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.