An American Life in Istanbul

Sorry everyone, but I got too wrapped up with some things in my personal life and didn’t have time to give the fourth and final leg of my incredible journey through the south of turkey: The Butterfly Valley. The only route down into the valley was extremely difficult, hence most of the valley’s visitors go by boat. I however had no intentention of turning down this challenge and after a bit of prodding, David was on board with the plan as well.

This picture was taken from the final flat section before the trail takes a sharp turn downwards. The butterfly valley beach can be seen below in the background.

This is the first section that was practically a rock climbing slope. All though it was short, it was difficult to climb down with heavy packs. David had a particularly hard time because he carried that guitar with him the whole way down! It would come in handy later though.

Working our way down. The path is heavily marked with red dots everywhere so it’s impossible to lose the trail. At some parts you still say to yourself, ‘there is no way the path can actually go that way, that’s crazy!’

There were some sections so difficult that ropes had been put in place so you could use them to climb down.

That’s the half way marker! Only another 250m of vertical descent left. I think David wanted to cry when he saw this. Fortuneately the first half is much more difficult than the second half, so it got a lot easier.

In the valley there were many people doing paragliding (I think that’s what it’s called). You can see one of them at the top of this picture. I guess they are starting up the hill somewhere and just jumping off it. The valley is very near to Oludeniz, a popular tourist destination. I think that paragliding trips are run from there.

Another beautiful shot from the trail down into the valley. At this point we are nearly there.

In the butterfly valley there is only one place to stay. 30 ytl gets you a beachside tent, breakfast and dinner. They also have beach bungalows for 40 ytl per night, but the tents they provide are more than adequete. This was the cafe where people would eat. The cieling is actually grape vines and is one of the few nice shaded areas. You can’t sleep too late because when the sun comes up, you start cooking in your tent.

Looks like paradise eh?

There wasn’t too much to do there so we napped a lot, played backgammon, went swimming and explored teh valley. I actually only stayed one day here and then left. I cut my trip shorter than planned, and was glad I did.

This adoring couple were a pair of hellraisers. They squaked and made all kinds of racket all day. If you walked near them, they would try to bite your toes, or at least chase after you. I refused to let them intimidate me, so they left me alone. Others were not quite bold enough to stand up to them and would run away.

I found this book in the book collection they had there. ‘J Stalin’ is in fact the Joseph Stalin. It was a tough read but short. I needed something else to read because while I was there, I was reading ‘The Other Side of Israel: My Journey Across the Jewish Arab Divide,’ a book about the Israeli citizens that are arabs. The book is, to say the least, very critical of the Zionists. For whatever reason there seemed to be a lot of Israelis in the butterfly valley while I was there and I felt a bit uncomfortable reading what was probably the most critical view of Israel (at least in mass distribution). So instead I settled down with Stalin (not much better I know) for the day I was there and finished my other book on the bus back to Istanbul.

This cafe set back from the beach was the coolest cafe ever. It was this really nice old guy living there with a couple from Israel (go figure right?). They would help him out with the fields and he would bake a cake every day and sell it to the people visiting the valley. They served other things but the group I went with were the only people that went there the whole day. The cake was white chocolate and apricot (apricots fresh from his apricot tree, and never picked, only the ones that were ripe enough to fall are used).

Because the valley is so isolated there was no electricity. They ran the generator for a few hours a day, but after midnight it went completely dark. This is where the guitar came in handy. David played guitar by candle light to a scattered audience. They all loved it and the next night they arranged a camp fire on the beach and David played and sang for everyone. Too bad I wasn’t there to see it.

Finally, here’s a video of David’s performance of the song, “Save Tonight,” which happens to be one of my favorite songs.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

For those of you that do not know, the European soccer (football) championships is being played right now. After losing to Portugal and barely beating Switzerland (who is terrible), Turkey’s chances of moving on going into their third group stage game. The game was against the Czech republic, and the outcome would be the deciding factor of who would go on to the quarter finals against Croatia. Turkey’s chances never looked dimmer than at the start of the second half, down 2-0, and soaked to the bone with a Swiss summer rain. They looked like a bunch of wet dogs.

