THE BEACH | MAGAZINE
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It is early evening I think, because people seem to be at home and I smell smoke and see it rising from the
hearths of some 400 houses… Below me on the flat plain lie fields of ripened cereal and fruit-heavy orchards
which stretch away to a road which winds daringly up and over a slope to disappear into the pine trees. Beside one of
the fields an impatient donkey brays to alert his owner that it is time to head home. Night is falling. Flat roofs topped
by chimneys and shaded by vines trellised up the side of what must be water-cisterns. Cobbled lanes traveling like
the vines, house to house, only diverting sideways from their straight ascent to give way to the roots of an old maple
or a gnarled olive. Other-wise the symmetry is maintained. From level to level, from house to house the cobbles
ascend with an occasional step on their climb upwards. I look west, terrace upon terrace, these houses rise to the
brow of adjacent hills, and to the east more dwellings, all similar, all climbing up to the skyline of a further hill which
is crowned by a perfect little white washed building.
At first in the gloom all the houses seem of equal size, two-storied rectangles with shuttered and paired windows.
Slowly my eyes seek out some smaller buildings, their arched roofs rising above the flat ones. One appears through
the haze much larger with mather-paintered walls, gabled roof and bell tower. From here a wide passageway bisects
the settlement horizontally and leads down to a similar building on the edge of the plain. I can see lights appear
through cracks in the shuttered houses, and smell cooking, probably heated olive oil but cannot hear what is said
behind the closed doors.
Suddenly from the tower a bell sounds out, echoed by another further off… As the donkey brays again, I rub my eyes.
There are no longer lights in the houses, and the shutters are not closed. In fact the houses do not have windows and
the hearths are empty… I crush a twig of oregano between my fingers. The braying donkey becomes the horn of the
dolmus announcing departure for Oludeniz. I stumble down the steep path to the road and hail the minibus. I had
intended to walk down from Kaya village to the Lagoon. That ݅́չѥ