Most morning’s I am up early as we are now in tune with the sun and the rhythm of the available light. Currently that means I’m awake by 5am and up and about shortly afterwards. I love this time of day as it means that I get to experience the world with out people.
On this morning like many others I go for a run and leave Juliet behind snoozing in the van. We are camped on the southern Black Sea shore in Turkey. The weather is beautiful and the sun strong and vibrant even though it is still early. As I leave the campsite dogs are sleeping on the traffic free road. Hearing the pad, pad of my running they wake from their slumber, some just have a look, others less nonchalant rise and bark at me. I talk back to them to reassure them that I mean no harm and they let me pass.
My goal is the light house that we can see from the back of the van. Seemingly close, but on the road it turns out to be 4km before I turn onto the final path. At this point there is a sign for the “Yason Blue” hotel and I wonder if it’s a rip off from “Raddison Blue” or something else. It’s the “Blue” word that get’s my focus and I ignore “Yason”
As I run down the track towards the light house the scent of roses wafts passed by and it evokes a sense of home in me. I’m still unaware of what lays just round the corner. The view opens up and I can see both ways along the black sea coast on my right up towards Georgia from where we have come, on my left towards Istanbul where we are headed.
Then a church appears, which in its’ is self is odd as mosques are normal here. It’s a Greek looking church. I slow down and take a peek in. No longer in use, but beautiful in its’ simplicity. Reading the information outside the penny drops. The church was build in 1839 by the Greek community that used to be here. It marks the point where supposedly Jason and the Argonuats stopped in mythology on their way back with the “Golden Fleece”.
“Yason” is Jason. It’s now obvious to me and it’s obvious that my focus has been in the wrong place and I smile as I realise that this is now potentially our third encounter with the story of Jason on this trip so far.
Back in Batumi wandering around the streets we came across a statue high up on a pedestal in the middle of Europe Square. A woman holding a golden fleece, stirring memories of school in both Juliet and I. Dawning on both of us that this was the Golden Fleece which Jason set off to find and the woman holding the fleece was Medea who had fallen in love with Jason at the behest of Eros.
Reading more about the story, some archaeologists believe that the myth of the fleece has it’s origins in the way that the people of the Svaneti region of Georgia mine for gold that is still carried out today. Using a sheep’s fleece placed into the fast flowing rivers that carry flecks of gold washed from the Caucus mountains. On extraction, the fleece is covered in gold and it’s this that potentially is the source of the legend.
Three weeks previously we’d been camping in the most wonderful valleys in Svaneti high up in the Caucus mountains. Perched next to fast flowing rivers completely unaware of the connection to the legend of Jason.
Randomly over the course of a few weeks, in our 1970 campervan, with an Ikea bed strapped to some home made drawers, we seem to have unwittingly become the modern equivalent of Argonauts. We don’t have to plough fields with fire breathing oxen as Jason did. Our journey is simpler and easier with just the odd breakdown in between halcyon days journeying along the Black Sea.
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