Somehow though they managed to knock in three goals in what was an incredible second half. From what I saw of Turkey’s three games, they play with a lot of emotion. When they realized they were about to get knocked out in front of all those fans, they really picked it up. Once they caught their first goal, they were super charged. I think the whole team believed they could pull it and they did. Maybe that’s why the fans get so intense during the game; because it actually does make a big difference. It’s not just in football either. Turkish people seem to be a lot more emotional in all walks of life (at least compared to me and what I am used to). Perhaps it’s downfall, perhaps it’s a strength. It has pluses and minuses.

Anyway, here is a video I took. The celebration after the game didn’t have nearly as much energy as the celebrations after each goal. I watched the game with Ant, Doruk and Adnan in Tophane, although I missed the first 20 or 30 minutes due to a prior engagement.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Our route along the Lycian way started in Alinca. The plan was to hike 7-8 km to Kabak, stay there one night, then hike 7-8 km Faralya, then hike a long 10-15 km to Ovacik. Faralya is where the beautiful butterfly valley is, which we never made it past. Despite rather short distances, the path was quite steep, and at times hard to follow. It was a bit too hot and the sun too strong, so 7-8 km a day turned out to be just right.

Almost immediately along the route we got lost and found ourself amongst a flock of goats (is flock the right word for goats?). Although the goat herder didn’t speak English, he understood Kabak and pointed us in the right direction. Oddly enough, after following his circuitous directions we found ourself back on the trail and promptly ran into him a second time. There must have been a short cut he did not tell us about.

Every once in a while you would come across where a rock slide had been. Although it hardly rains in this part of Turkey during the summer, it rains quite a bit in the winter. On this particular rock slide there were two lonely goast who must have gotten separated from the rest of the herd (that’s the right one isn’t!).

All along the way to Kabak the view absolutely amazing. Tall mountains, turquoise sea, green forest, no people, no boats. What more could you ask for?

I know what it looks like but it’s not. This plant looks like cannabis but everyone assure me that it wasn’t. It was growing wild everywhere along the trail.

Another nice shot. We hiked down from up there.

As we got closer to Kabak we saw donkeys! Since Kabak is nestled in a deep valley on the coast, Donkeys are a very good way to get things in and out of the valley. I tried to convince David that all Donkeys spoke Spanish, but he didn’t believe me. Notice the guitar on David’s back. He carried that guitar for the entire five weeks he was in Turkey.

An advertisement in Kabak. All the places to stay had little makeshift wooden signs around. The whole valley had a very natural un-touristic feel to it.

The whole way down into the valley all I could think about was jumping in the sea. I was hot and sweaty and that cool blue water looked so good. We didn’t even bother to find a place to stay. We went straight to the sea and jumped in. David forgot his guide book so actually only I got to jump in. He had to hike about a kilometer back up the trail where we stopped for a rest.

This is the place where we stayed. Looks pretty comfortable right? The place was fantastic. The few guests that were staying there were extremely friendly, intelligent and out going. One was an American living in London who had grown up in Istanbul. There were two Italian families and David and I. After my cool swim in the sea, I lounged around the place admiring the view (the whole valley is surrounded by mountains), swimming in the pool (the beach was too far after walking all day), playing backgammon and drinking tea. I could have stayed there a lot longer than just one day. The place we stayed at was called Thuran Camp and was 35 ytl per person and included breakfast and dinner.

Our camp had a small library. You could take and read any book while you were there. If you wanted to take the book out of the camp with you, you had to send it back with a second book so they could add to their collection.

Thuran Camp is known for its excellent food. Besides a fantastic dinner and breakfast, you could also order stuff during the middle of the day. I of course could not resist the wild boar gulash, which was awesome. Apparently in the wooded parts of southern Turkey, there are wild boars running around.

I noticed that in this particular joint in the roof, it took them about seven nails before they were able to make contact with both pieces of wood. Made me a bit uneasy, but I inspected my bungalow and it was made much more professionally.

