Trips

Friday - 9/4 – Antalya to Fethiye and our gulet boat

This morning we walked through town and along the park beside the sea. Our bus had collected our luggage and picked us up for a short ride to the Antalya Museum. The artifacts from many of the Turkish digs are on display here. The exhibits began with fossils and items found in graves from 4000 years ago. There were amazing pots and statues. In the Roman period 1 BC to 4 AD people were buried with things needed in the after-life so there were rings and jewelry and items used in their trade. Another room housed the statues found at Perge. Some were in almost perfect condition and others were recreated like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Another room had sarcophagi of very elaborately carved marble. These were found under mounds of dirt 20 to 60 feet deep. I also enjoyed the display of old instruments with flutes made from bone and a large shepherd’s flute in a woven bag. This is a terrific museum!

Lighthouse overlooking Antalya harbor

(Link to further information about the Antalya Museum - use the back arrow key to return here.)

Statues from Perge

Apollo

Aphrodite

Zeus

Alexander the Great

Sarcophagus

Detail on Sarcophagus

Sarcophagus

Musical Instruments

Burial Urn

Ceiling from house in Antalya - carved wood

We drove west through the forest, passed more greenhouses, and along the Aegean seacoast. We stopped for lunch in Demre and ate Turkish cheese pizza and tomato/cucumber/olive salad and cream of chicken soup. Then we walked through St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. This is the saint that Santa Claus is based on.

The areas which appear as solid gray are all greenhouses

Lunch spot

St. Nicholas

Church of St. Nicholas

We stopped at the Lycian theater (originally Greek with a semi-circular shape in 1 BC and then rebuilt in Roman style – more oval - after an earthquake) and tombs up on the cliff. The theater had a high wall in front of the front seats to keep the spectators safe from animals. They used to have camel fights (they wrestled with their necks) and bear fights in that theater. Link to information on ancient Myra:

Entrance to Lycian theater

Stage area of Lycian theater

Amphitheater of Lycian theater

Detail of seats in Lycian theater - old and worn

The stone Lycian tombs on the cliffs were carved out and the façades were elaborately carved. Individual tombs were closed with a sliding door that could be opened when the next family member died.

Lycian tombs

Detail of Lycian tombs

The Aegean coast here has very few beaches (only one was sand) or harbors. The coast road goes along and around the cliffs, which slope right down into the sea.

A word about our bus, which we have sat on for six hours today: It is brand new and it was designed by/for Japanese. There is no legroom. We each have a double seat to our self so we can sit sideways, thank goodness. The 6’4” man on our tour has to sit in the middle of the backseat and extend his legs down the aisle. The bus is air-conditioned except it shuts off when we go up hill, which we often do quite slowly.

The roads so far have been in excellent shape. They have all been recently chip-sealed.

In 1923 Turkey became an independent republic and adopted its current border. It also got rid of its Arabic alphabet and now all writing is with Latin letters. Since Arabic had 29 letters, three Latin letters have two sounds and a punctuation mark to identify it. The “u” has an umlaut, the “g” with a long mark, and the “i” is with and without a dot. This makes things a lot easier for us.

We arrived at Fethiye, an old harbor town on the Aegean Sea, and embarked on our gulet boat, the Kubilay Sezen, out of Marmaris, for our next four nights.

Our Turkish gulet, the Kubilay Sezen

We stowed our belongings in our tiny cabin in the bow with a small private bath that is actually larger than our last hotel bathroom. We went up to have dinner on deck in the bow. All 15 of us sit around a large table. We had another typical Turkish meal that was delicious. We went to bed shortly after dinner. Our bunks are at right angles to each other and surprisingly comfortable. There is a sheet on the mattress and a pillow and a waffle weave blanket. We could sleep in our rooms of take the blanket and pillow up on deck and sleep on the lounge pads there - until the dew collected and it got damp. We stayed in our room with the porthole and the door open and tried to think cool. Marge says this is the hottest night she has spent since she was 9-years old and sleeping in an un-air conditioned attic bedroom in Minneapolis. The captain turned on the AC for 2 hours and it didn’t make a dent in the heat.

Table set for 15

Our cabin, bunks, and porthole

Saturday - 9/5 - on the Kubilay Sezen

Breakfast on deck was hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes and cukes, bread, cheese, and/or museli and yogurt. After breakfast we took a bus up to the abandoned Rum (refers to the Greek Orthodox people living in Turkey) village of Kaya to hike and explore. This village/town was inhabited by Greeks after the Ottoman Empire weakened. They were mostly tanners of leather and makers of shoes to trade over the old trade routes. After WWI when both Greece and Turkey wanted to become independent republics, the treaty of 1923 created a population exchange. The Turks/Muslims from Greece were given land here in Turkey and the Rums, like in Kaya, were sent to the Greek mainland. This exchange created a ghost town at Kaya. We hiked up the hillside and looked at the ruins of houses and churches. Several earthquakes (1955 and 1999) have left the structures in ruins.

