Читать книгу Looking for Aphrodite - David Price Williams - Страница 22

sea mist, becoming more and more rugged and daunting as we came close in to the shore. So rocky and threateningly forbidding were its cliffs and peaks that I could not imagine who could possibly live in this wild country. The captain broke out the Turkish flag on the stay, a sinister blood red with white crescent moon and star. I really began to wonder where I was going; it seemed so far from any kind of civilisation, and so alien. But finally the less inhospitable harbour of Marmaris hove into view at the far end of a narrow inlet surrounded by towering mountains and we moored near the tiny customs house on the quayside. In those days, before mass tourism and endless hotels along the sea front, Marmaris was a small fishing village with only a couple of streets opening off the maydan, the village square, overlooked by the unkempt ruins of a 16th century castle.

The captain showed me into the customs building where I at once began to ask nervously about transport to Knidos. The port police there were very helpful and as they stamped my passport, they pointed to a row of Ford Transit mini-buses on the corner of the square. I walked over and started mouthing my final destination. After a very short time, in fact what felt like almost immediately, some dollars changed hands and I was ushered into the back of the nearest of these minibuses, the doors were closed, and off we went without further delay; it was as though they had been waiting half the morning for me to arrive. This, I learnt, was a dolmuş, a shared taxi, and it was already full of passengers who, I reasoned later, must have embarked maybe an hour or more earlier and had sat patiently for the bus to fill up. I happened to be the last. Occupying all the main seats in front were leathery faced men with flat caps, rather rotund apple-cheeked women with head scarves, and a number of small children. I was given a wooden stool by the back door which as I soon found out rocked and rolled each time we went round a bend so I had to wedge myself in such a way that I didn’t fall forwards every couple of minutes. I just hoped that the back doors had been properly closed otherwise I would be propelled unceremoniously into the street.

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