Always almost windy @ Gökova

For Germans, Turkey is a crisis area in times of the NSU and the police and interior ministries once again showing a clear right-wing bias. At the airport, the German tour guide speaks to us in English. Only on the bus in front of a small group does she switch to quiet German.

We try the same without success. But even in tourist centres, Turks speak less English than Thais on the edge of the Golden Triangle. Me at the airport “Surfboard: where?”. Turk points to the baggage carousel. Of course it comes out somewhere else, “surfboard” is simply too multilingual.

At the hotel in Marmaris we order a Turkish beer in German. After the third unsuccessful attempt, the waiter grins somehow maliciously, stammers “Ah, Biera!” apparently understanding highly complex sound shifts and makes us happy. So this is how Martians feel on an all-inclusive holiday.

A little later, our hire car is delivered amid urgent warnings of police checks. On the way to the thermal kite spot Gökova the next morning, we fully agree. The road is like the A93 Holledau motorway – and permanently restricted to up to 50 km/h. Thanks to at least two police checkpoints, the 30 km almost motorway takes at least half an hour. They stop us on the last day too. Our four kiteboards on the passenger seat are deemed worthy of Turkish transport customs – fortunately, the helmeted militia are not interested in my forgotten driving licence.

Gökova lies at the end of a long bay. To the north is a 900 m high karst mountain range that channels the wind. The hinterland to the east is quite dry and is somehow reminiscent of Lake Garda. This is where the thermal engine is: if it’s sunny and it didn’t rain the day before, it’s always almost windy. Unfortunately, you can only get to the kite beach 5 kilometres from the nearest village in your own car.

The municipality of Gökova has leased the kite beach in the middle of the rush nature reserve to an “investor”. Access costs €5 a day for kiters, beginners even pay €12.50, swimmers are free. Fortunately, the inspector has excellent maths skills: four people with four kiteboards in a car clearly make two kiters. Insisting on this opinion, we get through a whole week. Do the same!

For the road toll, you get the unique opportunity to use a stand-up toilet and the right to dine in an overpriced restaurant. The money is supposedly used to pay for a lifeguard and lifeboat. In 100 metres of standing water and always full onshore wind, this is firstly completely superfluous and secondly we see neither for a week. 100% of the money goes on bribes. They are currently levelling another hectare of nature reserve with excavators for Standing Toilet Two and Kite School Nine.

The wind blows incredibly steadily in Gökova. For the first three days, it’s tralala kiting with just 12 to 15 knots. Then one day of calm and the archaeological excavations in Knidos at the end of the Datca peninsula. On the penultimate day, a second Max appears, a dear fellow traveller from the Philippines kite odyssey two years ago. At last, the wind is blowing at a decent 20 knots, which drives clean, endless, wide waves of up to one metre in front of us. We kite into the river estuary with its rushes, and French freaks are jumping one big jump after another.

In the evening, a hell of a tour through the pub streets of Marmaris with endless vodka-bar rip-off artists. If you don’t bargain, you pay more than Munich’s chic prices. The later the evening, the more annoying it gets. Disco after disco, thousands of people and bümm bümm. On the last day, another nice 17 knots blow through our empty brains. We are all right.

I would like to say a special thank you to TUIfly: €1.99 per minute for the 0900 number to book the kiteboard for an already hefty €130 is not enough, so they add a €7 credit card fee and suddenly a kiteboard costs €160. That’s more than outrageous. This is madness. Never again TUIfly.

The second Max is even better. He booked with Öger Tours. Condor is content with €100 for the kiteboard. But the robber barons from the transfer bus want €80 for 60 kilometres with the kitebag. Even taking a taxi was cheaper for them. We kiters have to rise up. We can’t go on like this!