The wily and wise gray-eyed goddess Athena, who appeared in Troy in the guise of a tour guide and the incarnation of the Trojan warrior Hector (http://goo.gl/wk5ol), doesn’t want The Idiot to start writing “The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean.”
Although the spear-carrying goddess knew that The Idiot planned to conclude his next book after he swam the Hellespont and strolled into Troy last week, she had other plans.
The most beautiful of the Greek gods (even in disguise) spent hours under a fig tree amidst the ruins at Troy giving The Idiot a detailed account of the Trojan War, the history of Troy and Odysseus’ subsequent two-decade voyage back to Ithaca. She also dished out dirt and details about everyone in the pantheon of Greek gods, complained about how difficult it’s been to be a goddess and even showed The Idiot a sketch she’d made of Troy back in the day.
Athena’s drawing of Troy.
“I’m not only eternal and have to change my shape and skin all of the time but I’ve also got to be constantly aware of the jealousies, pranks and plagues of the other gods,” Athena lamented, noting that the Trojan War itself was scripted and directed by teams of gods working against each other on and beyond nearby Mount Ida, which the Turks call Kazdağı. “I wish I could be as carefree, whimsical and emotional as a human being.”
Then the goddess of wisdom, warfare, arts and crafts, who frequently has an owl as her companion, got to the point.
“You still have to MedTrek a bit more to exactly equal the 4,401 kilometers you wrote about in your first book,” Athena explained with her usual bemused and ethereal smile. “I’m going to give you some Turkish tasks to keep you on the path for a while longer.”
“Why, may I humbly ask, should I have to MedTrek the exact distance that I did for the first book?” The Idiot replied. “Is there something special about 8,802 kilometers?”
Athena looked at him with an expression that implied “Oh my god(s) he’s not only human but he really is an idiot.”
“Symmetry, or συμμετρεῖν, is what it’s all about,” she replied, as though speaking to a two-year old who still believed the myth of the Trojan Horse. “How odd it would look if you MedTrekked anything but precisely 8,802 kilometers! Here’s what you should do next.”
She then proceeded to give instructions that would have challenged anyone but The Idiot.
“First, cross the Scamander River to the shores of the Mediterranean; visit Besik Bay where the Greeks camped during their attack on Troy; and climb to Assos to pay your respects to my temple on the crag there,” directed the goddess.
The Idiot did, of course, exactly what he was told.
His first stop was the Scamander River, which starts on the somewhat distant Mount Ida — where, it’s written many times in “The Iliad,” things were controlled by “O Father Zeus! who rul’st Ida’s height” — and flows into the Hellespont north of Troy.
The reflective Scamander River at dawn.
Then, about 15 kilometers from Troy, The Idiot sadly discovered that Besik Bay, where Achilles and the boys had their ships and tents, is now the site of an ugly cement factory.
Is that a gigantic Greek ship at Besik Bay?
No, it's an ugly cement factory.
When he arrived at the Temple of Athena in Assos, The Idiot immediately sensed the beauty and tranquility of the human hilltop tribute to charming Athena and was thrilled to see the island of Lesbos standing proudly in the glimmering Mediterranean.
Athena's peaceful temple at Assos.
After the Idiot calmly explored Assos (http://goo.gl/qCgWY) Athena again appeared, this time in the body of an Austrian tourist who winked and pretended that she wanted to chat about Paul Theroux’s book “The Pillars of Hercules.”
“That was a bad joke,” Athena chortled. “I now want you to MedTrek along the Olive Riviera coast to the delightfully named town of Küçükkuyu and awaken at sunrise to visit the Altar of Zeus at nearby Adatepe,” Athena said in Viennese Deutsch. “Then MedTrek deep into the hills to swim with the nymphs at the Milhi waterfall before climbing to the highest peak on the western side of the Mount Ida range where you can look down on distant Troy as Zeus & Co. did during the Trojan War.”
The aptly named Olive Riviera between Assos and Küçükkuyu.
Olive Riviera roadside stand.
An olive tree grows in the Küçükkuyu Olive Museum gift shop.
Awakening at sunrise was easy enough but The Idiot wondered if Athena would be amused that someone had written the word “FAKE” on the Altar of Zeus.
Sunrise awakening.
"FAKE"!?!
She might be slightly placated that other visitors tied “wishes” to a tree near the altar in the hopes that Zeus would come to the rescue.
Will wishes come true at the Altar of Zeus?
The Idiot sweated profusely from the outset of his 38-kilometer day-long MedTrek in the grueling early September heat. That made him especially happy to swim at the Mihli falls before walking through pine forests — and energetically picking/eating dozens of figs — and marching uphill to the top of a peak (http://goo.gl/1vkYa) that gave him a view west to distant Troy and east to the summit of Mt. Ida.
A welcome swimming hole in the hills.
When The Idiot descended to his base camp in Küçükkuyu, he saw Athena once again. This time she was a 17-year-old high school student who initially spoke in fractured English and pretended to want to discuss the various social and cultural transitions underway in contemporary Turkey while he had a dinner of just-cooked fresh sardines.
Choosing a kilo of fresh sardines.
Looking at a kilo of just-cooked fresh sardines.
Eating a kilo of just-cooked fresh sardines for US $5.62.
Then, giving him one of her knowing winks while she watched him finish his meal, Athena issued another terse directive.
“Climb to the summit of Mt. Ida tomorrow,” the goddess said in a tone of intrigue and mystery. “Zeus wants to have a word with you.”
Text and Photos by Joel Stratte-McClure
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