Going, Gulet, Gone

Sorry I haven't written for a while... I had an adventure on a boat that wasn't equipped with wifi. How barbaric. It's a very popular activity on the western coast of turkey to sign up for multi-day boat cruises to take you between two or more coastal towns. The boats are called 'Gulets' and they're about 55' long, made of wood, and sport sails that are infrequently used as they have motors as well. They also have about 7 cabins for guests that can sleep 2 or 3 people each.

Some of the people that I was hanging out with in Olympos were signed up to leave by Gulet and they spent several days trying to convince me that I should go with them. It took me a while to accept this plan as they're not exactly cheap; 4 days and 3 nights for $200, plus whatever we would drink which I was sure would be a lot. Eventually I started haggling with the tour company to get a better price and on the night before they were to leave I made a deal only very slightly better and started getting ready for the cruise. This process mostly involved buying bottles of juice and vodka and hiding them deep in my pack as all the other people that I was traveling with did. It's a no BYO boat but we figured it was worth a try.

The morning of we set off from Bayram's Hostel where we all spent the last week and picked up a couple stragglers from other hostels along the way. Our group consisted of myself, 3 young and loud Australian guys (Jacob, Josh, and Nathan), 2 young and loud American girls (Eve and Carmela), a cool Canadian girl (Rebecca), an entertaining Argentine (Austin), an American med student (Kareem), 2 English pensioners (John and Kris whom I liked very much), and another couple girls (Erin and Ashley) whom I thought were very nice as well. I like the group and almost all of us met at the hostel before the trip. Some of them were a little young and loud for my taste (I sound like such an old man now) but overall a good spirited group.

When we arrived at the boat after a longish van ride made tougher by a couple breakfast beers, we loaded on and set out the rules of the trip. We had to have at least one drink before 10 AM, if anyone said the word 'mine' in answer to a question they had to do 10 pushups, and that's about it. I'm not one for rampant alcoholism but after the first couple days it calmed down a little bit, but not too much. I bunked with two other guys but one of them slept on the deck each night so it was a lot easier to share the two beds.

The first day we sailed to a cove and parked the boat. The lot of us swam in the warmish water, the crew cooked for us, and many drinks were had. The chef on the boat was awesome. Breakfast was a traditional one of veggies, fruit, eggs, cheese, etc, but they got more elaborate at lunch and dinner. There would usually be a lot of veggies like eggplant in yogurt, stir fried squash and onions, cucumber salads with lots of balsamic, and stuffed peppers. The veggies were always so well seasoned though. The meats were scarce but not too bad... fried fish, meatballs, and fried chicken. Also they make great rice everywhere in the middle east because it's half butter. I think it was the best food that I've eaten on the trip by a long shot and now I salivate to the sound of a dinner bell in my head.

The next day we sailed to a small town on an island with a scenic castle on it, but nobody wanted to get off the boat to climb up to it. Also, we didn't need to go to land yet because we were not yet low on vodka. We just went swimming for a long time, played cards, read books, told stories, drank beers, and I played some ukulele. On this trip I learned two new songs in my free time... I mastered Penny Lane and Paint it Black. I think that they're pretty good songs, and a bit more difficult than my earlier ones. I think that soon I need to buy a mic and try to record a song on my laptop. That would be fun.

Also that day we sailed past a place named the 'Sunken City', a set of ruins that have either sunk a bit or had the water rise a few feet causing them to be slightly underwater at the moment. It sounded a lot cooler than it was and it was so uninspiring that I didn't keep any of the pictures. That night after settling in amongst a dozen other Gulets in a small bay we took a speed boat over to a bar/club on a small island. I danced, drank wine, and had a pretty good time, but damn those Australians could dance. Pretty impressive.

The next day we sailed out past a cave in the side of an island and stopped to swim into it. There are actually a lot of sea caves to be found along the coast and it reminds me a lot of the southern Californian coast. The water was always very clear thought the fish were pretty small and there wasn't much plant life on the sea bed.I guess the land looked like home, but the sea was severely over fished. We didn't really try to catch anything but one of the nights we had a line out with some hooks but we didn't catch anything over 5".

Later that day we visited the town of Kas. It's a really cute sea side community with a lovely port, tons of trendy shops selling dresses and coral jewelry, dive shops, and shaded courtyards. I thought that I would never see a tasteful tourist area in Turkey, but this one felt like dowtown Santa Barbra. Also scattered around town (and around all the islands and coast for that matter) are stone tombs of a standard shape and size. The one in town was the nicest one though, with lion heads poking off the sides. I think that Sam and Erika would really love this place... it's epic cute.

