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.