Hamer Brothers in Turkey
18th Feb 2012
Sam Hamer reports on him and his brother's latest adventures - this time in Turkey... 
"We have just returned from an amazing two week climbing trip to Geyik Bayiri, in western Turkey. This was our first time visiting the country and what a very special place it is! We headed out there with our great friend Andre, a London resident and super psyched climber. We had an absolute blast of a trip!
So, the start of the trip involved a quick dash down to London town where we all met up and stayed the night at Chez Andre’s. The next morning involved an early start, with a taxi ride straight to Gatwick, then followed the usual airport shenanigans and then boom, we were on our way heading east. Destination = Antalya !! After a rather long 4 hour flight (we didn’t care, we were going to Turkey baby!!) we arrived in the city of Antalya. It was pretty late on, but an organised taxi was waiting for us outside to take us the last bit. We arrived at our final destination of the Climber’s Garden in the dead of night, quickly putting up our tents and then hitting the sack!
The next morning we awoke to an amazing view of where we were going to be based for the next two weeks. There was rock everywhere we looked!! And best of all, the main and best sector (Sarkit) was less than five minutes from our tent! It really was a climber’s paradise.
The first few days we took it pretty steady, ticking off some of the classics and then gradually stepping it up a gear to send some amazingly steep, super long, tufa infested routes!
Here were some of our best sends of the trip: Sarkit Souls 8a, Flat Rate 8a, Plastik fantastic 8a, Troja 8a, Turkish Airways 8a+, Milestone 8a, Trio de ligoville 8a, Fun in the sun 7c+, High Hopes 7c+, Family affair 8a+, Ikarus 8a+, Freedom is a battle 8a+, Truth Hurts 8a+, Richfest 8a, Chain erection 8a, Parrelle universe 7c+, Neptunalia 8a+ and Serpedon 8b+
Weather wise, it was pretty chilly for most of the time and we did have four days of torrential rain which were a write-off and dampened our moods slightly. Not to mention soaking everything in our tent!
Apart from that, all in all it was an amazing trip. One of the highlights was spending two of our rest days getting more of a cultural experience of real Turkey! This included a stroll round the local Sunday market, a rub down at the Turkish Baths, smoking strawberry Shisha and consuming large amounts of kebabs, Turkish delights and Bazlama’s.
So as they would say in Turkey, Serefe!!!!"
Ed Hamer onsight on Parallel Universe 7c+
