The third installment of my travelogue from the past. 

In my “treehouse” room at Olympos

I had one day in Olympos.  I took a short trip to the beach.  I had also planned to see the chimera, the eternal flame of legend, but the overnight bus trip did me in.  I was too exhausted and missed the nightly tour.  The following day I departed with a group on a cruise from Olympos to Fethiye along the Turkish Riviera.

The cruise was on a boat with 19 people, 15 guests and 4 crewmembers. Maybe taking a 3 night/4 day cruise doesn’t sound that crazy, but for me, trapped on a boat with a bunch of strangers, potentially extremely annoying strangers, was enough to make me think quite hard about signing up for this adventure.  In addition to my own skittish nature about swimming in large bodies of open water.

From Olympos the tour operators picked us up and drove us some hours away to Myra where we were able to do some shopping and banking before boarding the boat at Adriake harbor.  We then sailed to Pirate Cave where there is a large grotto in the water.  We jumped off the boat and swam to the cave. This was my first real test, swimming in open water in a dark cave without my glasses.  I figured there was safety in numbers and always stayed close to someone else just in case there were a shark, maybe it would bite them first…. The cave was pretty cool and we swam there perhaps 20 minutes.

The view from Simena Castle

Later we sailed by a sunken city.  It was certainly sunken as we could make very little of it.  And we could not swim there because it is against government rules, so we just slowed down as we passed it.  It was not nearly as impressive as I thought it would be, but I did enjoy the stop at Simena Castle, though I was the only person from the boat with the exception of the Turkish couple to go up the castle. What a shame because there was a fantastic view from the top of the castle ruins.

We sailed on to another cove where we dropped anchor for the evening.  There was expected to be a multi-boat nightclub on the water, but we were the only boat in the area.  I was grateful.  As an introvert, older than most of the other passengers, the thought of a nightclub I could not escape filled me with dread.  When we ended up having our own party on board with CDs that other travelers had brought, much more my speed.

On the second day we had some swimming in the morning at Fishing Bay and then headed to Kas where we had a few hours on land.  It was quite good to be off the boat, but I could swear the internet cafee was rocking back and forth.  Before returning to the boat I hired a guy on a motorbike take me to the Roman theatre ruins.   I bought myself a package of potato chips and a Bounty candy bar to enjoy on the boat, but came to regret that later as the next few hours reminded me of “The Perfect Storm” and I lost my chips and candy bar over the side of the boat…  I was doing real good gulping air and watching the waves till I saw another guy lose his lunch and then well, it was only a matter of seconds.

The boat anchored at Butterfly Valley

The crew warned us there might be a similar bumpy ride the next morning, but they passed out motion sickness tablets like candy and I had mine all ready for when the engines started the next morning at 5 am.  Popped it in and slept like a baby the entire journey to Butterfly Valley.  We had a bit of a swim before some of us headed into the valley for some hiking. There were only a few butterflies but some amazing views as the narrow valley walls soared above our heads.  I enjoyed the walking, but once we reached an approximately ten-foot-high wall with some dodgy footholds, slick with trickling water, and a really shredded rope, I called it quits.  Everyone else made it up, but for some reason this wall filled me with fear.  I could only imagine being stuck half way up with all these strangers.  So, I stayed down and ate fresh sunflower seeds from a flower the Turkish couple had picked till the others came back.

Next, we arrived in Oludeniz, dropping anchor by a large rock that separates the sea from the lagoon, making quite pleasant swimming waters.  One of the crew scampered up the rock, and jumped off what seemed a really high perch.  Of course, this only spurred Mr. I-Must-Do-Everything-First-and-Best-from-New Zealand to try his luck. I bet he was sorry he did not think of the jump first.  Then the captain of our boat dove off the rock, then another passenger from the boat.  I was starting to itch to go up there too and I dove off the boat and swam over to the rock.  Making my way up the rock without glasses and without shoes (ouch) I found myself up on the rock with what seemed an incredible distance between myself and the water.  I felt really scared; however, it seemed even more difficult to turn around and climb back down.  I jumped off the 12-meter perch screaming the whole way, landing bottom first.  Ouch.  But I was redeemed for not doing the climb earlier that day.