Out the porthole first thing in the morning

At Kaya

Path to the WC - perhaps the most important path to anywhere

Abandoned houses on the hillside at Kaya

Greek Orthodox Church

Church interior

Mosaic of oval-shaped, smooth pebbles

Overview of town, including church

More abandoned houses

Overview of town, including church

Abandoned house with original paint still showing

Abandoned houses in foreground and current town and houses in the distance

Fort or lookout on hillside above the abandoned town

We had tea or soda in the village and Adnan taught us to play a game with numbered tiles and a holder like in Scrabble but similar to gin. It is a game the Turkish men play in the villages. (I won!)

The game playing group

More Lycian tomb structures

Another view of a solar water heater

Before returning to the boat, we walked to a market in Fethiye and Adnan bought peaches, figs, plums, and shrimp. We each put in 5 TL to pay for the shrimp. We snacked on the fruit. It was the first time I had eaten fresh figs right off the tree. I really like them! The peaches were also incredibly ripe and juicy and sweet.

Street scene in Fethiye

The market

Fresh fish

Meat counter

Grapes and figs

Loading up the truck with produce

When we got back to our boat we left the harbor and headed for a cove where most of us went for a swim. The water is a perfect temperature - not too cold or too hot - and then we rinsed off and had lunch - Shepherd salad, rice, and a string bean and beef dish.

Not one of us! - Loggerhead turtle

Tip-toeing down the ladder

Into the drink

The mermaids club

We had a relaxing sail (one jib was enough to move us along) and then anchored in another cove for “high tea” - coffee, tea and “bickies” (some good cookies). Then four of us and Adnan went for a hike from this cove to the next one. It was up and over a ridge through red pine forest and rough volcanic rock. We passed a poor hut and farm with two cows tied to trees. The view down to the coves with all the anchored sailboats was spectacular. Our boat motored around the point to pick us up by dingy, but Adnan and I swam out to the boat. It was fun.

Up the trail

Someone's summer place

Cove

Adnan and Gale getting ready for the big swim - the rest of us waited for the tender to come and get us

Gale and Adnan swimming out to the gulet

We sailed to another cove and anchored for the night. We tied up to shore with one or two lines off the stern and dropped anchor off the bow. It keeps us from swinging with the current.

For dinner the captain grilled bream (fish, so I got two chicken legs) on a charcoal fire off the side of the boat. The shrimp we purchased at the market were cooked to Adnan’s recipe: crushed garlic in sea salt, ripe tomatoes crushed into a sauce, throw in the shrimp and boil them in their shells (with heads on) for three minutes. The shrimp were delicious!

Sunday - 9/6 - on the Kubilay Sezen

This morning’s breakfast was a Turkish omelet. The eggs are fried sunny side up over sausage slices. A boat came out to our boat and sold us fresh bread. Yesterday one came out selling ice cream from a cooler on his little motorboat. He had Ben & Jerry’s ice cream bars but we learned that Magnum bars are even better!

After breakfast we tendered to shore (about 30 feet) and hiked along the rocky coast over to a Roman bath, thought to have been built by Marc Antony for Cleopatra. The baths are in ruins now and partially under water. Then we hiked up to the top of the ridge of the isthmus and could see water on both sides.

Sunrise over the Aegean

Our cove became crowded overnight!

Rock art on the shore

Cleopatra's Baths

View of the cove on the other side of the ridge

Coming to get us

We moved to another cove to swim and then have lunch. Then we headed off on a three-hour crossing to another peninsula across the Aegean. We were surprised by how rough it was. Had I known I would have taken Dramamine. It was too rough to be able to move from our seats on deck and by the end of the sail we were all covered with salt from the water washing over the sides of the boat.

We arrived at the resort beach of Ekincik, had tea, coffee, and cookies and walked from our landing along a black volcanic sand beach. It was not very attractive and we returned to our boat to read and relax until dinner.

Harbor at Ekincik

Beach at Ekincik

Turtle protection sign

The dinner specialties tonight included grilled meatballs with curry powder and peaches and fancy carved melon and watermelon for dessert.

After dinner we watched an hour and 20 minute DVD on Ataturk, the father of the Turkish Republic. It was a well-done documentary and a shame that in the last ten years the Islamic conservatives are undoing some of his reforms involving women’s rights, education, and separation of church and state.

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