Chai & Coruh
I can safely say in all of my travel all over the world I have never been to a country more inviting and friendly than Turkey. It became hard to walk down the street with my boat on my shoulder without being offered a cup of Chai. Everyone was really interested in our adventures and to share something about their town or life. This in itself would make for a great trip but that combined with fantastic multi day white water paddling is just amazing.
All of my friends have been victims of one of my great ideas in the past but convincing 3 of them that Turkey would be an amazing location for their first multi day paddling was not hard. We arranged flights way before exams and it gave us something good to look forward to in those long hours spent in the library.
We started by visiting Ankara the capital of Turkey and learnt about the history of the country and ideas behind it. On a trip like this, I feel it’s very important to visit a country and get a balance between boating and ‘seeing’ the country itself. So an evening in the old town, watching the sun set was a great start to the trip. After a small argument we load our boats onto a local service bus and headed over to the East of the country to start the paddling side of the trip.
We jumped on the Coruh River with some biscuits and rice and started a good length multi day trip down. The white water was amazing, lots of big bouncy wave trains and big volume lines through warm water. The first harder section came after a day, past the town of Ispir and into the gorge which is rubbishy named the Joan Collins set. Don’t let the name fool you because there are 6 good rapids with boofs, flares and straight down the middle lines for everyone to enjoy.
With that under our belt and a rest day we did the lower Coruh, more good bigger volume class IV boating and the Bahal tributary that flows through the town of Yesuli. That town is so so friendly I consider it my second home and importantly after 5 days of self cooked rice the town serves a good pizza!
Leaving the Coruh behind was hard but our attentions turned to seeing as much of Istanbul as possible and Nicky lead the way with a non stop tour of the city, through the markets, main tourist sites, parks with tea shops & locals and a music shop for Robb!
The trip was amazing and one I’d recommend more than anything I’ve done before. The upsetting thing about it all is Turkey is expanding and needs energy to fuel that so is building a series of dams up the Coruh River. White water has already been lost and in the next couple of years all of it will be gone. On one hand it’s hard accept that the town of Yeslui can just be flooded and it occupants re-located but at the same time offer no real alternative solution for sustainable energy supply. It’s a difficult position but one that has already been made so the best advice is to get out there and enjoy the river while you can.
