Back from the Mountains in Turkey

I've just returned from fourteen days of my second rainbow gathering. The location was beautiful and I was going to stay the whole month but my energy got low and I wanted to get back to Izmir.

I'll play music in Izmir and volunteer at the Lotus Garden Hostel for a while before I figure out exactly what I'm going to do next. I've had thoughts of heading up to Varna in Bulgaria which is a tourist town on the Black Sea. I've made good money in Sofia in Bulgaria and I'm sure tourists in holiday mode will be generous in Varna.

I've got interest in traveling to Iran but I don't want to do this with nothing in my pocket like I have other places in Europe. It may well be possible, I'm just learning to plan things a bit better than what I have in the past. Rocking up to a town in the evening with no money and my pack and instrument in a town in France is different to doing it in Iran. Though, it never ceases to amaze me, the generosity of people. People want to give and sometimes just being in the right place at the right time, allows that channel of giving.

My trip to the rainbow gathering in the mountains inland from Alanya was a bit eventful but nothing out of the ordinary for me really. I got to Alanya on the bus and then got a minibus to a region called Mahmutlar for 3 lire (70 euro cents). I decided to sleep on the beach that night before taking the long trek into the mountains. The beach sand was filled with sand flies (biting insects) so it wasn't so pleasant but I got up when daylight came and started along the highway, then put my thumb out at a suitable spot.

I got a few funny looks from men in utes sitting along side their wives in colourful looking hijabs. I walked a bit further and saw that it was not good to walk more. In the past, with young energy, I'd walk the whole fucking way but I'm just not so elastic anymore. It was stupid really what I did in the past because I normally did it because I didn't want to face having to deal with people and not until I was completely and entirely exhausted did I finally give in to common sense and put my thumb out.

Now, I look at my road and I see, it's a lot easier with the help of other people and people want to help.

I got a lift with a guy named Murat who owns beehives that he keeps in the mountains. We drove through the most dangerous road in Turkey, so he told me, but I wasn't too concerned as the view was incredible. The mountains in Turkey are majestic. The road has a name I can't remember but the meaning of the name is the place where only birds can live because only they can reach the ledges to make their nests.

Murat spoke good english, lucky for me, and took me to a cafe on the mountain which looked into several valleys and up several peaks. We had gozleme and chai. From conversation I learn, he has a swedish wife and is hoping for a child soon.

He took me almost all the way to the town closest to the walking point called Karapinar. He gave me his number incase I needed some help, said it was dangerous in these mountains and that it gets cold at nights, even in summer. I thanked him and bid him adieu.

I got a second lift the rest of the way to Karapinar with another beehive keeper. Bees are a big industry in Turkey. From Murat's mouth, Turkey's good for two things, Honey and Rakia (a popular alchoholic spirit). Honey, being in such high demand around the world at the moment with the bee crisis, is plentiful and precious in these mountains. I bought a portion of it in an unmarked jar for 4 euro in Karapinar before heading towards the camp.

I walked all the way to a point I thought was where I was meant to be. 3 hours of walking with all my belongings up and down hills. I proceeded down a grassy area where I thought the camp was but ended up in the middle of nowhere and going through a lot of bushy woodland (in Australia we just call it bush for short). So I camped on that hill for the night and the next day went scouting to find the rainbow camp.

I eventually found some others that were headed in that direction and discovered why I got lost and found out someone from Austria got lost the night before and called the Jandarmer for help (not a cool thing to do for a Rainbow).

I found the Rainbow in the middle of two mountains with a beautiful plateau next to an amazing river with fresh drinkable springs looking into a huge 'v' shaped mountain formation which exposed an even bigger mountain. The view was breathtaking.

Well I won't go into the rainbow gathering much, but it's basically a place where you camp for a month with other people, share meals and sing songs around a central fire. Also share skills with each other with workshops and generally do a lot of nothing and meet some interesting people. This was perfect for me because I just needed to recharge.

