Day 13: Aspendos Theater (July 12)

Antalya is a really great place to visit in Turkey because it can be used as a base for a lot of really neat trips. In the main city of Antalya, other than the Mediterranean and a little downtown area, there really isn't a whole lot to see. So the idea for visiting this place is that you stay in Antalya and you take day trips to places (there is rafting nearby, awesome beaches, waterfalls, hiking, ancient cities, etc). Because I was only going to be there a couple of days, I had to plan my trips carefully. I didn't realize just how difficult it would be to get to these places without renting a car or using a taxi. I considered renting a car, but it would be something I should do with others and not alone. That was probably my first mistake.

Anyways, so I decided that I would be taking a day trip to Aspendos. The Aspendos theater is the largest and best preserved amphitheater in Asia minor and one of the best outside of Rome. With something so spectacular so close to where I was, I felt I had to make the effort to see it. I boarded the local dolmus marked Aspendos and took it about 20 miles away to Serik. I asked where the bus to Aspendos was and the driver told me to walk a couple of blocks and there would be a place for me to wait. After waiting about 20 minutes or so, I asked a shopkeeper about the bus to Aspendos. He told me that the next bus would be in 4 hours. By this time, I would not have the chance even to explore the place or anything. I wasn't sure if I should start walking towards it (the walk itself would have probably taken at least 2 hours).

Luckily, the village near Aspendos was a small place. Just as I was explaining (or at least trying to explain) that I was very unsure about what I should do, a friend of the shopkeeper drove by in a truck and he waved him down. They spoke briefly in Turkish and then said that he would take me to Aspendos (I think it was on his way near his farm or something). I got in the car with a random guy and was at Aspendos in about 10 minutes. They really do not make it easy to get there and the dolmus falsely advertised that they would take me to the actual amphitheater.

I entered the park and went to the amphitheater. It was enormous. Built in the year 155 during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, it could seat 7,000. I walked up and down the stairs of the theater and took some neat pictures. The other neat part of Aspendos is that the backdrop was still intact, so you could picture how performances may have looked when it was used thousands of years ago.







I walked around the coliseum for a while but afterwards wanted to explore the area a bit more. Although the coliseum is the main reason why people visit Aspendos, one can only look at a coliseum for so long. I walked outside of the the coliseum and began walking up the hill towards the ruins of the town where the theater had been located.

These were probably some of the cooler ruins I have seen while looking for ancient ruins. In most places, the ruins have already been cleaned, the overgrowth has been cut, and the path to walk has been clearly marked. It is very tourist friendly. These ruins were quite different. There were some old signs that would tell you what things were (which I appreciated), but otherwise the site was not that well maintained. I am not even sure if I was supposed to go back there (but no one stopped me).

I hiked to the top of the hill and got a fantastic picture of the theater.



Anyways, there were two reasons I really liked these ruins. Firstly, it was secluded. It was must nicer to see things and explore a bit when you aren't surrounded by people. It just seems more real to me. I don't know why. Secondly, I liked these ruins because you could see how they likely looked when they were discovered by people hundreds of years later. Truthfully, I am sure the people living in this area have always known about the Aspendos theater and the town of Aspendos and so there was never any real "discovering" occurring. I couldn't help feeling like I was an archeologist discovering new things since the ruins were overgrown with all grass and nature. I felt like I was one of the first people in hundreds of years to walk thought these streets again. It was a cool feeling. I took some pictures to share.















There were a few more, but I think you get the idea.

I exited the area into a parking lot (I had to figure out a way to go home). As I walk over to the bus stop, a man dressed in a somewhat funny costume comes up to me and asks me if I wanted to ride his camel. On the other side of the parking lot, there were two men in traditional middle eastern garb with a camel. I guess the idea was to make some money from tourists. I told him no thank you (in English). He persisted and began lowering the price from 20TL to 15TL to 10 TL. I suppose he figured that I was just trying to negotiate and that if he gave me a good price, I would acquiesce. I was on a budget at this point (I had lost a credit card and so cash was not easy to come by) so I wasn't feeling like spending money on extra expenses. When he didn't get the idea, I told him no thank you again, this time in Turkish.