The next morning the captain started heading towards the cove of Butterfly Valley before we woke up, though it was a severely choppy ride and we woke up pretty quickly. There we several times that I though for sure I was going to hurl but it worked out ok. Butterfly Valley is a remote cove that can only be reached by sea, and as the name explains it is a migration spot for a kind of orange and black butterfly that's not a Monarch. Unfortunately the season for that's not for another month or two so we didn't see them. The beach ha a lot of campers and amazing skipping stones in great quantities. The sea was a bit rough for skipping but certainly worth the effort to try.

Later on in the day we reached another town that I can't recall the name of. We stopped there to swim in a protected cove, and also so that one of the team could go on a para-gliding excursion. We were offered that as well as para-sailing, banana-tubing, and some other paid activities but I just wanted to nap and swim and save my cash for the huge beer tab that I was working on. Oh, we also did a little cliff diving near our boat. Later that night we played drinking games as usual.

The next day was our final one and not very long. We swam in a few places, and then got off the boat in a town called Fethiye. Part of what I had haggled out of the boat company was two nights free lodging at their hostel there in town, but the Aussies were staying there too and I was sick to death of them at that point so I went back to Kas with Austin, Rebecca, and Ashley. We were basically the older ones of the boat tour, minus the very cool pensioners. When we got ther a few hours later we got a hostel, enjoyed some dinner, and had some much needed showers after several days of swimming in the sea. The boat actually had a fresh water shower on the steps out of the water that helped, and our rooms had showers that never got used.

The next day Ashley went on to another destination so Austin, Rebecca, and I hiked off to find a good place to swim in the sea. We followed a part of the Lycian Trail (a famous trail, like the Appalachian Trail) along the coast for a long ways and reached a small beach that's normally only accessible by boat. A few hours of swimming, chatting, and napping were followed by another scorching and dusty hike back to town. I stubbed my pinkie tow on a rock and got blood all over my new sandals but it's not so bad. This is a pic of some random tomb that we found in the middle of nowhere during the hike.

We resolved to make mojitos later tonight and I set off to write this post. I think that tomorrow Austin and I will go to some remote beach hostel that he heard about and Rebecca is going to take a bus on towards a ferry to Greece. One other thing that I did today that might be worth mentioning is that I shaved off the soul patch. I got some emails from concerned readers who felt that it's not too cool, but it just so happens that I already felt like shaving it in preparation for a seasonal mustache. I'll start work on that immediately.

Hammock Time

I'm writing this post now but I don't know exactly what the point is. I have done as little as possible and I haven't moved more than a few miles in the last 4 days. I've been staying that the Bayram's hostel in Olympia and I don't regret a moment of it.

I can't remember exactly what I did on each day, so I'll just go over the list of activities and let that stand on its own. Chief among them is drinking beer. The hostel sells them for about $3 each, and they're pretty big, but the shop on the way to the beach sells them for $2 so I stop by there a few times a day to fill up. Of course when you're at the hostel it all goes on my tab so I kind of lose track though I try not to drink too many. I think 5 or 6 big ones a day is fine. It's a good way to pass the time during the heat of the day (which there is a lot of), the tepid of the evening, and the frigidness of the night.

The other activity that takes up my days is hanging out at the beach. Of course working on my tan is important, but I don't work on it very hard so I always seem to be hopelessly white. Mostly I go there to chat with the other backpackers from my hostel and to watch the swimmers. It's not the swimming thats so entertaining as much as the getting out of the water. See, the beach is made of small and large pebbles and they're quite painful when you're getting out. So, people tend to wince and walk very awkwardly when they're climbing out of the water and it's good fun. Another pleasure are the guys walking up and down the beach selling stuffed oysters. They're slow cooked and mixed with a bit of rice in the shell and finally topped with fresh lemon. Very nice.

One day me and some guys spent a good hour just throwing rocks into the water and we all threw our shoulders out. Last night we dragged logs and combed the beach for wood to set up a small camp fire. We were only there for a couple hours very late in the night but there was almost a full moon and the light was very nice. Also, it went well with beer but that goes without saying.

There's the ruins too. The path to the beach takes you through a narrow canyon and there are paths leading to different sets of ruins branching off in all directions. I saw some new ruins since the last update. I saw some temple door dedicated to Marcus Aurelius... I think that he's the old emperor in the movie Gladiator. Also I saw some smaller random buildings and tombs. I really like that all the ruins here are grown over with vines and turtles and such, but it makes me wonder where exactly the admission money goes to. I think that it's kind of a scam.

