Adventure Magazine #242

Anatolia Mountains,
TURKEY
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In the footsteps of St Paul:
The draw of simplicity in the Anatolia mountains
Words and photos by Derek Cheng
Itt was getting late, and the freeze from our wet socks and
shoes would soon spread to the rest of our bodies. The red
and white paint that showed the way along St Paul's trail -
through south-western Turkey - were hidden under a thick
layer of snow that blanketed the valley we were hiking through.
The beauty of our surroundings comforted the fact that we
were lost.
The sun was still bathing our faces in a life-affirming warmth
as we stumbled upon a number of goat-herders' cottages.
We opened one. Simple, dilapidated, empty. A few pieces
of plywood nailed together, as air-tight as a cheese grater.
A home in the summer for a goat-herder or picker of wild
oregano, but abandoned in the winter when the snow-line
encroached.
It was exactly what we needed on this wintry evening: a
floor with a roof, and a fireplace of stone. We scurried the
surroundings in search of dry-ish wood and, with only an hour
of daylight left, bunkered down for a night in the Anatolian
mountains.
The St Paul Trail is the second of seven long-distance Culture
Routes in Turkey, established by British women Kate Clow,
who moved to Turkey in the late 1980s. It’s a 500km-long path
through rural valleys and along mountain ridges, switching
from ancient Roman roads to cobble-stones to animal tracks.
"It was exactly what
we needed on this
wintry evening: a
floor with a roof, and a
fireplace of stone...
and with only an
hour of daylight
left, bunkered
down for a night
in the Anatolian
mountains."
Sunset light kisses the snowy tops of the Anatolia mountains in Turkey
It supposedly follows the missionary journey that St Paul took
in the first century AD, when he walked from Antalya to Yalvac
to spread the word of Christianity, sparking a movement that is
today one of the most dominant influence in modern history.
Katelyn Merrett lies all snug in her sleeping bag next to a stone fireplace in an abandoned wooden
cottage on the St Paul's trail
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