Trabzon #2: Narnia in Uzungol (04/01/2026)
- farhandalan2
- Jan 5
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 7
The day started properly as usual.
I knew the breakfast would be fancy, as yesterday. So I prepared my belly to handle the cloud of a chance of meatball (Do you know this movie? This was a peak animation movie in my age).
A big breakfast at the hotel. Bread, eggs, cheese, olives, and more tea than my body probably needed. It felt like preparation for something important, even though I had no idea how magical the day would turn out to be.
I only had a plan to meet Mas Fauzi and Ananta in a bus station, and we would be heading to a place named Uzungol.
So after I almost threw up a biscuit, I finished my breakfast. I walked through several channels to reach the bus stop. Some Babas were opening their shops, looking so much hope existed on their face. Hopefully, it would be a good day for them as well.
The bus came, we climbed inside, and the engine started. Mas Fauzi did not join since he had several meetings with his supervisor. He is a busy person, but still managed to give me much information, although I am just a stranger to him. He is really a good guy, and I owe him a lot.
A bus full of Questions
As the bus slowly filled up, I started noticing something strange.
Almost all passengers were women. Young, old, with hijab, with no hijab, blonde, black hair, short, tall, taller than me, but all women. And they were very pretty.
I looked around. Counted again. Yep.
Women. Women. Women.
Then us.
I leaned toward my friend and whispered,
“Are we accidentally joining a women-only spiritual retreat? Where are the boys?”
We laughed, but honestly, we were genuinely confused.
No one explained it. No signs. No announcements.
Perhaps the boys were too busy with their circle, or they did feel like the trip was wasting time; we had no idea. Eventually, we stopped questioning it. Travel logic is fragile anyway.
The trip took several hours with beautiful and new views for me. After one hour, the place looked different since the snow was more easily found on several hills. I looked at my sneakers, regretting why I did not take the boots on. This would be a very wet journey.
The bus climbed higher, and with every turn, the snow became less shy.
At first, it appeared in patches, small, polite, like it was asking permission to exist. Then it stopped asking. Hills turned white, trees wore winter coats, and rooftops looked like they had been gently erased and redrawn.
Dude, my friends chasing snow in many places would be crazily jealous of this view!
We arrived in Narnia
My sneakers were officially the wrong life decision.
I kept looking at them, then at the snow, then back at them again, like that would somehow change the outcome. It didn’t. My feet were about to learn a lesson the hard way.
When we arrived, Uzungöl welcomed us silently. It's white, it's cold, it's quiet.
No dramatic signs. No loud announcements. Just cold air, mist, and a lake resting calmly between mountains. Everything looked unreal, like the world had been softened using a blur tool, but in a good way.
I stopped walking. Not because I was tired, but because my brain needed a moment to catch up.
This place did not feel like Türkiye.
It felt like Narnia in the Winter Age.
If someone told me a lion was about to appear and start giving life advice, I would have believed them without hesitation.
I won't take the Turkish delight just like Edmund did, though, but I won't refuse to sit beside the cute Snow Queen, travelling with her deer cart.
“Bro… this is crazy.” I kept telling Ananta. This guy reacted the same.
Uzungol in the winter is magical!
We started to throw snow, and continued with a serious snowball game.
We shout happily! We jumped like crazy! It was our big day!
Every few steps, I stopped.
Every few minutes, I took another picture.
Every picture failed to explain anything. I retake it.
Some places don’t care about your camera quality. They refuse to be captured properly. Uzungöl was one of them.
Wanna build a snowman?
We walked, and we kept amazed by nature for an hour. Then maturity left the group.
I found a wide patch of snow and immediately decided to build a snowman. Not a small, aesthetic one. A big, stupid snowman, the kind that exists purely because adults forgot how to behave.
I had Squidward on my head. I rolled snowballs, and they fell apart. We laughed. I rebuilt.
The snowman leaned slightly to the left, as it had already given up on life. We gave it random facial features and proudly stepped back.
"Trump!" A random arab guy pointing out our creation.
"Trump? Hmm, it looks alike." I agree with his statement. Looking at my boy closer.
"Ahmad, taal, taal!" This guy called his flock.
"His nose is just too big." His friend commented on my snow.
"Habibie, hadza ismuhu Trump." His friend explained, and then laughed.
"Hm, it does make sense. He looks normal now." His friend now nods.
We laughed together as we had the same agreement. My lovely boy has now become the most hated person in the world XD, but he was still kinda cute, though.
Shot the gun
Nearby, a man offered a shooting game.
The rule is simple: hit the glass.
Reward is a pride.
The cost is 250 lira, card was accepted.
I hesitated for exactly two seconds before confidence took over. I mean, I did some military training back then in Bandung. I shot 15 real bullets with accuracy, not that good, but not that bad. I guessed that 5-meter shot targets were nothing to me.
“So, how hard can it be?”
"Can you record me with this?" I asked Ananta with confidence. He saw me, and then looked at the target. I knew that he was not sure it was a good step to spend 250 on nothing. But of course, he did not know me.
It turned out very bad and very hard.
I aimed. I shot. I waited.
Nothing.
The glass stood there, untouched, judging us silently.
The man nodded calmly, like this was a normal outcome. Like people missing everything was part of the business model.
I laughed, not because it was funny, but because it was too stupid to be painful.
From all the bullets he gave, I shot only one glass. What were the military training things I mentioned before? That was just damn bullshit.
Now I needed to remove all my shoot videos from Ananta.
Leaving the Magic Behind
As the afternoon faded, the mist thickened and the cold grew sharper. Uzungöl slowly returned to its quiet state, as if it had only opened itself for a short window, and we were lucky enough to be inside it.
On the way back, I looked out the window again, my wet sneakers resting uncomfortably on the floor.
Cold feet. But I have a warm heart.
I didn’t know when I would come back here. But I knew one thing for sure:
Some places don’t just impress you. They pause you.
And Uzungöl did exactly that.
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