The Adventures of Sunstroke Boy

I am lying motionless in the Mevlana theme room of the Villa Aşina Hotel, a few kilometers outside the Turkish village of Datça.  The air conditioner above the bed blows mercifully over the sizzling surface of my skin, already baked a rosy red in less than a day and a half. 

The first day on the beach here I slathered myself with 35 SPF sunscreen, thinking that would keep me safe.   Instead, you would have thought that I had smeared my body with cocoa butter and fallen asleep in the tanning bed.   The next day I bumped the SPF up to 50.  Surely SPF 50 (50!) would protect the pastiest of pasty white skin.  

This might be true, most places on Earth.  But not, apparently, here on the surface of the planet Mercury.

By mid afternoon of Day Two I have retreated from the beach back to the air-conditioned shelter of my mauve-colored theme room.   I lie on the bed in a semi-delirious state with heat radiating off my back. I don't want to move, despite the waffle pattern being imprinted into the side of my beet-red face by the itchy textured bedspread.

My mind wanders. With my head turned sideways, I stare at a framed inscription on the wall of my room, labeled "The Seven Advice of the Mevlana."  

Advice Number 1:
In generosity and helping others,
be like a river.

Okay, be like a river.  Got it.

Advice Number 2:
In compassion and grace, be like sun.

Ugh.  Please don't mention the sun.

I continue down the list as the air conditioner hums on the wall behind me.  At last, I reach the final advice:

  "Either exist as you are, or be as you look."

In my delirium, this otherwise nonsensical wisdom becomes clear to me.  Yes, I see now.  With my beet-red back and my waffle-coned face, I am not a pretty sight.  Yet I exist as I am, not as I look. For I am not a pasty white-skinned American tourist trapped in his air conditioned hotel room on the coast of Turkey. Oh no.

I will rise above the adversity of my affliction.
I am a super hero.

I am Sunstroke Boy.

*     *    *

Datça is a village of about 14,000 in southwest Turkey, located on a narrow peninsula that features the Mediterranean Sea on one side, and the Aegean on the other.  A perfect spot for people who want to stare at a different beautiful and idyllic body of water on alternate days of the week.

Of course there are tourists in Datça, mostly Turks from other parts of the country, with a few Americans, Brits and other Europeans sprinkled in.  But unless you are arriving by yacht (unfortunately not my personal mode of transportation), Datça is not particularly easy to get to. 

The village is a three-hour drive along a twisty mountain road from the nearest airport in Dalaman, Turkey.   So if you want to spend a few days on a secluded rocky cove with crystal clear water overlooking a Greek island in the distance -- you know, if you're a freak that's into that sort of thing -- then you have to work for it a little bit.

Truly, I can't say enough about the water.  The sea is unbelievably clear, cool, and beautiful.  Upon sight of the coast it takes a certain amount of restraint not to immediately tear off your clothes and run naked into the sea.  In fact I'm sure this would happen more often than it does, if there wasn't the surprisingly unpleasant matter of the sun. 

My God, the sun. 


Yes, it is the middle of summer and I realize that it is supposed to be hot.  But not this hot. The locals say it has never been so hot.  In addition to no clouds and a scorching sun, for three days a steady wind has been blowing in from the south, coming right off of the desert on the Arabian Peninsula.

In most parts of the planet, a summer breeze makes things cooler.   But here, for the moment at least, the opposite is true.  Instead, the wind is blazing, like a giant hand-held blow dryer with the switch set to "frizz."

With this heat lamp/hair dryer combo, the midday temperature each day has been coming in right around 40 degrees.  Yes, this sounds like a typical summer day in San Francisco, until you realize that we're talking about 40 degrees Celsius.  That's 104 to you and me, my American friends, and I don't care where you live:  104 is frickin' hot.


But from my balcony at the Villa Aşina I can see the turquoise water of the Mediterranean, with the Greek island of Symi in the distance.  Of course I'm going to the beach.  I have a hat.  I have sunscreen.

Hell, upon arrival my skin is probably white enough to reflect the sun all together, like one of those heat visors you fold across the dashboard of your car.  I'll be fine.

The first day it's not even 10:30 in the morning before I retreat back into the shade for the rest of the day.   Day Two is even more abbreviated than that.

It's not until an alter ego is invented in my Fortress of Solitude (otherwise known as the Mevlana Room) that I am prepared to challenge the sun again on Day Three.

*     *    *
Sunstroke Boy emerges from his air-conditioned sanctuary on the third day prepared to save the world, or, at the very least, get to the beach after breakfast. To accomplish this feat, he is wearing his Cloak of Invincibility, which might be mistaken for a stretched-out and faded T-shirt, bought years ago on sale at The Gap.

Protected by the cloak (along with a straw hat from Hawaii and a pair of Turkish sunglasses found in the back-seat pouch on the flight in from Istanbul), Sunstroke Boy strides out into hot wind and early morning sun.   Distracted by the view of the sea in the distance, Sunstroke Boy promptly walks into a poolside chaise lounge, bashing his shin into its heavy wooden frame.

Apparently the cloak of invincibility may work against sunburn, but is no protection against painful klutz-related injuries.

His shin is now bleeding, inches below another cut apparently inflicted the day before. Sunstroke Boy can't remember where the previous injury came from.  He briefly considers wearing shin guards, or at the very least compiling a bruise journal.