The Turkish definitely caught him off guard. He stopped negotiating with me and became intrigued. He asked me how I knew Turkish. I explained that I was a study abroad student and had learned the Turkish while I was in the country and told him about some of the places I had traveled and that I went to Bogazici. This sufficiently impressed him. He paused for a moment and then he said, "bedava!" which is Turkish for "free." He wanted me to ride his camel and take pictures for free. I was very surprised and thanked him profusely. He smiled and lead me around on the camel while his associates took pictures of me. We even had a couple together. I thanked him again. He didn't have an email address but gave me his mailing address and I told him I would send him pictures. Unfortunately, in the packing of my things going back to the US, I lost the paper where he wrote his address and never sent the pictures. I feel bad about it because he did a nice thing for me. He probably won't be that nice to someone in the future because of me but there is nothing I can do about it. Here are the pictures anyway.







As I was waiting for the bus, I met some people that were going the same direction I was and they offered to take me back to Antalya. I accepted and ended up within walking distance to my hotel. The day trip to Aspendos took longer than I had planned. It was already late afternoon and I didn't have plans, so I just got something to eat and then walked around the city center for a little while before heading back to my hotel room.

Day 12: Olympos (July 11)

I woke up feeling refreshed after sleeping. I decided that today would be a fairly easy day. I would spend the day exploring the ruins of Olympos, followed by a swim in the Mediterranean before finally taking the bus in the evening to Antalya.

The city of Olympos was very prominent in ancient history. It was one of the 7 preeminent cities in the Lycian confederation. It was also the place where Poseidon stood and watched Odysseus sail away from Calypso's Island (at which point he called up a great storm). The town itself was in a picturesque place, nestled between two mountains. I was able to get into the site for free due to my handy Muze kart. Other students weren't so lucky.

The other cool part of it was that it was built around a mountain stream that flowed and emptied into the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, due to the resorts that had developed, the stream itself had a lot of algae. I had also heard that some people who had gone swimming near the stream became sick. I decided to play it safe and check the stream out from a distance.

i went for a swim a little further down the coast away from the stream. It was a great place to swim because of the scenery of the mountains (but that's true of a lot of the places down in this area). It was a fairly lazy day (which was deserved after the adventure from the night before).

I gathered my things, checked out, and got on the bus to Antalya. I took a city bus to the city center and began searching for a place to stay. I had a certain couple of hostels for which I was looking. I was in the process of searching for them when this Turkish guy got my attention and wanted me to stay at his hotel. In the book, the three types of hotels are low, medium, and high priced. This hotel was a medium I later discovered. I told him that it was probably out of my price range, but we started to negotiate anyway. He started at 50TL to which I obviously scoffed. I explained that I was a student and couldn't afford to pay much. He took me more seriously because I could actually speak Turkish even though the bulk of our negotiations were in English. He dropped it to 40TL then 30TL a night. He claimed it was his final offer. I explained to him that it was higher than any place I stayed at for the whole trip. He then asked what the highest price I paid was, and I told him 25TL. He thought for a moment and then agreed on 25TL with the promise that I do not partake in the free complimentary breakfast given to the members of the hotel. I agreed and had a room (the nicest room of the whole trip). It had a glass shower and the room was air conditioned and wireless internet in my room. The hotel must have been pretty desperate to have more guests. I was surprised and happy. It was definitely the biggest negotiation success of the trip.

I decided to walk around the downtown area close to the hotel. I got to see Hadrian's Gate and the greater downtown area of Antalya. I returned to my hotel and went to sleep.

