Malena in Turkey

After spending a number of days lounging around Fethiye, Kate and I decided it was time to leave. It was a nice town, but hard to meet other tourists (although we did meet a few nice ones!) and we’d heard nothing but good things about Olympos (home of the famous treehouses.) So we set off to take a bus to Olympos.

Now, Olympos is only 20 pages ahead of Fethiye in the Lonely Planet, so I sort of thought the busride would be short. Which is silly, because the LP does cover the entire country of Turkey. Of course, a little research let me discover that it was actually a 6 hour bus ride (and the only non-overnight of the trip) so we basically spent most of the day just getting there. Now, another thing hinted at in the Lonely Planet was the fact that the bus didn’t actually stop at Olympos. Instead, it stopped at a restaurant on the side of the road, where you got off and were picked up by another bus that came at irregular intervals and waited until it was full before driving the remaining 15km or so to the treehouses. We were a little apprehensive, but fortunately it all worked out okay (and our getting dropped off on the side of a road in a strange town didn’t happen until later in the trip, lucky us.) Also, another bonus, we met a nice Australian (working in London) named Anne, who we talked to a bit - always nice to talk to someone besides Kate!  (As by this point in the trip we had approximately gone through every possible conversation we could have, about three times. Hehe.) She was also on her way to the treehouses, en route to a Blue Voyage (which, if/when I ever make it back, is on the shortlist.)

Well, after the pretty but otherwise unremarkable busride through seaside terrain (and a number of yachting towns) and the bus transfer, we finally made it to Olympos. All of the tourists decided to stay at the same treehouse, as it was basically the only one with other people there. (There are a number of treehouses to choose from at Olympos.) Now, I feel like I need to clear something up, since people seem very excited by the treehouses. They aren’t big grand structures with multiple levels.  Instead, they’re basically huts in the woods, set off the ground a little. Kate and I got a double, which was basically just a mattress on a wooden floor. But it was cheap! And it included dinner (the price was about 12 dollars.) And supposedly the water was hot.

The plan for the day was to do a little walking around the ruins in the short amount of time we had left before nightfall, and then go on a little tour to see the Chimaera fires after dark. The ruins themselves were picturesque but (fortunately since we didn’t have much time) not very big. However, we also discovered a little beach (we and every other visitor there, of course) so we walked along it for a while.  Afterwards, we returned to the treehouse for the fantastic all-vegetarian) dinner and bus to the flames!

Now, the flames were actually very cool. They are these chemically lit fires that always burn (and have burnt forever, basically) on the slopes of Mount Olympos. Apparently sailors used to be able to see them at night. Also, and this is something I didn’t know until I actually arrived and read the signs, these were the flames used to light the original Olympic torch! How cool is that! The only regret I had was that I didn’t bring any marshmellows to roast over them. Now, one thing disappointed me. The LP described the composition of the gas that lights the flames as “unknown, though it is thought to contain some methane.” Now, I thought it was interesting that there was anything like this still unknown, so I made sure to comment on that to everyone.  Of course, we arrive and there’s a big sign with the chemical composition of the gas down to the nearest hundredth of a percent.  Thanks Lonely Planet, you let me down.

Also of note, on the long hike up to the flames I again fell and again hurt my poor injured right hand. Lucky me. Oh, and I looked like an idiot in front of everyone. Which was great, since it came after the big unknown chemical scandal.

So yeah, the flames were cool - at least I didn’t fall and burn my hand on them! And afterwards we went back to the treehouse and just hung out, chatting with other travellers, eating chips and drinking Turkish wine. Now, if I haven’t mentioned it, there are two kinds of people in Turkey for the eclipse. Science geeks who travel around the world hunting solar eclipses (and immediately recognizable) and, speaking of unknown chemicals, dreadlocked hippies who were here for the Rainbow Festival or some big psy-trance festival (also immediately recognizable.) Apparently the treehouse we’d picked was quite a psy-trance hangout. Hmm, I wonder which group people thought Kate and I were in (ha. ha.) Ah well, it was a fun night - and the next day we made our way to Antalya and from there to Goreme!

