
We hiked throughout the morning chatting occasionally and picking fresh fruit [pomegranates
grow everywhere here]. We acquired a guide in the form of a small dog whom Fatima aptly named Lycia. She followed us all the way to Farraleye. We made it in pretty good time. I think just over two and a half hours. We scrounged some bread and fruit from a pension in Ferraleye and we then decided to push on to the next village for lunch. We stopped around 2pm and ate ravenously.

Just after we started hiking we came across and apiary. This had been a fascination for Thorsen as his father is a bee-keeper and he, himself, also does apiculture in his spare time. Thorsen was dying to have a look at the bees in action. Fatima, Marus, and I were exchanging furtive glances and not looking half as enthusiastic. However Thorsen was adamant that it was fine and strode off the the path down to the apiary where the guys - wearing the big white protective bee-suits - were working away. They immediately started waving at us and shouting. Fatima kindly interpreted this as them saying - go back it is dangerous. However we, and by we I mean Thorsen, we undaunted. He got Fatima to explain he was interested in seeing the honey being harvested and they took him off into the tent to have a look and also get some honey. I began looking through my pack for a recepticle for some honey when the first bee attacked me - It tried to fly into my hair. I leaped up and tried to swat it, then another one attacked. Fatima and
Marcus thought this was hilarious - then one flew into Fatima's hair [just a little note hear. Bees hate dark things. They attack them all immediately when they are angry. Like most creatures they are usually pretty territorial and narky when they are hungry... like now]. Fatima has very long and thick, dark hair. She started screaming and ran for the road. I tried to grab my rucksack but two more attacked me. So I ran for it as well, Marcus was not far behind. Marcus has blond hair, so he was alright for the moment. Fatima now had two in her hair, that were buzzing and hopping mad. She kept screaming - 'get them out. Get them out' and then shaking her head so much I couldn't see where they were. I couldn't stop laughing it was so funny. We managed to get them both out but they were pretty unhappy bees. They then attacked Marcus - he ran off down the road. I was in stitches by this point; then they attacked me again. This wasn't so funny. This carried on for about 5 mins (luckily not one of us was stung, even when I went back for my rucksack and was chased again). We had just made it up the road when Thorsen came sprinting out of the tent, clutching a water bottle full of honey being chased by a number of bees. He made it up the path to where I was. He had been stung twice. I managed to pick one the stings out of his eyebrow with some tweezers. We were walking up to join Fatima and Marcus - who had retreated much further up - when the bees attacked one last time. My lingering memory of that day is one of Marcus running up the road, trying to swat bees with a 5 feet hiking stick he had found earlier that day; he looked like Mr Magoo. The honey was lovely by the way. Thanks, Thorsen! :-)

After that we had a quiet afternoon's hike along the last leg. Fatima had stopped wanting to kill Thorsen after about 30 mins and we were all laughing about our antics. We hiked under the shadow of Baba Dagi - an immense mountain that paragliders use as a base to leap from. We stopped for tea at villager's house about 5 kilometres from the finish. It is wonderful travelling with Fatima because she is very lovely, social, and outgoing and can translate between us and Turkish people we meet. We all sat and had a disjointed chat and enjoyed their hospitality.

It was getting pretty late by this point so we got our skates on and hiked for Ovacek intending to reach it by nightfall. We just about made it. The trek down, past Oludinez, was - for me anyways - the most beautiful part yet. The view was simply stunning. We made it back just after nightfall. Knackered but happy. We got a Dolmus back to Fethiye and crashed out.
No comments:
Post a Comment