Day 11: Saklikent Gorge and Olympos (July 10)

Arda, the New Zealand guy (I can't remember his name), and I decided that we wanted to take a day trip to Saklikent Gorge. I wasn't sure how it would be, but Arda said that it was definitely worth changing my plans. He was definitely right.

After a ride through the mountains a little ways, we crossed some streams and made it to the entrance of the Saklikent Gorge. Saklikent is Turkish for secret city. I am not really sure why it's called that. I took a couple of pictures on the approach (the bus was nice enough to stop for anyone who wanted to see it from afar).



We finally reached the gorge and walked inside. There was a boardwalk along the side at the entrance because the walls were steep and the water flowing out from the gorge was flowing too fast and was too deep for us to enter at that point. After walking a couple hundred meters or so, the board walk ended and the gorge opened up slightly.



The water was rushing from the gorge to this point and there was a fairly deep portion that needed to be crossed in order to hike into the main part of the gorge.

The park recommended some sort of water shoes beyond this point. We would be hiking through rushing water (it got shallow after this pass). However, the rocks would be very painful on the feet without the proper shoe wear. A very friendly Turkish guy allowed me to try on his shoes in order for me to walk over and see one of the tributaries that flowed into the main stream.



The water was fast and quite cold. For most of the year it is quite chilly because it comes from the snow melt in the mountains. The gorge itself is so tall that the sun can barely reach inside (and in some parts not at all). It's 18km long (the 2nd longest in Europe) and the longest and deepest gorge in Turkey.

We waded across the deepest part of the water to get into the main part of the gorge. I couldn't borrow the Turkish man's water shoes, so I just wore tennis shoes on my feet and allowed them to get really wet. As I crossed, I had to carry my bag above my head in order to prevent the contents (like my camera and phone) from getting wet. Our New Zealand friend did not come along for this part of the journey and decided to wait for us at the opening of the gorge. He was in his 70s and I think this part was just a little too much adventure for him (though he truthfully has had more adventure in his life than I will probably ever have).

Once we crossed to the other side, the water was quite shallow, allowing us to walk through the floor of the canyon. It was magnificent to see, especially with the cool water flowing over my feet. Since I love running water and mountains, this place was absolutely perfect. It was really interesting to see the flowing water continue to cut out the gorge, as it had done for thousands of years. Although we could have hiked for hours, we only hiked for a little while since our friend was waiting for us. Also, I had actually planned to travel to Olympos this day and so my time here was limited. IF I get a chance to return to Turkey, the Saklikent Gorge is definitely a place I'd like to see again. Here are some pictures from inside the gorge:









Here is a picture from the entrance of the gorge:



After we finished out hike, the three of us decided to eat some lunch at one of the restaurants at the mouth of the gorge. The restaurants there were neat because they had floating platforms on the stream to sit on while eating. This allowed for a great view! Based on Arda's recommendation, we decided to have gözleme, which is basically a Turkish pancake. It's not quite like American pancakes (usually it wraps something like meat), but that's the best way to describe it. It's not served with syrup there.



We took the bus back to Fethiye and I gathered my things to catch my bus to Olympos. The bus ride would take 4-5 hours. The route was particularly pretty as I would basically be paralleling the Mediterranean coast. The coastline here looked amazing. As I approached Kaş, it transformed from beaches with mountains in the background to cliffs coming right up the coast. As the bus weaved around curves, I felt as if I was driving on Highway 1 south of Monterey. The scenery was that pretty. I didn't get to stay in Kaş, though I had originally planned to. I think that's another one of those places that I would really like to see if I had another opportunity to spend a lot of time in Turkey. I don't think there is anything to see in particular, but the hiking and the scenery of the coastline would be enough to keep me occupied.

We continued along a little further until we reached Olympos. The bus stopped at a place on the side of the road and they told me it was Olympos. I got out and waited with others for a dolmus that would carry us down the mountain to where the beach was. This is another cool place that I think I would have liked to return to. It seemed very much like a place for college students and young people who were backpacking across Turkey.

