Tales of Naked House-Breaking, Hiding in a Ghost Village and Noisy Tortoise Sex…

So here I sit – exactly one year since the day I started travelling – on the breezy terrace of a cute little pub called Sarge’s Place in Fethiye, on Turkey’s southwestern Turquoise Coast.

There are worse places to be on a Monday afternoon, aren’t there?

Sitting here in front of my laptop in 38-degree heat – cold beer in hand – I have to agree that I’ve had worse Monday afternoons.

But looking back one year to the afternoon of July 26, 2020, could I ever have imagined that I’d be here in Turkey one year on? No way! Yes, I knew that travelling in the middle of a global pandemic would be something of a challenge, but when I set off, I was pretty certain I’d be back home in Vancouver within six months.

And then I got stuck. A culmination of restrictions and closed borders got me well and truly stuck.

But let me share a little secret with you, darlings: Getting stuck in style is all about getting stuck in the RIGHT PLACES!

One Dog, 13 Cats and Three Ducks

Last time we spoke I was telling you all about being in the UK last September, back when there was no vaccine and the UK was brimming over with pandemic-fuelled tension. I could feel a major lockdown was looming – so I signed up for a house-sitting gig on the Greek Island of Syros… A house-sit with (wait for it…) one dog, 13 cats and three ducks.

Crazy right? But for me it was bliss. There I was in my own island hideaway, up on the hillside overlooking the bright blue waters of Kini Bay and I had one affectionate dog, 13 slinky cats (including three kittens!) and three babbling ducks to care for. I loved it.

Okay, so I had an outdoor bathroom to contend with – and I may have locked myself out of the main house at 4am one morning when I nipped out for a quick pee in the dead of night (did I mention that I was stark naked in the moonlight?), but house-sitting in Syros, for me, was an experience and a half.

Glorious days were spent wandering the beach with Maloo the dog, feeding the 13 cats who showed up twice a day like clockwork to yowl at me relentlessly until I served them a square meal, and trying to convince the three chubby ducks that they could chill out and stop clucking about the place because I honestly didn’t want to kill them and eat them.

It was a very special time for me and I fell in love with the animals. The cats often followed me and Maloo on our walks along the beach – and sometimes I found them pleading poverty to the tourists in the village’s tavernas (Cyclades’ cats are crafty like that!), even though I’d just served them some fresh chicken an hour earlier.

I cried when I left my island hideaway and all of my animal friends.

(And don’t worry. I didn’t have to go running naked into the village for assistance the night I got locked out of the house when I went for a pee. I managed to climb through a window and got back into my bedroom.)

Spicy Istanbul

But I could feel a lockdown looming. It was time to get out of Greece – so on October 31 I flew to Istanbul – a city that filled my heart with mystical delight.

Nothing quite beats sitting in a street café, sipping raki and hearing the mournful call-to-prayer emanate up from the Blue Mosque and echo across the Bosphorus. Even if you do have to wear a mask while you’re doing it.

Istanbul is sublime. Magnificent yet humble. Ethereal yet down to earth.

Istanbul is spicy.

I covered my head, kicked off my shoes, and paid my respects at the Hagia Sofia. I wandered in awe around the delicately-decorated harem at Topkapi Palace. I went underground to see Medusa’s mighty stone head at the Basilica Cistern. And I sat in a rooftop bar in Europe and gazed over the Bosphorus at Asia as the sun set.

Hiding Out in a Ghost Village

But it was November 2020 and I needed to find a home – somewhere to settle for a bit while the world got on with its craziness – so I took on a house-sitting gig in a tiny village called Kayakoy in southern Turkey.

If you’re looking for somewhere to isolate while the world races to find a vaccine, you can’t go wrong with a villa in the mountains one-and-a-half miles above the tiny ‘Ghost Village’ of Kayakoy. Pandemic house-sitting gigs just don’t get any better.

First of all, it’s beautiful. Set in a pastoral valley, it’s outrageously beautiful. Secondly, it’s isolated, and most days I would only see a passing goat herd or two. Thirdly, it has character – by the bucketload. Kayakoy is quirky beyond belief. The ghost town itself was abandoned in 1923 after the Greco-Turkish War and nobody ever moved back there because it was believed there were too many ghosts floating about the place; the landscape is dotted with ancient Lycian tombs, camels and ostriches; my neighbour had a penchant for getting drunk and shooting guns into the night sky; the farmer’s donkeys would sometimes stop by to pay me visits, and quite often my afternoons were interrupted by the inelegant clatter of tortoises fornicating below my balcony.

It sounds just like two coconut shells banging together; in case you’re wondering.

Yes, it was the perfect place to see out a pandemic. The perfect blend of untamed beauty and just the right amount of craziness. It suited me down to the ground.

There were downsides, don’t get me wrong… No hot water unless the sun was out (occasionally, I would check into a hotel in town just to luxuriate in a long, hot shower), frequent electric cuts (but you get used to them), freezing cold winter nights wearing a hat in bed beneath six blankets, occasional bouts of loneliness, and a resident scorpion in the downstairs hot tub.

While the rest of the world was going to extraordinary lengths to keep out of each other’s way, this quirky villa in the Turkish mountains was a wonderfully-peaceful place for me to hide out.

The world kept turning and thankfully I stayed healthy. My Kayakoy house-sitting gig came to an end in March, when some swanky city types from Istanbul snapped up the villa (there’s currently a mass exodus going on from the big smoke to the quieter villages) and yet again I found myself homeless.

And yes, I did cry when I left my mountain villa.

Fabulous Fethiye

But since then I’ve been living it up in Fethiye. I have a sweet little apartment, I’ve made friends from all over the world, I swim in the crystal clear waters of Oludeniz, I go on regular, somewhat boozy, boat trips around the Turquoise Coast, and sometimes – just sometimes – I sit on a breezy bar terrace, beer in hand, and take a moment to think about how wonderful it is just to let go and allow the universe to pave your way.

So I’ll stay just where I am for now, thank you very much. Here with this beer, talking to you.

Stuck here and sublimely happy,

Sky Blue Vickie x