On Thursday, our last full day in Fethiye, Kate and I decided to make our way over to the ghost town of Kayakoy. We were both looking forward to this - probably more than we should have been to be honest. After all, this wasn’t an old ghost town like, say… the ones in California. Oh no, in this land of ancient ruins the age of the town we’d be visiting was around 80 years old. That’s right, I was excited about visiting an empty town about half the age of my childhood house.

 Basically, the town of Kayakoy was abandoned after the Turkish War of Independence, when all the people of Greek descent (and practicing Ottoman Christians) moved to Greece, and all the Turkish people living in Greece returned here.  Apparently, there were more people moving out of Turkey than into Turkey, so a number of towns were abandoned.  Then, there were earthquakes and “natural phenomona” that aged the houses, and now it’s a big tourist destination!  And I have lots of pictures, none of them very good, and all of them far to big to actually put up here.  How hard is it to resize pictures, you ask?  Well, right now it’s a pain and I’m working on that.  But on with the blog!

To get there we got to take a dolmus (small bus) from the center of Fethiye. Now this bus was basically awesome, because the driver apparently didn’t understand that you could drive faster than 15mph. So we’re slowly chugging away, cement trucks and tractors and runners are passing us at extremely fast paces, and we’re freezing cold because the bus driver also seemed to like driving with the door open. Fortunately after about 30 minutes of this (and approximately 7.5 miles) the driver sped up to at least 30mph and we drove through… my favorite English resort town ever! Seriously, it’s hideous. All signs in English, no non-British people that I could see in town, restaurants with names like “The Fish and Chips Place” and “English Food Restaurant” and stores called “The Midas Touch” and “Ali Baba Carpets” - ugh. It made me cringe. I guess I shouldn’t be hypocritical because at a lot of the small towns we’ve stayed at (and I’ve really liked) everyone spoke English, tourism is the only reason the town is still around, etc… but this one just seemed different.

Eventually, despite our bus driver’s best efforts, we arrived at the ghost town. It was pretty cool, lots of empty stone buildings - but I was imagining there would be more there to remind you that 80 years ago people were actually living there. Instead, it looked like no one had lived there for hundreds of years. No childrens’ toys left on shaggy lawns, no rusted bikes lacking drivers, etc. I guess since lots of tourists come through anything like that would have been picked over long ago. So we walked around, took a few pictures, and then noticed that there were mysterious trails marked on the rocks with red and yellow paint marks. Thinking this would lead to a new church, or maybe the school, we followed the trail up the mountain, through bushes of swarming bees, occasionally losing it in the brush. And the trail just kept going, and going… until we were out of Kayakoy altogether. We decided we might as well keep following it even though we had no idea where it ended up… which was a fantastic idea until we lost the trail. Hooray for being adventurous?

Now, the best part about losing the trail was that we basically had to go up and down these steep ravines, climbing over rocks, skidding down hills, etc. It was a lot of fun and very exciting. Eventually, we caught sight of Oludeniz beach, the one where we went paragliding, and decided the trail must lead that way… if only we could find the trail. So we headed in that direction, handily aided by my compass (be prepared!) slipping and falling the whole way. My right hand suffered a tragic injury, as did the seat of my pants. Eventually (miracle of miracles!) we did find the trail again, and I think we even figured out how we veered off in the first place…  (picture incoming!)

So after a nice invigorating stroll, we arrived back at the very same beach we were at 3 days ago. With our very special friend there, Hector, who had not only sold us on the paragliding but had also taken a picture of the two of us, with him, enjoying a beer post-flight, apparently to put on his webpage. We were very excited. If by excited I mean mildly freaked out, especially we he revealed he had STOPPED BY OUR HOSTEL ROOM THE NIGHT BEFORE TO SEE US. Then he started showing off his muscles and talking about how in shape he was. Fortunately, when we started playing rummy and didn’t invite him along he sort of left us alone. So we got to people-watch on the beach another day - it was really very pleasant. (Well, except for when the people-watching included the return of skanky Speedo man from the boat the day before.)

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Before I get into the meat of this entry (describing a 12 Islands boat tour Kate and I took in Fethiye) I have two random incidents that we were lucky enough to experience.

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So after the long overnight bus ride wıth no sleep (that our special guest blogger will write about once I stop hogging the computer) the only logical thing to do was take a nap.  We found a hostel and pretty ... [Continue reading this entry]

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