved a lot of trouble.

Now all I have to do is fix a couple of things and get some insurance in Kaş and I’ll be ready to have some fun. Ahmet is very happy with my F650 and I’m very happy with my new bike so there’s proof, men are happiest with a motorbike in their lives.

I had a trip to Fethiye on Tuesday, only an hour and a half by car but by far the furthest I have been since the Corona/Covid shit hit fan last year. It was really nice to get out and see more of the country and notice changes that have taken place over the last eighteen months. The purpose of the visit was to take a friend of mine to hospital for her periodic eye check and to visit a few shops that we don’t have in Kaş. On the way back near Alaçat I spotted a sight that is not unusual for this part of Turkey, a stork in a nest on top of an electricity pylon. Storks have lived in this area for probably many thousands of years, they feature heavily in the art and mosaics of the ancient archeology around here. We were going a bit too quickly in a stream of traffic to be able to slam the brakes on and stop for a photo or two, also my good camera was at home so I decided to go back to that spot on Wednesday armed with a long lens and a fully charged battery pack to get some good photographs. When I got back there I was delighted to see that not one but four storks were in the nest. Three of them had their back to the only accessible place I was able to stand but the other one was moving around.

The nest was enormous and had obviously been built over a few years, not only that but there were a lot of other birds perched on the wires going to the pylon. I walked around the pylon and tried from different angles and to get the best shots but with it being such a big nest and very high it was difficult, I really needed a fire truck with a high ladder, there was nowhere to get any better angle.

It wasn’t until I got back home and was able to zoom in on the photographs on my large screen that it became more obvious that the other birds had burrowed into the lower portions of the nest and created their own nests, so that was the reason they were all hanging around there, I had thought they were taking advantage of the shade afforded by the nest.

Whether the four were made up of Dad, Mum and two chicks or one parent and three chicks or even four chicks I have no idea, the one standing seems to look like an adult to me but I could easily be wrong.