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.
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