Day 317 - 4 May ‘24 - Göreme. It’s great when you have no plans, and no reason to get out of bed. It’s also great when you’re lying in bed and you hear rain outside.
“Was that thunder?” I asked Dan, after a metallic-sounding roll.
“If it was, it was the strangest thunder I’ve ever heard,” he replied.
It happened again, and the rain got briefly heavier.
“I guess it was definitely thunder.”
It was almost 10am before we heard the kids milling around, and almost 11am before we got out of bed. Today I had planned for us to look at the Göreme open air museum, but after walking through the Selime monastery yesterday, and then the underground city, there wasn’t quite the same drive to do so.
While Dan was working on his computer, I went upstairs to our hosts/travel agency; we needed to print out our visas for Egypt and Tanzania, and they kindly let me do so in their office. It was a bit annoying having to have paper copies, when the other countries we’ve been to were all electronic, and this was the first time we’d had access to a printer.
Around 2pm, Dan had finished what needed to be done, so we finally headed out for the open air museum.
“What do you know about the museum?” Dan asked me when we arrived.
“Absolutely nothing!” I said with a grin.
“You’re being a rubbish tour guide again.”
“Okay, I’ll go and have a look.”
…
“We’re not going to the open air museum,” I said when I got back. “It’s €20 per person.”
“That’s good, as there’s hundreds of people here anyway. So, what now then?”
“Let’s carry on up this road and have a look at the view from up the top of the hill.”
The first cave we came across was a carved out room, with lots of niches and a second room at the back. The second cave was a church, with lots of incredible paintings still on the wall.
The third and fourth and every other cave we went to after that, were all amazing. So much effort! All these rooms carved into the pyramids of stone - it must have taken them ages to do.
“No need to pay for the open air museum!” we all agreed.
We clambered up and down hills, some of the paths steeper than others, and went into every opening we could see. One of them even had a rolling door in it! There was enough space to climb behind it, but the other end of the room had collapsed.
There were a number of the fairy chimneys with so many cracks through them, that the rock pieces were clearly staying upright through counter-pressure alone. One good earthquake and they would come tumbling down.
We had loads of fun exploring as many as we could, and we had barely scratched the surface, as they carried on as far as the eye could see. Some of the cave rooms had been repurposed by local farmers, who had stored some equipment in them, and every single one had unfortunately been used as either a toilet (human or animal, who knew) as well as a rubbish bin.
We ended up spending a couple of hours there, then made our way back into town. We tried to find somewhere to eat for dinner, but Little Miss Incredibly Fussy didn’t want a salad or roasted vegetables with cheese or a selection of cold meats or koftas or chicken or fish…
“I want sushi.”
“You can’t have sushi, you’re in Turkey.”
…so we went back to the supermarket and bought some doner meat and chicken nuggets (for us), and I made her stirfried rice.
We also stocked up on a few treats and drinks for tomorrow, but nothing for lunch, as we would be stopping a couple of times on the journey.
(Bonus, I made enough stirfried rice so that Abi could eat it for her lunch. It would be cold, and she’d be eating it with a spoon out of a plastic bag, but them’s the breaks!)
Day 318 - 5 May ‘24 - Göreme to Antalya. Another crappy sleep (hot, and the exterior security light kept flashing on and off, and shone through the stupid white blinds), and when we woke up, it was raining.
Our hosts had kindly agreed to let us stay an extra hour in the apartment, which was fantastic, as it gave the weather an extra hour to change from rain to sun.
It didn’t. Curse you weather - I shake my fist at thee!
Fortunately, the walk back to the bus stop wasn’t too long, and we didn’t get very wet. The host again offered to take the kids so they could stay dry, but we were almost running late so declined the offer.
We didn’t have to wait long for the bus, and this time it had ‘Antalya’ on a piece of paper in the window. Great!
Not so great was the wet luggage compartment. The guy loading the luggage at least used a bit of common sense, and put the hard suitcases on the most wet area, but we were pretty sure our rucksacks would also be wet by the time we arrived at our destination.
The 10 hour trip was fairly uneventful. We stopped a number of times, some longer than others. People got on. People got off. The driver smoked (a lot) and talked on his phone. A man snored. A toddler filled her nappy.
We climbed up through a mountain pass, travelled through a number of different towns and cities, and stopped at two police checkpoints, where we had to show our ID.
The seats on the bus were exceptionally comfortable, with an excellent recline, and we were once again offered a cup of juice and some snacks. What more could one want?!
Our driver was, in Dan’s words, crazy. From being over 30 minutes late, we managed to arrive on time; this is particularly impressive (read: terrifying) when you take into account the one-handed driving, downhill, in the rain, at night.
We grabbed a taxi, paid a ridiculously cheap $11 for a 15 minute drive, and found our apartment with little difficulty, shortly before 10:30pm. Although, I did ring the doorbell of the apartment beneath us, when I thought it was the lightswitch for the stairwell - oops!