Another good activity is the Chimera. The fire breathing beast of legend was buried in the ground here after being defeated by somebody, and to this day fire vents from the earth in abundance. I guess that if you wanted to be technical about it you could say that it's a natural gas blend that ignites on contact with the air, but the signs are very clear in specifying that it's in fact a monster. There's a tour that leaves from the hostel at 9pm but it's $14 each and they just drive you to the base of the hill and give you a flashlight. Instead of paying, a couple people and I decided to walk there based on the scant directions that I had received from another traveler. Well, we were able to walk there but it was pretty far... 7 km each way and a steep climb up the hill side at the Chimera.

On the way there we ran into some wildlife since it was so late at night. We found a hedgehog curled up next to the road in a defensive position. It was picked up, but the next animal, a 5" camel spider, wasn't so cute as to be lifted for a better view. I've seen them on the internet before since they're ugly enough to have created many urban legends about their supposed aggressiveness but this one didn't really want anything to do with us. Other than these short interludes it was a long night and we got back at 1 am, pretty fatigued.

What else did we do? Well, there were lots of games of Uno, Backgammon, and other card games... mostly a games called 'Presidents and Assholes'. I can't really think of much else accomplished... it was mostly just hanging out with people, chatting, and drinking. I guess that I also started learning to play Hotel California since that seems to be the most requested song of me for some reason. I think that its got a lot to do with my homeland.

The plan is to leave tomorrow. I think. There are some Australians that that taking a boat from here to the town of Fethiye which is a 4 day, 3 night ride away. The boat provides the food, lodging, and makes stops at several places to snorkel and view ruins but it's not too cheap... like $200 not counting beer. I'm trying to wait until the last second to book it so that I'll have a stronger haggling position since they're not budging so far when I know about a guy who did it for $120. It's all part of the game. This last image is strange... I think that one of the panels bans blowing up buildings. It's hard to say.

Mountain Magic

The plan was to go to Isparta to see the roses and to tour the factories, but it turns out that the town itself isn't terribly pretty and is not a good place to stay. The guide book is pretty explicit in steering you towards the nearby town of Egirdir but I missed that part of the book when I was writing previously. So, once I reached Isparta I caught another on to the next town.

Egirdir is a pretty cute little town on the southern end of a huge lake of the same name. The focal point of the village is a small island that's been connected to the land by 1.5 km of stone, dirt, and road. The place is very scenic and is a huge domestic tourism hotspot, though not this early in the season. When I got there, it was late in the day and rain was starting to fall as I walked towards the hostels in shorts and a tshirt. Thankfully the one that I found happened to be the best one in town and I was able to check in right away. Also, the huge dorm that I was in had only one other person in it, a German named Wolfgang, but there was a single toilet/shower combo despite having 30 beds. I'm glad that I was there in the low season.

Wolfgang and I went out for dinner. I hadn't eaten all day and this was his first good meal in 2 weeks since the poor weather had forced him into town and out of the mountains where he had been trekking. He's got a book called the St Pauls Trail that details a route mapped out by a British woman 6 years ago and supposedly follows some ancient road. It's a tough trek through some very rugged mountains, and you really need a GPS to find the way points since the spraypainted trail markers are getting pretty worn out and a lot of logging has gone on since the publication. We found a fantastic place for dinner after walking for 30 minutes and going to the busiest place we saw.

The next morning Wolfgang invited me to breakfast since I was too cheap to pay the $4 to eat it with him and while there we met a couple other trekkers that had been forced off of the trail by the rain. Their names are Joe and Griet and they've done stuff like this trail all over the world together. Actually, they met while trekking in Tasmania. We all agreed to rent some bicycles and go for a little ride. I had a cache of tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and a melon, and the others in the group had bread, cheese, spices, and apples so all we needed were bikes.

We found a bike shop after some searching and set off to ride out to the tip of the island and back. Then we headed out to a town up north along side the lake, 35 km away. It took a few hours to get there because we stopped a bunch of times to photograph flowers, pick cherries, and to wait for me to catch up. Eventually we reached the town and had lunch.

The ride home was tiring too, we circled back on the same route but there were hills and the bike was a little small for me. We stopped for a while at a rose garden alongside the lake and they had the most fragrant roses that I've ever smelled. While we were there a picnicking family nearby brought us a plate of food and a tray of cold drinks. They didn't speak any English, but wow, what unexpected hospitality.

