I am afraid I am going to have fly through the rest of Turkey. Unfortunately time is flying by and, although I want to record this adventure as much in as much detail as possible I am going to have to move along with some alacrity: Internet cafes are slow and few and far between and I don't wish to spend all my life in them.
We spent the next day after the hike taking a break by doing... mmmmm some more hiking. This time in the Saklik gorge. A beautiful mountain gorge, with fresh, and very icy, water flowing constantly through it. The hike was stunning though, and there are pictures on face-book here:
We went as far as we could. At several points we had to strip down to our shorts and wade to freezing water with our bags held over our heads. I had to tie my shoes around my neck as I forgot to bring sandals. It was nearly as cold as tough guy - happy memories you bad boys ;-)
Our Dolmus broke down on the way home and the driver abandoned the vehicle and ran off. Our finished that evening and I lost my cash card, my camera and boots got wet. When I got back to the hotel they had put some strange guy we didn't know in our room. I went to bed blowing chunks; and no, chunks was not the name of the other guy in our room.
The next four days we spent on a Turkish yacht: a Guleg. This was a gorgeous, wooden, 17 
meter, twin-masted, schooner complete with cabins, table areas, chill out cushions, and a hammock.
meter, twin-masted, schooner complete with cabins, table areas, chill out cushions, and a hammock.It was absolute heaven. I did a similar cruise with my friend, Rom, four years ago. That trip was coming the opposite way. There were sixteen people on the boat and it was like some deranged episode of Benny Hill for the most of it; and one hell of a party. This time it was much more chilled out. In the end there were only six of us on the boat. Thorsen, Fatima, Marcus, myself and a couple called Peter and Carolina. Peter was from South Africa and Carolina from Poland. They both live in Germany. We all got on very well and soon became fast friends. We spent an idyllic four days, swimming, snorkeling, sunbathing, drinking Efes, and playing Tavla and cards.
We finished up in Finike where the Guleg was going into dry dock for the winter. We took a minibus to Olympos where we stayed in the tree-house hostel - Kadirs. This place was burned down in a fire last year. Rom, Charlotte: it is still there!! and it has now got new bungalows built.
It is not quite as a amazing as it once was, but it is getting there!
It is not quite as a amazing as it once was, but it is getting there!We managed to get the price down as we were the last group there. We all had a chilled out evening and Peter taught us to play bridge. The next morning we had to do, what I fear is going to be all too common in future, say good-bye to people you really like: Peter and Carolina in this case; Which was very sad. Thorsen and I spent the morning playing volleyball. Then we all went down through the Necropolis to the beach and swam.
Unfortunately Fatima and Thorsen were leaving for Goreme that evening. We said good-bye in the hope that we would see them as they came back - we planned to spend some time in Olympos soaking up the sun and rock-climbing - after they left things were more than a little quiet. I really love the Kadir tree-house hostel. Dinner and breakfast is self-service, and dinner is eaten around a camp-fire. The vibe is fantastic! Unfortunately it was end of season so most places were really dead. But still so cool. I thoroughly recommend it.
The next morning we decided to do a day's rock-climbing. We booked the day with a bunch of 
long-haired, tatto'd, funky dudes. I really liked them. We got chatting to them and found they were professional rock-climbers. Apparently Turkey has some of the best rock-climbing areas in the world. The instructor was trying to explain to me why. I think he said that it is because of the type of rocks. He gave us two or three courses to climb first off, they were pretty easy. All the routes were grade six. But these were 6-- and they were a doddle. I think we came a across as being pretty smug because the next course he gave us was a 6++. It nearly killed me. Marcus did the sane thing and gave up after 10mins. I stubbornly tried to do the whole thing by sheer will power; my technique had long gone out the window. I nearly made it - maybe 2 metres from the top, however my strength had long gone. I am in pretty good shape but after that my arms felt like I had had the late, great, Pavrotti sitting
on them for four hours.
long-haired, tatto'd, funky dudes. I really liked them. We got chatting to them and found they were professional rock-climbers. Apparently Turkey has some of the best rock-climbing areas in the world. The instructor was trying to explain to me why. I think he said that it is because of the type of rocks. He gave us two or three courses to climb first off, they were pretty easy. All the routes were grade six. But these were 6-- and they were a doddle. I think we came a across as being pretty smug because the next course he gave us was a 6++. It nearly killed me. Marcus did the sane thing and gave up after 10mins. I stubbornly tried to do the whole thing by sheer will power; my technique had long gone out the window. I nearly made it - maybe 2 metres from the top, however my strength had long gone. I am in pretty good shape but after that my arms felt like I had had the late, great, Pavrotti sitting
on them for four hours.We took a break then and then tried some smaller routes. However by this point we were quite knackered and although I completed the third one, the fourth one found me spinning off several times and hugging a thorny tree. It was most bodacious though.
One unfortunate thing was, Olympos does not have any ATMs. Which meant we ran out of money pretty sharpish. Then the next morning the heavens opened and we made an executive decision to get the f*ck out of Olympos. We scraped together enough money to get to Antalya and then headed north - to Goreme and to the unearthly valley of Cappodicia.
No comments:
Post a Comment