Kasinhani to Çumra – 5th October
Distance: 26.5 km – Elevation +100 m -90 m
Weather: Sunny. Temperature: High 24 degrees
I was sorry to leave Konya, it is a beautiful and well-kept city. Its covered bazaar, like all Turkish bazaars, was busy and full of life. It had vibrant fish and fruit and vegetable markets. The local dish is “Etliekmek” like a very thin pizza with a minced meat topping. It is a more religiously conservative city than others I have visited. There were very few women who did not wear a head covering and most wore long fashionable dresses in subtle shades of various colours and indeed the combination was quite elegant. The further out of the city centre there were more women in black and a few in full burka.
I enjoyed a good breakfast before catching the bus to enable me to resume my walk from Kadinhani. The weather was overcast with quite a strong wind when I started walking and remained so for most of the day. With the aid of Google maps, I had planned a route using minor roads to reach Çumra. Shortly after starting, I was told by a man waiting for a bus on the main road just outside the village of Kaşınhanı that I should take the main road and not the minor roads. I didn’t understand why so decided to continue with my chosen route. I am still on the Konya plains so everywhere is very flat and much of the land is used for vegetable crops such as sugarbeet and turnips which are grown to produce turnip juice. About 5 kilometres into the walk Google maps directed me to turn right to join the road to Çumra, but what Google maps didn’t know was a new railway line with a high fence had been built and there was nowhere to cross. It was then I knew why the man at the bus stop wanted me to take the main road!
I continued for another 5 kilometres looking for a crossing point when I met a man outside a ramshackle of a smallholding. He invited me in to meet his son, who spoke very good English, the son told me he had spent 18 years in Germany before returning to Turkey to become a shepherd. He was very proud of his flock of 119 sheep and wanted me to see them. He made a fresh brew of Turkish tea and we sat discussing world politics, Islam, and Christianity. At one point I suggested that both our respective religions required us to love our neighbours, he looked at me and retorted “ How can I love my neighbour if he will not allow me to graze my sheep on his mostly barren and unused land”
It was another special moment for me, the hospitality and the meeting with local people in their own environment On leaving he gave me his phone number and said “if you need help at any stage of your onward journey in Turkey, call me”. He directed me to a small tunnel that ran beneath the railway line, enabling me to continue on my originally planned route. After making the crossing I found myself on a completely deserted newly constructed road and not yet open to traffic which, apart from farm tractors, I had to myself for the next 12 kilometres to reach the outskirts of Çumra.
With the help of the hotel reception in Konya, I had arranged to stay in the Hotel Çatalhöyük in Çumra. I had difficulty locating the hotel and was directed by two elderly men to a hotel further down the road. The hotel was dark and grim and on approaching the desk I was relieved to be told this was not the Hotel Çatalhöyük. I eventually located the Hotel Çatalhöyük which thankfully was marginally better, the room clean and comfortable with a good working shower. In the evening I took a stroll through the streets of the town but found little of interest.
‘Cumra District Center was established on the Konya-Karaman railway, 43 km southeast of Konya. It is a city that was born and developed in 1926. According to a rumor, it takes its name from the word “Çemre” in another rumor because its land is swampy and muddy. The district has a close past in history. During the construction of the Haydarpaşa-Bağdat railway, the construction of which was started in 1894 and finished in 1913, a station was built in the place where Çumra is located, and this building was the first building to be built in Çumra. The management buildings of the irrigation facilities built in 1907-1914 for the purpose of opening the Çarşamba Canal, drying and rehabilitating the swamps and irrigating the Konya plain were built in Çumra.’ – Google translation of text taken from http://www.konya.gov.tr/cumra