This shot was taken from the full moon camp, also in Kabak. We went there to check it out, but had very little shade, was completely empty and was too far from the beach. I am glad we didn’t stay here, but the view from their sitting area was quite spectacular. They had a hammock to the left outside the frame of the picture which was probably the best placed hammock I have ever seen.

Back on the road again the next day. The background is Kabak. We climbed up the hill and followed along a much less scenic but flat road. Climbing out of the valley Kabak was in was tiring especially since it was nearly noon when we left and therefore quite hot. However, it was nothing compared to what we were going to face in Faralya.

Some baby sheep came to greet us as we walked along the road. David was inspired by my bandanna and tried to fashion one for himself out of a towel.

An abandoned construction site overgrown with purple flowers.

we came across this fountain on the side of the road underneath a mulberry tree. We stopped and rested a bit while eating loads of fresh mulberries. We didn’t drink the water though. We had plenty and we were nearly at the end of our hike.

The last leg of the trip was hiking down from Faralya to the butterfly valley. A few people we passed on the road warned us of how treacherous the path was, and David told me someone had died while trying to climb down into the valley. Despite numerous warnings of having to use ropes in some parts, we decided to go anyways. With 20 kg (45 lbs) packs we began our descent.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Since I was unable to hook up with any climbers, I decided to tag along with David to hike the Lycian Trail. As I said in my previous post, he had just finished his military service in Germany and was touring Turkey. We started by heading from Olympos to Antalya where we intended to do some shopping so that I would have the necessary provisions to camp along the way. As I have commonly found in Turkey, no one actually knows where the place you are looking for is, but they all pretend they do. We spent a whole day on a wild goose chase trying to find a sleeping bag for me too use so that we could camp along the trail. After a long and frustrating day of walking all over the city (we were very angry at Antalya) we left having gained nothing for our lost time.

For those of you that are curious, we stayed in a very large but minimalist room in Antalya for 30 ytl per person per night. This did not include breakfast or dinner. The bus ride from Olympos to Antalya is 11 ytl total and consists of two legs. The first is a normal bus which drops you on the side of the road where you must wait faithfully that another bus will come and get you and take you down the treacherous road into the valley.

From there we took a bus to Kas. The ride took several hours and cost us another 15 ytl each, but Kas is a much nicer place (click here to see my previous visit to Kas). Here we sent a bunch of things we didn’t need back to Istanbul, to Izzy’s address. Since we would be hiking a few days, we decided to get rid of as much stuff as possible. We sent collectively 10.9 kg (24 pounds) for 9 ytl back to Istanbul. David also took this opportunity to call home while I took a very relaxing tea by the sea (there is always time for Tea).

For 7.5 ytl each, we hoped a bus to a place called Esen. Our goal was to go here and hopefully hitchhike to Alinca, a place actually on the trail. However our bus passed Esen and dropped us off in the wrong spot. Plenty of people stopped to offer rides but no one was going to Alinca, or even seemed to know where that was. For about 20 ytl, we were able to buy quite a bit of food in Esen. Unfortunately the people there were experienced in the ways of backpackers and took advantage of the fact that it was nearly dark. They charged us 20 ytl each to drive us up to Alinca on what had to be the ricketiest motor bikes I have seen since Bangladesh.

The ride up to Alinca was amazing. It was about 10 or 15 km. The first part was flat, but with no lack of excitement as our two drivers took great pleasure in going way to fast and scaring us. The second part was slow and up a very steep hill. The view was absolutely breath taking. Every sense was heightened in such a way that I felt that I must be on some kind of drug. The warmth of the motorbike was a sharp contrast to the cold air blasting us as we motored along. The bikes loudly puttered, breaking the total silence of the area, but as we came up over the first ridge, their sound disappeared. As we turned right along the ridge a steep cliff disappeared into the water 1000m below. The sun set was full of reds and purples and yellows and oranges, all of which were reflected on the calm sea below. The air was sweet, clean and fresh. This was the point where I let my mouth fall open and a bug flew in nearly choking me. The sound of the bike motor came roaring back as my gagging brought me out of my trance like state. There was a true taste of adventure about!

