Before 24 Billion and Counting

Chapter 11 Chris Williamson's haunts

I slept well until dawn. The car was surrounded by a herd of brown and white shaggy goats, and nearby on a horse was a traditionally dressed moustache faced young man with a rifle. You could have pulled his likeness out of any book illustration published over the last 200 years. I could do no other than assume that providing I did no harm to the goats, he would have no evil designs on me. I got up, put a jacket on, and gently nudging the more inquisitive goats, made an abbreviated job of washing my face in cold water and doing my teeth. I then waved the cup and water bottle in the man's direction, but he shook his head and made the sign of smoking a cigarette. I shook my head in turn and spread my open hands either side in the hopefully universal gesture of one who has nothing. I tidied up the car, and got into the driving seat. 

The naturally noisy start of a cold diesel engine made the goats and the horse jump, and I let the machine tick over for a while to warm up before engaging gear and slowly retracing the route to the road through the throng of goats. I waved to the goatherd as I passed him, and he gravely inclined his head. 

The sun soon came chasing over the hills behind me, and for some kilometers we were running down a gentle slope, having rejoined the route of a railway. These uplands were less hostile, with grasses, evergreen oaks and the odd cork tree. I encountered small villages with thriving small scale agriculture. I stopped in a larger one where there was a street market in progress, more importantly for me at that moment, there looked to be a cafe that was open. 

I tried English, which produced friendly grins but no other reaction. I looked at what other people were having, and sign languaged myself a breakfast. I was sat down at a table and was served some excellent hot and spicy sausage packed full of meat, a chop probably of goat as it was stronger flavoured than lamb, a big mis-shapen mediterranean tomato, cold, sliced, peppered and salted, and sprinkled with a fresh herb I couldn't identify, a lump of wonderful fresh bread, some butter which I felt less enthusiastic about, and a big enamel pot of very strong coffee. There was a sugar bowl on the table, a mild but aromatic mustard and some tasty black olives too.

I started to eat. I looked up to find everyone in the place looking at me. I said loudly waving my fork to include everyone called 'Bon Appetit' and carried on eating There were some agreeing noises but it seemed I was accepted for they now merely took it in turns to examine this early bird tourist. I was surprised that no one spoke either English or French, but reflected that the most common route to Ankara from outside the country would be from Istanbul, and this would be a less favoured tourist route. 

On leaving I saw the tiny sum the proprietress took out of the note I gave her, added the same again, and said, "That was excellent" in English, Italian, French and I hoped Spanish, as this latter I had learnt in a two week crash course and had as rapidly forgotten. 

Back in the car and an hour later the road began to fall more steeply, whilst the vegetation became lusher, with Mediterranean cypresses forming forests. The railway veered off to the right, as my destination was in the next valley south, and I had decided to take a cross ridge route to get into it. 

The traffic disappeared and the road surface was back to graded rock. The brilliant sunlight alternating with deep shade, the cobalt blue sky, the mountain air and the big diesel's threnody echoing off the rocksides through all the open windows of the car, impelled me to push the machine as hard as possible. I suddenly recognised where this exuberance was coming from. I recalled Alicia's description of Chris's Q-car being thrashed around the local roads to beat the clock. From her description the Mitsubishi was a pussy-cat by comparison but the resonance with Chris was beating through me once more. 

Up above the tree line again, the stones spraying from under the tyres round the bends, and clattering within the mudguards. The last one-in-six hill led up to a small rocky plateau forming the pass over the ridge between the two valleys. I parked the car, and got out to photograph the view and stretch my legs. Where I had come up from was mostly in shadow. My route down was in sun, and this valley had a stream coursing down, fed by a lake which I could see to my far left. This was Chris's valley, I could almost guarantee this would be where he set his stopwatch to time himself in the cascading run to the pottery now some 20 km away and 2000m lower down.