I decided to stay at Bayram's Tree House. I checked in and they had an air conditioned tree house for me. At this point I was so freaking ecstatic! Air conditioner had been a luxury for me on this trip. I hadn't had air conditioning since I had been in Pamukkale. Anyways, the setup was basically like that of a hostel. I ended up rooming in a bungalow with others. There were two Canadian girls in my house. They were pretty nice. It turns out that I would be seeing them again in Cappadocia, which was pretty cool. The other neat thing about this place was that it (a) had wireless internet all over the place and (b) the 20 Lira per night included your dinner and breakfast. It seemed like a lot of younger people would sit outside until late hours of the night and talk and chill out. Too bad I didn't have time to stay for longer.

I got there about 8pm and had some food. I knew that I really wanted to go see the Chimera that night, as it would be my only night in Olympos. Little did I know exactly how much of an adventure this would be! I asked the lady at the desk and she told me it wasn't that far. She said, "oh you just walk down this way a little while until you get to the beach, turn left and go down the beach until you get to the road and then walk up the road a little ways and you'll be there." I am thinking to myself, how long could this walk be? An hour? Maybe an hour and a half? I mean the way this lady made it sound, it wouldn't be THAT long.

I take off toward the beach with my flashlight that I borrowed and then get onto the beach. The night was hot and quite humid. After walking about 10-15 minutes, I was already sweating. I called Husniye on the phone and she talked to me to provide me some company for the walk. After walking along the beach for an hour, I finally reached the road the lady at the desk talked about. I thought to myself, well ok, it cant be THAT much further, right? Wrong again. I continued to walk for about 2 more hours along the road. By this time, I considered turning around but had already invested so much time into the walk that I figured I had to see it through. At this point in the journey, sweat had seeped into my phone causing it to die. It turns out that it would be irreparable and I would be phone-less for the rest of my time in Turkey. So I continued walking. At around midnight, I met a lady on the side of the road and asked her how much further it was and she said it was only a few more minutes. Thankfully I was almost there!

I finally reached the entrance to the chimera a little after midnight. I was exhausted as I had been walking for a solid 2.5-3 hours. I later found out that the Chimera was actually 8km (5 miles) from Olympos and I had walked all that way by myself. Curse that stupid desk lady for telling me it wasn't that far away! Anyways, when I reached the bottom, I discovered that I had to then hike up the mountain path (another km or so straight up hill) to get the chimera. I decided to buy a frozen drink at this stand that was still open and took a rest before deciding to make the climb. I finally got the top and pretty much collapsed on the spot. I was so sweaty that I looked like I had just jumped in the ocean.

The Yanartaş (meaning flaming rock) was identified as the ancient Mount Chimaera. This place was also known as the inspiration for the myth of the Chimera. Sailors in ancient Lycia used the natural flames coming out of the rock as navigation. The vents emit methane which burn constantly. It was definitely a cool site to see at night. I talked to some of the people up there (yes I was not the only one up there at 1am in the morning surprisingly). One was this middle aged Turkish guy with a bunch of younger Turkish girls. I thought it was strange but didn't say anything. I also met these Americans. When I told them about my little walk, they felt so bad for me that they offered to drive me back home with them (they had rented a car to drive out to the Chimaera). I was immensely grateful that I wouldn't have to walk another 5 miles before sleeping.

I took some awesome pictures of it too!









It was amazing how this was naturally burning out of the ground like this. One kid took a bottle of water and actually put one of the flames out. Then they used their lighter to start it up again. I imagine that the fires probably started when there was a forest fire or perhaps a lightning strike. The flames had probably been burning for hundreds of years. It was absolutely incredible. I enjoyed spending some time resting there, taking in the flames and looking up into the night sky. Since we were so far from a town, the stars were more apparent than normal. After about an hour at the top, I hiked down with the Americans and they drove me back. I got home around 3am and promptly went straight to bed, completely exhausted.