About Reflections

The idea to build a ‘camp’ came to me back in 1996. I had returned from a 14 month motorcycle journey from Los Angeles to Argentina (and back!) and returned to university and my old job. At 27, I was once again confronted with the nagging question: What are you going to do with your life?? I remembered all the camps and pensions that I’d stayed at in Central and South America. Warm climates, hammocks, turquoise seas and I thought that if I had to work, then that was not a bad way to do it. So I decided to open a camp somewhere in the world.

Once again I dropped out of school and this time I headed to Alaska to work in the fishing industry. There I learned that money, in fact, has a value (surprise, surprise!) – I had never worked so hard in my life. I worked on and off for a couple of years and then it was time to move on. The camp idea was still in my head but I needed to travel a bit more before I could settle down in one place. In my travels I had met a few people from the Middle East so I decided to head in that direction. After 5 months in that part of the world I went to Istanbul to teach English. I thought I would stay there for a year or two and then I would be ready to move on to do the camp. And this is more or less what I did.

I originally thought that I would do the camp in Costa Rica or perhaps Panama. Much later I came to realize that these places were merely symbolic of my dream – that my journey would bring me to wherever it was going. As well, I thought that at first I would start off in a place where there was an existing structure on the land where I would settle, perhaps in a very small town. In the back of my mind I dreamed of finding a remote and beautiful place and starting the camp from scratch, but I knew virtually nothing about how to build something from nothing. Obviously, somehow that all changed.

There were some factors in why I ended up staying in Turkey: I was tired of moving and travel (can you imagine??) – somehow the thought of picking up and going to Central America (Costa Rica etc.) left me feeling empty; September 11th had just taken place and for certain reasons I felt that I didn’t need to be in that part of the world; I no longer had as much money as before!; and of course, I had a girlfriend…

Soooo, a friend recommended that I check out Kabak Valley. At that time there were very few who had heard of the Valley in Turkey and most foreigners didn’t make it past Butterfly Valley. In October of 2001 I set off for Kabak on that wonderful winding road from Fethiye and then Olu Deniz. The walls of the valley and then later, as I walked down the trail to the point where you get your first view of the beach were, well, you know…simply amazing. At that time there were three camps in the valley and I stayed at Turan Camp. There was Turan and a wonderful young family who would end up becoming very special friends in my life: Ahmet, Cigdem and Sayan. I wandered an empty beach by day and at night we sat by the fireplace and Turan played one of the THREE songs that he knows on his ‘ney’, and life was not so bad!

I returned in November and then again in December and Turan showed me some pieces of land that were being sold by a family in the village. He opened up a drawer and there were a few photocopies of title deeds. Turan was the real estate broker in Kabak! Although the plot of land I would buy was the smallest, it also had, by far, the best views in the valley. At the end of January, 2002, my girlfriend at that time, Ece, and I returned with two camping tents and a washing machine! No telephone, no electricity, no running water. And so the adventure began!

We built our first structure with the help of Turan and a couple of villagers from the top. It was just a small platform with plastic on top to keep out the rain. Alas, within two months we had our first taste of raw nature and after fighting to save the platform throughout the night it finally collapsed the next day. And along with the storm, Ece went too! Needless to say, the first year wasn’t going to be easy.

After the completion of a 38 ton water cistern I began designing and constructing the kitchen myself. I was visited by the Jandarme, the governers office, and basically every official body of government about what I was doing. So I kept going.

By April I had more or less completed the kitchen, started two bungalows, and the basic structure of the toilet. Because of finances I couldn’t get the camp up and running for that first summer, so instead I spent most nights sleeping on the beach in my Mexican hammock and exploring the surrounding trails and mountains. I spent lots of hours watching the sea, the mountains, the stars and the moon. Every aspect of my surrounding environment moved me to ‘reflect’ on my life and everything both within me and without. The name for the camp was obvious to me.

In October of that first year I returned to Istanbul to work and make a bit more cash to at least get the camp in working order for the next season. In June of 2003 I opened with one completed bungalow and a couple of tents. Ahmet, Cigdem and Sayan helped me finish up the first bungalow and when it was done they looked at me and said “You have a bungalow man!” Perhaps a week later I received my first guest. I cooked, cleaned, fixed, shopped, whatever it took to run the camp.

In the summer of 2004 I met Isil at the camp. We worked together for the next two seasons, running the camp and improving upon it. In the winter of 2005-2006 we stayed through the winter: I worked to replace all of the old bungalows that I had built while Isil carried pebbles from the beach in her backpack twice a day, every day for two months straight with which we built the stairs. We lived through some of the craziest, most wonderful storms that existed (and nearly lost the kitchen roof in the process!). But in the end we were ready for the next season with a much nicer camp.

Although it was always my intention to become more ecologically sensitive as my situation allowed me, Isil’s emphasis on trash removal made a big impact on that aspect of our camp. So today we can say that we are the only camp who remove all of our trash from the valley and the only camp to make sure that what can be recycled is recycled.

Some of the material that you see at the camp (including a refrigerator!) was carried down from the top – the same trail that you walk down on. Most of it, however, was taken down by a tractor to just behind Turan Camp and from there was carried over to our camp. Until May of 2007, all of our groceries had been carried down on our backs. This year much has changed: We have a car now (4 wheel drive!) so I can pull up right to the doorstep and we have great people helping. I’ve been able to give all the building stuff to Jamie and all the physical labor to Gurbet – and Deniz is here keeping all of us healthy with good food!

Anyway, that’s certainly not all of it but wasn’t it a good start??

Enjoy the camp!

Chris