An American Life in Istanbul

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.

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