Unfortunately I needed both hands to hold on, so I had to wait until morning to get a picture of the landscape. It was amazing to wake up and see this:

You can see the last bit of the trail that we came up. Until I got to Alinca, I thought that Esen was one of the most fleabag little towns I had seen. Alinca, totally topped it. I think that there were not more than ten houses in the area. I wouldn’t even call it a town. Our drivers seemed to think something was funny when they dropped us off. It was dark and there were no lights on and no people around. We said we were looking for the guest houses which they helped us eventually find. For a minute though, David and I both thought that we might be in a bit of trouble.

We eventually found the guest houses from which I took the above picture. They were very simple, with two - three sleeping mats, mosquito nets, two lights (one inside and one outside) and a small porch. On top of that they were full of bugs, including two of the biggest spiders I have ever seen in the wild. The houses were unlocked and no one was around so we just made ourselves at home. David cooked dinner and we slept.

Staying in the guest houses normally costs 35 ytl. This includes breakfast and dinner made by the owner Kadir (not the same guy that owns the tree houses). Since we came in very late and were not interested in breakfast he charged us only 15 ytl each. In the morning we packed up our things and started along what was to be a fantastic hike.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Well I returned from a fantastic trip in the south of Turkey about ten days ago. I have been a bit slow about writing the entry because I wanted to cover the trip thoroughly. I have tried to include prices where I can so that if someone else is considering a similar trips they can get an idea about how much it will cost. If you want to jump straight to the picture gallery, click here.

I started by heading to the ancient Lycian city of Olympos, near Antalya, a place I had been before (Olympos Post). My plan was to go there and to climb and get some time to myself. I took a pair of climbing shoes and a harness and was hoping to hook up with some other climbers while there.

I stayed in Kadir’s Tree Houses which is the original place to stay in Olympos. I stayed in dormitory style rooms with four people to a room. Normally you pay 25 ytl for this rooms (this includes dinner and breakfast buffet), but climbers get a discount so I only paid 100 ytl for five days. Laundry services was 7.5 ytl, and there was internet, food, beer and all that available as well. It’s a great place to stay for climbers since it’s maybe the only place that offers guided rock climbing and has all the equipment. It also has the one of only two discos in the valley. Given this, and that it is quite famous, Kadir’s is a great place to meet other travelers, to party, to do any number of adventure sports available in the area (canyoning, rock climbing, sea kayaking, diving, boating…), or to just relax. Although I did not get to climb I still had a nice time, met some cool people and enjoyed myself. Istanbul is so big and busy and stressful that it can be sometimes overbearing. I really needed to get out of the city, collect my thoughts, relax, and think about what to do next in life. Anyway, here is a picture tour of my time in Olympos:

This is a picture of the tree houses. Many of the buildings in the valley are like this. Since it’s a national park you can’t build any permanent structures so everything is pretty flimsy and weak looking. I like it though. It definitely has character. I think the people that work there said there are something like 300 beds on the whole camp. Although it’s the furthest camp from the beach, they have a beach shuttle that goes to and from the entrance to the ancient city (to get to the beach you have to walk through the city).

The funny thing about the employees here is that most of them are volunteer. If you work there you don’t really get paid, but you get free food and a free place to stay. A lot of the people working there were on very long vacations and just happened to come to Olympos and were offered jobs for the summer so they decided to stay. Anyway, this is a picture inside the Hangar bar. It’s a large two story building that acts as the hotel lobby. People congregate here and hangout during the day playing backgammon and what not. I spent a good amount of time here reading.

This is the group I hung out with while there. I am the one on top behind the guy making a claw shape with his hand. From the left is Mark, an English guy who’s Turkish wife is taking the picture, Luke, a student from Manchester currently studying anthropology in Edinburgh, Will another student at Edinburgh traveling with Luke, and David, a young German guy who just finished his mandatory military service in Germany. Luke and Mark both loved discussion politics and it became hard to keep them apart from each other. David chose Turkey as his first big trip on his own and spent five weeks traveling around. I joined him through the next leg of his trip and during his final leg in Istanbul. We had a great time together.

