"You did it on purpose anyway, just so you'd have something to write about", my good friends are laughing, when I limp like an old man from the hotel reception. I leave in a small minibus with Martin Kokes and Martin Nemec from Ölüdeniz going directly to the airport at Dalaman. I won't see the Turks at the bus station on my way back then. They would surely laugh when they saw me limp up a week later to their ticket stall. They would hardly believe me that I really hadn't been in Afghanistan. French photographer Jerome Maupoint, whose photographs we know from Cross Country, Arial and Fly&Glide magazines, leaves along with us. Jerome shot nine negative rolls over the course of the festival, and because he is a paragliding pilot as well, he was able to get several shots of Mike Kung in the air at close range on a wide lens with a 20mm focal length. His photos should appear in the December issue of Cross Country, and I'm very curious to see them. Laughing, he says he is as well. He'll only find out how they came out once he gets home and develops the film.



    We drive through little villages and see groups of school kids standing along the roads, waiting for their school buses. All are dressed in uniforms of white shirts, the girls all wearing the same blue skirts and red ties, while the boys wear black ties. This is the school uniform for Turkish schoolchildren. I see them a little blurred as the Turkish driver maintains speeds well over a hundred and passes other cars every chance he gets, even though everywhere I see round signs clearly saying maximum speed 30km/h.

    We arrive at the airport on time and, happy to have survived the trip, tip the driver with all my remaining Turkish banknotes. After a one hour local flight, and a two hour wait at the Istanbul airport, the black sea and Bospor channel, which divides the Asian mainland from the European, rapidly disappear behind us.



    This was the second annual flight festival and was this year supported by the Turkish Aeronautical Association. Everything was well organized, the organizers, using walkie talkies, had everything well under control and the entire festival was conceived as a big show. The events of each day were recorded by cameras placed at starting grounds and landing areas, and the edited scenes were then screened all evening on big screens in the Cloud 9 Bar. Everyone could watch not only their own flights, but those of the others as well. Thanks to this possibility the Czech pilots became immensely popular. The feats of Tonda Pallas, who flies with his fingers preventively bandaged, because the ropes have tremendous pull, were often shown over and over again. It's a shame that his Saturday nervousness, and its resulting imprecision, caused him not win in the acrobatic category, which he doubtless would otherwise have taken without problem. Mike Kung that day was not flying but on the judging panel. And of course Mirek Pechmann's hind side gliding along the water became a standard attraction every evening. Czech products this year were presented by the following companies: Gradient, MAC Para Technology, SKY Paragliders and WalkerJet, the latter two of which together put up a stall on the beach and throughout the festival rented and sold paragliders and paramotors.

    I must thank organizer Kadri Tuglu, who not only arranged pleasant accommodation in the Asena Beach hotel for me, but also excellent conditions for my everyday work.

    Martin Kokes, Viktor Prochazka and David Bzirsky are again the names of the pilots, thanks to whom most of the photos from the air were possible. And especially David is primarily responsible for my making this trip at all and so visited another, up until now unknown, flying terrain.

    Flying in Ölüdeniz from the crest of Babadag very much reminds me of flying on the Canary Islands, except for several differences. In Ölüdeniz, everything is concentrated in one area, and that goes not only for take off grounds, but landing grounds and accommodations as well. The transport system for paragliders and hanggliders in the national park up to an elevation of 2000 meters, is meticulously worked out and the expedition needs no non-flying driver, or even a car. The cost of getting to Turkey from the Czech Republic comes out considerably cheaper then getting to the Canary Islands, and the same goes for prices of accommodation. A smart selection of a vendor, it is possible to arrange a ticket from Vienna to Dalaman for around 5000 Czech Crowns and you can find accommodations for 200 Czech Crowns per night including breakfast without difficulty. On the west edge of the beach, near a calm lagoon there's even a camp. You can even make the trip on your own, by a car. You just need to count on a distance of 2700km, set aside two days for the trip and buy a transit visa for travel through Yugoslavia, count on police radar in every village in poor Bulgaria, which is their main source of income for local policemen, and of course be prepared, especially financially, for any unexpected events on the road.

    In Ölüdeniz, however, unlike on the Canary Islands, it is not possible to fly year-round. Spring or Autumn are the best. The summer temperatures, for a Czech, are murderous and in winter the mountain peaks are covered in snow. Local pilots use the lower starting grounds in winter, which are around 800 meters. And one particular difference is that the Mediterranean Sea is considerably warmer than the Atlantic Ocean. Other questions may be directed to local pilots at www.babadag.com. You'll not be bothering them, they're waiting for it.

    Turkey is still considered a highly religious country, although it is rapidly assimilating Euro American lifestyles, especially in its European part. It is most visible among the young people, in their ways of dress and thinking. About 98.9% of the Turkish population is Islamic in religion, the remaining 0.2% being Jewish and Christian. I'm not sure I understand the Christian religion exactly, but I don't know anything about the Islamic one. In any case, the Turks are pleasant people. It is true that the tourist resort is something of a "glasshouse" environment, but nowhere did I encounter even a vague sign of aversion, aggression or animosity. On the contrary, everyone was extremely friendly and ingratiating, regardless of what I wanted. The apartments I lived in were cleaned by a girl and her mother. From the moment I showed them some photographs, they eagerly awaited the next batch every day. And fresh flowers began to appear on my worktable each day. Maybe the mother just wanted to get the daughter married, who knows. But in any case it was really pleasant.



    On the seashore, in the middle of the sandy beach, in an unguarded and openly accessible day and night arbour, was a computer with a monitor, printer, modem and alternate power source. An almost unimaginable circumstance in the Czech lands, and understandably not because we don't have a seashore.

    In short, Turkey made a great impression on me during the course of my short stay. And that even despite the fact that both my legs are battered, I limp on the left one and I even lost a pair of pants there. Not that I lost them in a game of cards with some Turks or anything, just that Friday's landing was so rough I tore them up in the process, and decided to leave them to the land of Islam and Usama bin Laden fans. Perhaps someone will still find them useful ...