Gearing up for the jump

Then came the paragliding.  I had planning to do it for some time, and since I had told everyone on the boat I was going to do it, I had to follow through on it.  Oludeniz is supposed to be one of the best places in the world to do this as gliders launch from a huge mountain just by the beach; There is great wind and fantastic views of the beach, the lagoon, islands and mountains and sea beyond.  It is one of the highest jumps in the world.  The jump starts at 6,500 feet high, but after jumping one is literally lifted more, higher and higher until even the jump site seems very far below.  It was terrifying and exhilarating.  Yet, it was the drive up the mountain that was even more frightening.  All the paragliders sat in a covered flatbed truck, with benches on each side.  I sat in the very back, facing the gaping opening.  Initially as we speed up the snaky road up the mountain, it seems alright.  But then there is no tree line, no guard rail, hardly any road wider than the truck to maneuver, and it is dusty and rocky and they are still driving way too fast, and as one looks ahead to the next curve it appears that if we went straight we would just fly off the mountain. I spent the last ten minutes of the truck ride with a white-knuckle grip on the bar of the back of the truck muttering small prayers to any god that might hear me. The woman across from me refused to open her eyes.  I noticed similar praying and death grips around the vehicle. Jumping off the mountain seems like the easiest way down.

The launch pad is a rocky gravel slant ending in nothingness.  We were paired with our jump partner (this is a tandem flight), given gear to dress in, then someone barks some instructions at us:  “When I say run, you run.  Just run as fast as you can.  Do not sit or stop running until I say sit.  Then sit and stop running.  Okay ready?”  Wait, I ask, let me confirm this, I run when you say run, and sit when you say sit? Yes.  Ok.  Then my partner beckons me down the rocky slope to get hooked into the chute.  I beckon him to come further up the slope, I mean, come on, it looks dangerous going so far down the slope, I don’t want to slip down the slope and die before I get my paragliding opportunity!  He beckons to me again.   Ok, I will go down the dangerous slope to get hooked up to my gliding partner, then he yells RUN! and I run as fast as my little legs strapped to a seat and a man can and off we go lifted into the air….

Oludeniz as viewed from my paragliding adventure

And all I could think was Wow!  Wow!  Wow!  Oh my god it is beautiful.  Oh my god, why am I up here?  Maybe I should go down.  No, it is great.  And for 45 minutes we were airborne and the scenery was amazing and I was ever so glad that I decided to do this.  Although in total, including the terrifying drive, the adventure was but 1 1/2 hours, it was so amazing.  Scary, crazy, and amazing. Then once we all touched down we were taken by boat back to our yacht to have banana and chocolate pancakes delivered by a pancake making boat.  Sweet rewards. More swimming, a nice dinner, and a quiet last evening on the boat.

The final day was uneventful.  More swimming in the morning and a trip to Tarzan Bay where we could swing on a rope to jump in the water, but I only got rope burn after one pathetic Tarzan jump. It was just fun watching Mr. I-Must-Do-Everything-First-and-Best-from-New Zealand try to come up with new Tarzan swing combinations to impress us all.  He failed miserably and it made me rather gleeful.  At 2:30 pm we arrived in Fethiye Harbor and I ran off the boat as fast as I could.  I was glad to leave my companions behind me.

I spent the afternoon and evening in Fethiye, all by myself.  The town is nice enough, though very touristy.  There seemed to be plenty of excursions from the town and it might have been nice to stay a few days, but I had an overnight bus to Selcuk departing at 11 pm.

At Ephesus

My overnight bus deposited me at the Selcuk bus terminal at 4:45 am.   I went straight to a pension someone had recommended and fell asleep for several hours.  Later I caught a ride to the ruins at Ephesus.  The ancient Greek city is truly amazing, most especially the library and coliseum.  There were probably some other treasures to be seen there, but with the heat and the crowds, I mostly followed the herd, still spending almost two hours there.  I then walked the three kilometers back to Selcuk.

I also went to see the smaller historical sites of Priene, Miletus, and Didyma.  They were in a more ruinous state, but perhaps more romantic for that, still the temple of Apollo at Didyma is amazing. It was never finished, so in a way, one can imagine that one is still in the past, as it was, back in the Greek heyday. The columns were massive and part of the ceiling still exists, though a very small part.  But it was worth the tour, even if just to see that temple.  Kind of sad that I just wrote this brief little part about a major historical site, perhaps one of the best in the world. I have no excuse. They were incredible to see.

I returned to Istanbul for a few more days and then returned to Southeast Asia for the next incongruent part of my summer travel.