Undeterred, Sunstroke Boy leaves the hotel area and strides down the concrete stairs leading to the stony cove below. A cheap snorkel and scuba mask had been purchased the previous day.  He walks over the hot stones on the beach into the water, wearing the mask, snorkel, and Cloak of Invincibility. 


If you added a pair of Water Wings or a Dora the Explorer life preserver, Sunstroke Boy would look exactly like an overly protected 3-year-old, standing in a backyard wading pool.  

But Sunstroke Boy can not be defeated by mere shame and ridicule.   Wearing the cloak into the water he snorkles away from the cove along the coast, between the rocks, and through the amazing crystal clear water.

Sunstroke Boy paddles his way toward two large off-shore rocks, apparently split in two a millenium ago.   He swims through the three-foot space between the rocks, watching a large school of sardines.   The water is so clear Sunstroke Boy can see straight to the sea bottom, a good 50 feet below.

Sunstroke Boy climbs up on the rock, finds a perch a few feet off the water, takes off the mask and snorkel, and dives in.   He climbs back up, ventures to a spot a few feet higher, and dives off again. 

On the third climb up on the volcanic rock, Sunstroke Boy sees blood running from a gash in his left knee, to match the pair of cuts on the shin.  Another 3-inch cut runs horizontally along the back of his right calf as well.

No one explained to Sunstroke Boy that coral and volcanic rock tend to be sharp.   Caution and common sense are not among his super powers. 

Emerging from the water on his return to the beach cove, a Turkish family sitting nearby looks up and stares at the legs of Sunstroke Boy.  

Perhaps they are wondering if our super hero just swam through some barbed wire.
 
*     *     *

As you might suspect, Sunstroke Boy is not the most successful of super heroes.   He tends to curtail his activities in the summer, unless shrouded in the fog of northern California.  Cries of "Help! Save me, Sunstroke Boy!"  too often are answered with a response of  "Listen, I'll get back to you around eight thirty when the sun goes down.  Until then, I'll be sipping a cool beverage and fighting evil over here in the shade."

Understandably, this has led many of those in distress -- or those just looking for someone to hang out at the beach with -- to turn to other super heroes with a little more crime-fighting flexibility, and better tans. 

Sunstroke Boy doesn't take it personally.  He still gets around, albeit on a limited basis during the middle of July.

But he knows his limitations.  If you need someone to help you drink a frosty beer in the shade on the veranda, he's your man.  For the Fourth of July barbecue or the all-day inner tube float down the Guadalupe, it's probably best to call somebody else.

*     *     *

Delirium returns later that evening in the air conditioned sanctuary of the Mevlana Room.  From my standard, face-down position on the waffle-iron bedspread, I turn my head sideways and stare at the photos of the famed Whirling Dervishes of the Mevlana Lodge that decorate the wall.

Again my mind wanders. I contemplate how the dervishes can twirl like that for a full hour during their Sama ceremony without getting dizzy.   



Or, more importantly, without throwing up.

I wonder if dervishes can take themselves out of the evening's Sama line up, like a baseball player with an unexpected pre-game groin pull.

"Sorry, my brothers, but I can not whirl today. I was weak, and just succumbed to the MacDonald's strawberry shake/sausage biscuit combo."

I assume a weak stomach would be a major drawback for aspiring mevlana. Surely a propensity to vomit would at the very least bump you down to the minor league of dervishes. A spirited but much less awe-inspiring demonstration of faith.

The Hurling Dervishes.

The sun has baked my brain past delirium, straight into blasphemy. 

I roll over, look down at the cuts and bruises on my legs and feet, and contemplate tomorrow's climb on another rock. 

Fear not, Sunstroke Boy, for you are not alone. Tomorrow, you snorkel through coral, step over sea urchins, and jump off of sharp volcanic rocks as one with yet another alter ego. 

Again, I will exist as I am, but not as I look.
Once again I will rise above the adversity of my affliction.
I am yet another super hero.

I am Sunstroke Boy.  As well as Hemophiliac Man.

*     *     *

I walk out to the pool side of the Villa Aşina late on the afternoon of Day Four.  Mercifully, the scalding sun has disappeared behind the back of the hotel for the day, leaving the chaise recliners in the safety of the shade.

There is no bar at the Villa Aşina.  But I have learned that if you ask, they will make any drink you want, and bring it out to you on a little silver tray.  After settling into the chaise lounge, I signal to one of the Turkish college kids working around the pool side.   

Can you make me a gin and tonic? I ask in Turkish.   Yes, he can. 

With ice, I specify.  Buzlu.  Çok buzlu.  Lots of ice.

There might be something better in life than sipping a gin and tonic after a long day in the sun, while you lie on a chaise lounge in the shade poolside on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean.  But at this particular moment, I could not possibly tell you what it could be.




I take another sip, and say a silent prayer for limes, tonic water, Mr. Gordon's distillery, and the invention of the ice cube.

My skin is still red, and cuts and bruises cover my legs.   But I'm no longer feeling any pain.   Maybe time does heal all wounds.  But a gin and tonic with ice does a pretty good job of that, too.

Yes, I think I'll have another, and not move until dinner.

Sunstroke Boy can always save the world tomorrow, sometime after breakfast.