The focus of the gathering was to be a healing gathering so I decided to stop caffeine and sugar while I was there. This made me quite irritable at times. Not a small thing for me.

I did meet a story teller friend there called Chesmire from Holland. I haven't seen him in four years. Not since I was playing music at the Edinburgh fringe. We did stories on the street together. I played the glockenspiel and he made a story up out of a subject the audience came up with. We rarely kept an audience and made bugger-all money but it was a lot of fun, a good memory. I had a few interesting chats about existence then and had a few more now. He was 20 then and is 24 now. How much he has become his path, what an inspiration. Now he makes his money by making poems out of words given to him by restaurant patrons as he travels around the world. I admire his zeal and confidence. To do the same as me, as a storyteller, is quite a feat in my books. It was good to see him again.

I left the rainbow early because I have a need to be separate from groups sometimes and I felt the urge to get away sooner than what I thought. I was there long enough to sleep many sleeps next to a flowing river that took my thoughts and washed them, while I planned and weaved a tapestry of futures and possibilities in my mind's eye, and dreaming of alternative realities.

I also feel I want to get more involved with autonomous communities than with rainbow gatherings. Communities that work together to create a working village in the wilderness. I see this as my retirement plan.

I'm a nomad. I'm never gonna have the money for a house or a property. I need to get involved with a community and build my own house and contribute to a working community.

Rainbow gatherings are a great idea and they provide an entry point for young people to discover the natural world and that free love does work in the right setting (with a little work and empathy). Open energy fields and people rediscover their life's meanings and reassess what they want from life.

I can honestly say now, it's not for me. I need more structure. I need to achieve more and I need to be with people that want to achieve this. I crave stability. For the same reason's that I don't live in squats with anarchists and make social centres anymore, I don't want to return to a rainbow gathering.

Despite this, I've made many good friends through the two gatherings that I've been now and there is an infinite web of connection that brings me closer to this amazing global family that works together for the collective good. So for sure, I recommend going to one, or two.

Nature in my mind is harsh. She has rules. We must follow them or die. Living in the forest in a forest squat south of London about 5 years ago has taught me this too well. We did get all our food from dumpsters, so we were still so dependent on the first world luxury of shops that throw out a lot of food but we had to prepare well to live outside in the woods for winter.

Insulation, building, fireplaces, basic community, digging wells, getting firewood stores up, getting basic things together. We don't have to think about these things in the consumer lifestyle. Living outside, nature is the constant teacher and nature teaches with pain. She must be respected and her lessons must be learned well and quickly.

On my way back, I got a lift all the way from the camp to Alanya with a young guy who works in one of the hotels there. He was picking up one of his friends in the mountains. I just manage to put my thumb out when he passed and without any reservation says, you are going to Alanya? You should come with me. I had a feeling that day I'd get a lift all the way back. Though a bit of drama on the way back, his car overheated, he took the radiator cap off while the engine was hot and scolded his arm so he stopped at every spring water tap on the mountains on the way back to Alanya while listening to 50 cent at a high volume (my head next to the speaker). I've never had the experience of listening to this music like this and I will not willingly repeat it. He did the whole trip with a smile on his face and was very polite to me, able to speak enough english to communicate. On the way out he wanted to follow me on instagram and I gave him my details. It's given me the idea, maybe I'll get a robot phone again and start pretending like I'm a normal person for a while.

Coming back to a big city now, I just got back this morning on the bus to Izmir and I arrived at 2.30 in the morning and slept at the bus station until the morning. I speak to someone at a bus stop to get to a central station and he takes me all the way there and buys both my tickets. The regional bus station is a fair way from the centre of Izmir, so I'm grateful. Again, Turkish hospitality.

While in Izmir, I've got to crack the egg of busking alone in Izmir and just get out there and do it. I'll see how I go with western music and I may hitch back up to Istanbul a bit later on then possibly to Varna.

My path is not sure but my meals are. I always have what I need. Inshallah I will have a little more.

Thanks for listening and sending love,

Monty