That Monday morning in Mersin dawned with a biblical storm. There was so much water in the streets that it was the flooded city that ate the sea. We were on our way to the port, where we had already been three days before, hoping to find a ship that would take us to Israel or, in the last case, put the car in a container to Egypt and we go on a plane.
In Spain they treated me very well , I'll help you in what i can
We went to the port and we stumbled upon that already desperate wall that was the language. Nobody spoke a word in English. The water was devouring the streets along with our shoes and we were three outcasts talking to the wind. Then I saw an office that seemed more modern and I left Vítor in the car a telephone from the office of some ships in Istanbul.. There a young woman attended to me, pretty, who told me that “in Spain they treated me very well , I will help you in any way I can” and he made me a hundred calls.. “It seems that there is a ship in Iskenderun that goes to Egypt”, He told me about many things and options. When I got back to the car, Vítor had spoken with the company in Istanbul and they confirmed that there was a boat in Iskenderum that we could take.. The gods blessed us in a baptism with a hose and we decided not to make them wait to see if we would dry ourselves.
The port of Iskenderun is large and desolate. It was difficult for us to find the office of the Catoni company. A very tall boy who spoke good English confirmed to us that we had a freighter, that it was leaving on Saturday and therefore we had six more days left in Turkey, which caused a new unexpected delay. Cover 1300 dollars for the car and our three tickets to Africa. "Afternoon 18 hours to make the journey”, he assured us.
And in that wait until Saturday we give ourselves Cappadocia. We arrive at Goreme and confirm that the world can be so strange that it is beautiful. It seemed that Gaudí had sculpted those mountains or that those mountains had sculpted Gaudí's ideas. Cappadocia is a question of sand and stone. There we met Lorreine, a Canadian of about 60 years, who came there as a tourist and stayed to live. In reality he was left to die little by little. Everything in his words is tired, it's boredom, It is a lack of enthusiasm for a life that seems to live in the bodies of others..
In reality he stayed to die, although maybe she doesn't know
“I don't know what I'm doing here.”, told us the nice woman who worked at the small hotel we stayed in. He did it with an Afghan boy, somewhat dry and shy, who spent hours in front of a small television without opening his mouth. She would sit next to him without hardly speaking and sometimes she would tell us things about a place that she knew when the caves were still homes and transportation was done on donkeys.. “I have to go see my family in Canada”, he told us once with a tone of voice that betrayed that he probably wouldn't do it. Lorreine was lovely.
After two great nights, where we also discover the surprising Christian churches excavated in the rock of Cappadocia, We saw dozens of balloons floating that stampeded from the rocks dodging the dawn, We slept in our room inside a cave where we covered ourselves with a rock and drove our car through the mountains while Local Hero was playing at full volume., let us turn from Iskender, to our friendly Issos Hotel, with the feeling of having been responsible teenagers.
The penultimate morning, on Friday, we went to the border with Syria. (I will tell everything that happened there tomorrow in a separate post because everything deserves its own story.).
That in some way was a prison that would make us a little desperate.
Finally, Saturday morning at 10 in the morning we arrived at the Port of Iskenderun. There we were and 115 immense trucks awaiting entry into a ship that was the mouth of the ocean. In a small sentry box, drivers made photocopies of all the papers required by customs on two old machines.. The bathrooms were dunghills and in the small grocery store we ate a kebab that tasted amazing.. We had to wait for all those vehicles to enter and then load our car. We couldn't go out, that in some way was the beginning of a prison that would make us a little desperate. We were immersed in a time prison and we could not leave that port due to any absurd rule.. Only 12 people had the right to go on the freighter, the rest of the drivers flew by plane to the destination port.
At 22 hours, after a rough ballet of wheels and engines, we put our now minimal car compared to these mastodons. Finally, with 10 days late, We entered a ship that took us to Egypt. I shared a cabin with a Turkish truck driver and Vítor and Leandro occupied another cabin. We spent the night there, still in the port. I think that under these circumstances it was not how I had imagined the first cruise in the Mediterranean.
The hours on the boat were sometimes heavy and sometimes sublime.. We went up with a few belongings and prepared to be there for a few 20 hours as they had told us, we were 72. The food was ranch on a tray, sometimes almost inedible., especially for Vítor who doesn't like tomatoes. Other, We chewed on a pizza that was the thickness of a loaf of bread.. There was a small refrigerator with cheese, olives and strawberry jam that Leandro handled with ease and a water heater and sachets of coffee and tea to choke on whenever we wanted.. All that in the drivers' lounge, where there was also a television and some of our traveling companions spent hours playing cards.
They would think we were questioning the fingers on my hand or the trucks that fit on the boat
We could not communicate with them almost, none spoke a word of English. Something that stretched around the boat and what we were accustomed. When we asked was for us Haifa and answered five, eight or one hundred, which depended on whether they thought we were questioning the fingers on my hand or the trucks that fit on the boat.
Then we would go to a small deck to spend the hours looking at the sea. Sometimes it rained and sometimes we contemplated a serene sunset among the clouds that, without realizing it, made the night fall on us.. Then, already cold, we walked through those 20 meters compulsively to widen the ship and feel some of the lost freedom.
Because we came to feel trapped even though we were always joking and talking in Vítor and Leandro's cabin where we hid some wine and made a small house.. I watched up to thirteen episodes of various television series that I have on my computer.. Finally we arrive at the port of Haifa, In Israel, where the world seemed quite orderly but it gave you some anxiety not being able to go down to check it out.
We entertained ourselves watching submarines and warships leave the military base in the port.
There, The five hours we believe we were told unloading trucks took turned into about 14 without anyone explaining anything to us. It seems that some trucks from Jordan had to come or perhaps what they explained to us was that we were in Jordan because we lost some trucks. We didn't understand anything and no one knew how to explain to us what was happening.. The fact is that the wait was hard and we entertained ourselves watching submarines and warships leave the military base in the port and contemplating the flight of fighters that exemplified that piece of land well..
And suddenly the engine was heard and smoke came out of the boiler at night and we felt immense happiness knowing that Africa was already close.. It was at six in the morning the next day when we woke up to a sunrise that I will never forget as we entered the port of Damiatta, Egypt, boarded that immense freighter with the feeling that this was my most special arrival to this immense continent that has been my home for four years.. Finally, after many problems, we put the wheels in Africa, All that was left was to cross it from north to south.