The weather was pretty cool towards the end of the ride... actually it was cool all day, and a big storm was predicted to show up the next day. Joe and Griet were headed back towards Olympos so I decided to go on with them the next morning since they had already spent a lot of time there and knew a great hostel. Later that night we went out to dinner again at the same restaurant and played cards until the wee hours.

The next day there was a big market in town and we all bought more food. I found some Anamur bananas that were truly great and I bought half a kilo of cheese to go with a loaf of heavy brown bread, a rare treat around here. After that we go on with our 4 separate bus rides to get down to Olympos.

We got there around sunset and I checked into a dorm room. I got room 81, which is an auspicious number in Turkey because in Turkish the number is pronounced sek-sen-beer. Think about it. The tree houses turned out to be a bit of a misnomer... they're small huts on stilts that were once trees before they were cut into planks. Besides that silliness, the hostel in beutiful. It's basicly an orange grove, with picnic tables, hammocks, shaded gazebos with pillows and low tables, a fire pit, and a bar. Further back from that hangout area are long rowas of stilted huts that look fairly rustic but inside are clean and air conditioned for a warmer season. You don't really notice how bloody big the place is because it's in such a thick orange grove. It costs $17 a day and that includes a huge dinner and breakfast. Also, there is free wifi, power outlets everywhere, and great music. Also, we're one of the closest hostels to the beach.

Olympos is a tiny village really, built in a forested canyon near the pebbly beach. There are about 30 different hostels of different sorts all along side the single road through the canyon. Most of them include dinner so it's just a matter of finding a good crowd and the one that I'm at is full of 20 and 30 somethings. ostly it's backpackers but there are a few Russian beach holiday people too. Anyways, the place is as good as I could imagine, though the beer could be cheaper. It's $3.50 at the hostel and about $2 at one of the nearby pubs though there is no BYO at the hostel.

Anyways, that night I enjoyed a great huge dinner and hung out with the two people that I came with while I finished up the previous blog post. It was a chilled out evening overall. The next morning though, I didn't have too many plans other than to meet some new people. I did just that at breakfast and in the middle of the day I went out to the beach with a couple of them. Between the village and the beach are a bevy of old Roman ruins, and a gate blocks access so you have to buy a weekly pass through the ruins just to reach the beach.

We got to check out a variety of old tombs, baths, and other buildings all overgrown with bay trees, manzanita, vines, and brush. I really like overgrown ruins and they really made the experience unique. We also climbed up to a tiny stone fort overlooking the beach and cut up the melon that I had from the other day. Today I didn't go swimming because it was a little cool, but maybe tomorrow I will get around to it. I think that I'll spend a whole week here since it's so cheap and nice. It's been a long time since I was in a place with a lot of backpackers. It's good to be home.

A Little Diversion

The last time that I wrote I was on a bus headed to Afyon. I just love that the long distance buses here have free WiFi. Afyon proved to be an interesting enough place though I didn't have very high hopes. Like I said last time, I want to go to Olympos to live in a tree house for a week or so. The problem with that plan is that there are no ATMs in those tree houses so I have to kill a few days before I get there so that I can finish moving some money around and get it before I get there. Thus, a detour in Afyon and a couple other places seems like a good diversion.

In downtown Afyon I found a few cheap hotels... one of them was just $6, the cheapest that I've seen in Turkey, but it was soooooo dirty and didn't even have a shower so I splurged on a $10 dirty hotel and paid for 2 nights. I didn't have too much in mind to do that afternoon. I dropped off my laundry after searching for an hour for a place to drop it off, had some Iskender (sliced meat and bread smothered in tomato gravy and sour cream), took a few pictures of some mosques, and read my guide book in the park.

Afyon has some particularly beautiful mosques that blend Seljuk and Ottoman styles. For a little background, the Seljuks were a group of Turk nomads, moving ever westward out of central Asia and took control of present Turkey from the Byzantines in the 11th century. They had encountered Arabs on their migration and had converted to Islam bringing the art of mosque making to turkey and leaving behind many beautiful buildings that are still around today. Their two signature pieces are the spiral fluted minarets on some mosques and a kind of arch with geometric patterns that's found over the entrance to some buildings. In the mid 12th century the Mongols swept through turkey and shattered the Seljuk territories which fought for a century before only the Ottoman clan remained. The Ottoman empire lasted almost 700 years and at times controlled Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and everything in between. As for the Ottoman style that I mentioned earlier, they're known for their tile work.