This is an image looking down at all the little bungalows and cafes that dot the road. They are all more or less the same. Some of them have fruit orchards behind them. Pomegranate, grapes, oranges, mulberries, and apricots are among the fruit that grow in the area. The large road like area is a dried up river bed. Since there are no plants growing there I am guessing that it must flood pretty well during the rainy season (winter). I couldn’t capture this with a picture, but it was quite a sublime experience to stand in the river bed and look at the mountains towering around you.

Being a secluded scarcely populated valley, Olympos has a decent amount of wild life compared to Istanbul, then again that’s not saying much. I saw two other types of huge spiders during this trip which made me a bit uneasy. I really hate spiders. One of them, the biggest and ugliest one, was on the wall of one of the bungalows I stayed in.

It was hard to capture it, but the valley is surrounded by pretty steep mountains. This is a picture I took after having climbed up one of them.

Gozleme is one of the specialties of the area. Gozleme is a flat crepe like thing. It is stuffed with spinach, cheese, meat, potatoes or any mix of those. It is then cooked on a large convex cooking surface which you see in the back. Underneath the surface is a small compartment where a fire is kept burning. If made right, these are so good. I recommend potatoes and Kasar cheese mixed.

This is what’s left of the old Roman bathes of the ancient city. I am actually standing inside where the original building used to be. There is very little information given in the ruins, and very little written anywhere online, so at best I can only say what each building was, and even that is difficult. Many of the ruins are grown over and scattered making them very difficult to find. I spent two days exploring the surrounding forest to find some of these places.

This is what’s left of the amphitheater. The entrance was in decent shape but once you walked under the arch very little was discernible. In the frame is David, the German guy I met there. He wasn’t nearly as thrilled as I was to be exploring the ancient ruins, but I guess he had nothing better to do.

This is what’s left of what appears to be a block of houses. The pathway is part of the Lycian Trail, a very well known hiking trail along Turkey’s south coast.

More ruins. This building had a great view of the valley. From here I was able to spot other tall buildings poking out over the tree tops, and followed up with them the next day.

An excellent find! This sarcophagus (I think it is at least), was in a clearing in the forest. It was quite far off of the path so I imagine most people don’t get to see this. Aside from the hole most likely made by a grave robber, it was in decent shape for a couple thousand years old. You could still read some of the writing on it!

This pathway is certainly not new and I don’t think people were in the business of building walkways like this back then. I can only think that it was used to channel water between areas of the city.

Again this bit of the ruins was unlabeled except for the obvious fact that it had a tile mosaic floor still reasonably intact. It’s really a strange feeling to be walking in the forest and then to suddenly find yourself walking on a tile mosaic floor that most people wish they could have in their bathrooms.

That’s me in my rugged man get up. This was another bit of unlabeled ruins.

That’s how much I love Olympos. In conclusion, this small valley is a must visit for any young traveler. Whatever you are looking for in an adventure, I promise you that you can find it here.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Sorry, I am still outside of Istanbul, so all you get is another picture. In my random wanderings around the city, I found this street near the Galatta Tower. The street seemed to have nothing but music shops with the occasional juice stand. These are the only music shops I have seen, although I haven’t been looking for them.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I am still gone, so here’s another picture from Istanbul. As I said earlier I spend a lot of time on Istiklal Street in Taksim. The street is lined start to finish with buildings built up against each other. Ever so often, there are small streets crossing Istiklal. Equally often there are ‘pasaj’ or passages. These are covered pathways between buildings that are typically filled with cafes, shops or in the case of the famous cicek pasaj (flower passage) Meyhanes (restaurants where one goes to drink Raki and eat Turkish appetizers). Here is a picture of a rather unimpressive pasaj. It is completely covered protecting it from the rain.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!