Stories

"He says we are out of oil," the pretty girl who spoke English told us. "Oil?" "Petrol."

We were out of gas in Turkey,  in the middle of nowhere.

Jim and I had decided to go skiing on the economy plan. We had Friday and Monday off, so we jumped on a bus from Izmir to Bursa after work. We checked into an old ski chalet, famous in its day before the hotels and the tourists moved to the top of the mountain, called Uludag.

The place was still beautiful and lush, with an entrance that spoke of its grandeur and a lobby and bar like nothing I had ever seen in Turkey. The prices were low.

We were among the few people in the hotel at the height of the skiing season.

My room was opulent—a giant oak bed, a thick feather mattress, and fine Turkish linen sheets. The beautifully enameled claw-foot tub was large and held well over three feet of water. The water from the tap was the hottest I had felt since arriving in December.   It looked perfect for sore skiing muscles and proved to be just that.

Morning came early. We ate a breakfast of Kalamata olives, Feta cheese, and Rosehip jam on toasted Turkish bread. The Turkish Kahve, which I had only begun to appreciate, went amazingly well with our meal.

We caught a shared taxi up the mountain with other adventurous types and got out at the base of the slopes, at the ski rental place. 

We rented skis, boots, poles, and unlimited lift tickets. Jim watched our kit while I went into the Pro Shop and bought ski pants, and then we jockeyed our way to the T-bar to the top of the intermediate slope. It had been a while since I skied, and this was only my second try. I wanted to take it slow.

On the third day, Sunday, the conditions were perfect. By midday, the crowds began to dwindle. As soon as we skied to the bottom, we went right on the t-bar and headed back up. We made so many runs that the staff stopped asking for our lift tickets and knew us by name. We skied well after dark under the lights. It was perfect!

When we turned in our gear and went out front, there wasn't a mini-bus, taxi, or car in sight. It was too far to walk to Bursa. The temperature was dropping quickly. Jim had twisted his ankle on his last run and was hobbling around. We had already spent most of our money and couldn't afford rooms for the night.

We decided to go to one of the hotels to see if they could call us a ride, when a small bus came around a building. I sprinted after it, got the driver to stop, and asked in my fledgling Turkish for a ride to Bursa. My Turkish can be amazingly fluent under pressure.

The driver gave me a terse and emphatic no and started driving.

As I stood there, rejected and freezing, I heard a flood of female Turkish voices, speaking loudly and quickly from the van. The van stopped. A young man in a ski suit and glasses got out and said, "Gel Gel," Come, Come.

I waved for Jim, helped him aboard, and climbed in. We had joined a group of friends from Izmit, headed back to college after a weekend on the mountain. There were five guys and six pretty girls. The girl sitting next to me, Gamze, was stunning.

As we headed down the mountain, we talked, they talked, while one of the girls translated.  They seemed very excited to meet some Americans and were surprised we were soldiers. We talked about what they were studying, where we lived, and our homes in America. At my mention of Alabama, they all sang Sweet Home Alabama.

I've never met anyone who didn't know that song.  That began a songfest in the back of the bus until the driver turned off the radio and began talking.

Yep! We were out of gas

Worse, we were only about halfway down the mountain. The driver thought he should catch a ride down to town and get a ride back with gas. The problems with this plan were many—we would have no heat, it would be dangerous to sit in the dark on the road at night, we had not seen anyone else on the hill for his proposed ride down, and most of all, I did not trust him to return until morning.

I had a better idea.

We were stopped almost at the top of a hill. I suggested we push the van to the top, jump on, and coast to the town. "It has to be mostly downhill."

And that's what we did. We all piled out, pushed the van to the top, and ran to jump on as the driver let it begin coasting down the hill. I was the fastest and probably the craziest, so I ensured all the kids were back on the bus before jumping in. The driver would let off the brakes when he heard everyone chanting, "John's on the Bus, John's on the Bus!"  I positioned Jim in the passenger seat so that Chauffeur Bey couldn't leave any of us.

Each time I jumped back in the van, the only seat left for me was the one next to Gamze. I was ok with that. It gave us plenty of time to misunderstand each other.

Once back in town, we sent the driver to get gas while we all danced in the street to the Minibus radio.  When he returned, they drove us to our hotel, where the party continued.  Even the hotel staff joined in.  The driver was not invited; I took his keys so he couldn't strand the kids.

Only in Turkey can you ski for three days, get stranded on the slope, hitch a ride with some strangers, run out of gas, and end up dancing in the streets with a pretty college girl to Foreigner's I Want to Know What Love Is for $70.