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.
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