So the mosque that blends the two styles is the Imaret Camii, with a spiral fluted minaret accented with blue times. The mosque is right across the street from my hotel so I get to hear the call to prayer quite clearly. I think this is why my room was so cheap; also because it has no windows which helps with the noise a bit. Later in the afternoon I went to the park around the mosque to read because my room was too depressing.

While at the park, a man came to introduce himself to me. His name is Mustafa and he said that his son is learning English and that he'd love to introduce us. I talked with Mustafa for a good long time and eventually we went to a Baklava shop that his wife works at and they gave me 4 pieces of pistacio paklava (my favorite) a-la-mode while we waited for the son to show up. Eventually he did show up and we walked back to their house for tea.

The son, Barush, is a pretty talented guitarist though he's only been playing a couple years and he played me some songs (or parts of them) by Metallica, Nirvana, and some others. He doesn't sing them yet, but I knew most of the words so I took over that duty gladly. We played and talked pretty late into the night and they invited me to go to a hot spring the next night which I of course accepted.

The next morning I woke up late, called Sam in Skype, and sent off a horde of post cards. I wrote a bunch of them when I was in Jordan (over a month ago) but I never got around to mailing them and I had a few from Erika to post as well. Then I set off for the kale.

It's always a hot hike up to any kale, so I made a stop into a barber shop that I spotted along the way and got a shave finally. This was the thickest beard that I've donned yet and I wanted to keep a little bit of it for the memories so I decided to go with a soul patch. I know they're considered a little tacky by some but when else can I try it out? Maybe in a couple months I'll try my hand at a mustache to go with it!

This particular kale is one of the most memorable ones that I've seen in a long time. It's built on top of a 226 meter spike of volcanic stone jutting incongruity from the otherwise flat plains. 700 steps lead to the top, one of the most brutal vertical climbs I've done in a good long time. It's far too steep to take horses so I can't imagine why anyone would make a castle up there, but I guess that we'd have to blame the Hittites who first built a fort up there in 1000 BC. The local volcanic stone is dark so the place is called the Black Castle, though modern renovations were done in cheaper white stone.

I took a lot of pictures up top and was followed around the whole by some kid who must have been 10. He didn't want any apples or water that I offered him, he just wanted to watch me I guess. I called him Shortround, like that kid in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It reminds me of another kid who followed me around at Petra in Jordan who would parrot me and the other guys I was with. Before he left I made him shout, 'No time for love Dr. Jones!'. Well, this kid didn't talk but he did show me a couple rocks to climb.

Shortround followed me to the bottom and I got him an ice cream for the good company and I set off once more to find a cheap lunch. I also picked up my laundry and got out my ukulele to play in the park. I played a song and then the prayer call started. Well, it wasn't the call but rather a quite spoken sermon that they do around 5pm. I didn't even hear it because I was a little wrapped up but a girl who spoke english came and told me that that it's impropper to play music while that's all going on, and it goes on for like an hour so I retired and took a nap instead.

At 6:45 Barush called me to say that he would be at my hotel in a few minutes so I grabbed by swimgear and uke and headed out the door. We walked back to his place, had a little dinner, and took the bus to this big resort outside of town which has a very cheap indoor hammam next door. I don't think that I've talked about hammams on here before, but the deal is that they're basically the same as the old roman bath houses with a cold, tepid, and hot hoom and people go there to relax, bathe, get a massage, and to socialize. Most hammams give you all that, including a vigorous scrubbing to remove dead skin, for about $10 but this onbe was a pretty small operation and we had to scrub each other. Also, it's fed by a natural hot spring so they kept trying to get me to drink the water too but I thought it tasted nasty. No cameras allowed so no pics, which is probably for the best.

Later that night we went back to Mustafa and Barush's house to play music (I had my uke this time) and I taught Barush to play Over the Rainbow on the uke. He wants to get one now and I think that he's probably going to put some pics of us on facebook but hopefully not the video. He also showed me an amazing video of this 3 year old Asian kid playing I'm Yours on a ukulele. I need to find the link to that.

Anyways, I'm traveling to the town of Isparta now. It's got some greek ruins nearby and also it's famous for it's rose harvest that's going on now. They use the roses to make an oil called 'attar of roses' that's a base to many different perfumes. I might be able to get a tour of the fields... what a smell that would be! I hope the town proves interesting as well.