The Varda Viaduct in Türkiye. (Photo by Erica Fowler.)
I signed up with the staff for the first trip I could take. After a long week of work, a little escape is exactly what I needed. I knew I wanted to rack up every trip available as they came on the schedule. If you want to see once-in-a-lifetime historic ruins, urban locales and breathtaking scenery, their trips will check all those boxes during your time at Incirlik.
The trip offered was a canyon hike, and luckily I had decided to tie my good waterproof hiking shoes to my backpack before heading to Türkiye. We took off with the weekend sunrise and it was a comfortable ride courtesy of the friendly ODR staff. Not worrying about having to navigate and find parking is always a relief, especially because I got to know my fellow hikers along the way. This was the first instance I really got to talk to people at length about something other than work in a while.
I recommend bringing these things for an ODR hike:
Lira (Check the exchange rate since it fluctuates in value to the U.S. dollar frequently)
Grippy swim shoes for crossing rocky streams (depending on the hiking route)
Sunblock/Sunglasses/Hat
Extra clothes to change into before dining
Battery pack/charging cord for mobile phone
Water bottle
Türkiye’s landscape is unlike anything I have seen before, with forested green beauty that mingles with massive rises and then cut through with multicolored canyons. While my blurry attempts to get landscape shots through bus windows weren’t super successful, I got ample opportunity to snap photos once we piled out and admired where we were. With ODR staff leading the way, we climbed up into the craggy earth stretching up on either side of the group. A stream rushed assuredly at the very bottom of the canyon as we wound through the paths. Walking past shady picnic spots and the occasional group of friends, couples and families had me feeling immersed in sharing the glory that was nature’s phenomenon around us all. We approached a river bend, where our guide suggested we take off our shoes and socks to knobble our way over the river rocks. We crossed the river four times in total, rinsed our sore feet off in the burbling water and popped our shoes back on. It was worth it for the forest that widened and gave us more dramatic views. After some good camaraderie and chatting along on the out-and-back trail, we found ourselves in need of fuel. We were in luck that an ideally situated wooden hut at the start of the trail was wafting the delicious smell of homemade yufkas (like flour tortillas) over a fire with a warmed double tea pot. Two ladies synchronously wrapped a cheesy filling in the tortillas and passed each to a young man who accepted everyone’s lira and passed them out to fellow hikers.
We headed to our next stop, eventually winding our way through mountains to the popular Varda Viaduct, which was made famous with its appearance in the opening scene of the James Bond film “Skyfall.” This is where you get a fantastic miles-long vista of the landscape. The immense railroad crossing took 11 years to build and was funded by Imperial Germany in collaboration with the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. The entire railway, of which the Varda Viaduct is a part of, was an attempt to controversially access colonial resources like oil prior to World War I. The Berlin-Baghdad railway fell short of this goal due to political shifts until two decades later, when in 1940 the railway was completed.
After a fantastic exploration of the landscape of southern Türkiye, we dove into Adana’s city center, teaming with endless high rises, beautiful mosques, and the city’s great clock tower in the old town area. Stop by the surrounding square that the clock tower dominates and peruse the beautiful copperware, woodwork and produce brought in from the countryside. The smells of kabab are delightfully inescapable. We finally stopped at a restaurant where I enjoyed a platter of Adana kabab. The table was full of fresh mixed salads and side dishes, which paired perfectly with the spiciness of the kabab. We finished the evening with the best pistachio baklava I’ve ever had and complementary Turkish tea. I ended every day feeling welcome (and well-fed!) in this beautiful and interesting region, which is all I could have hoped for.