Day 319 - 6 May ‘24 - Antalya. What a gorgeous morning! The difference between yesterday and today was remarkable. Beautiful blue skies with not a single cloud, and already 22°C by the time we left the house around 10:30am.
Our apartment was next to the old town area, which was near the sea. And boy, did the sea look nice!
After standing on the viewpoint for a while, looking at, well, the view, we walked through some of the old town until we reached Hadrian’s Gate, an impressive entrance gate built around 150AD to commemorate Hadrian’s visit to the city some 20 years earlier.
The gate had unknowingly been protected by being hidden behind the city walls; it wasn’t until an earthquake in the 1950s destroyed those walls, that the gate was rediscovered.
We meandered through the streets of the old town for a while, and admired the completely different style of architecture that was there. Ottoman mansions, with oriel windows, lined the streets, some in a much greater state of disrepair than others. Lots of them had since been turned into various types of accommodation.
We slowly made our way down to ground level, where we saw a private beach filled with people on loungers, and even a few people swimming in the crystal clear and mirror flat sea.
Dan and the kids climbed off of a sea wall to feel the water:
“It’s warmer than a lap pool,” Alex declared.
“And it’s not very salty,” Dan added, after he tasted some of it.
I don’t know why…
At the other end of the marina was a glass elevator that took us back up to the viewpoint we started at, which was fantastic! We then walked back through the old town a bit to get to a shop that sold the sushi snack triangles (still $5 each, sigh), and sat on a shaded stone wall to eat them.
After our lunch, during which Alex squeezed juice on himself twice and on my backpack once, we decided to head to the beach via a couple of Carrefour supermarkets, in the hope we could find some gluten free cereal for Abigail. Carrefour was a slightly larger name of supermarket, but it was a futile mission.
“You’re just going to have to eat eggs and yoghurt for a while,” I told her.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
We eventually made it to another viewing platform that looked over the beach, and decided to walk down then take the lift back up.
It was much windier here than at the protected marina, but there were still a decent number of people lying on the pebbly beach, and a few brave souls who went in the water…not without a few squeals, men included!
We sat on the beach for an hour or so, looking at the different colours and patterns in the stones, with Alex and Abi making collections of the best ones. The wind didn’t stop once, and we could hear the music from a nearby beach bar, but it was still quite relaxing.
On our way back to the apartment, we went through dinner options, eventually settling on a scrambled egg hash, with doner meat added for flavour. We decided against spaghetti bolognese because their mince was horrible, and the only sausages we had been able to find were vacuum sealed…and mouldy. We went into three more supermarkets, still hoping for gluten free cereal, but alas, nothing.
I reckon, by the end of our trip, I’ll be able to write a recipe book of gluten free meals with hardly any ingredients. It will be cheap to buy, as it will only be about three pages long, ha ha ha ha!
After dinner, and once the kids had gone to bed, Dan and I sat down to watch a movie. The TV wouldn’t turn on, even though it had been on just 20 minutes earlier. Dan tried everything he could think of, switching it off and on again, looking at the fuse box, and even trying other switches around the apartment in case it was somehow connected. No TV. No power to the socket at all!
The apartment was a nice-looking one, but we had noticed a LOT of little things wrong with it. Tiles in the bathroom were upside down. There was grout and plaster smeared over window frames, tiles, and pipe work. The bedroom door frame was almost an inch out from the wall. The bathroom door didn’t close as there wasn’t a hole for the latch to go into (actually, none of the doors had holes for the latches to go into). The kitchen was missing some kickboards. The counter by the oven had cracked and broken in two places, so was no longer structurally sound. One of the kitchen cabinets had stickers where they had screwed the handle on wrong. The caulking by the rangehood stopped halfway up the wall on one side.
If I was the owner of the apartment, I don’t know how much I would have paid the builders for!
But, the beds were comfy, the linen was clean, and there were air conditioners in all the rooms.
Day 320 - 7 May ‘24 - Antalya to Kaş. Today marked the first day of ‘old school travel booking’ since we started our trip - pretty good going, really. We were unable to buy our bus tickets online, and couldn’t even buy it at the bus station - we had to buy our tickets from the bus driver!
I’d already discovered this a few weeks ago, when I emailed the bus company, and luckily for us, we arrived with just a 20 minute wait until the next bus left; they were scheduled every 45 minutes, but I hadn’t been given a timetable.
The route took us all along the coastline, which was up and down, incredibly windy, and very beautiful. There were a number of times the driver was going faster than what I would class as ‘safe’ round some of the bends. There were also two very, VERY near collisions. One was a small white car that cut in front of the bus, and our driver stopped and got out to argue with him, then five or six other men who were walking past, joined the fray! The second one was literally inches away from being a fatal accident, when a blue van pulled out from behind to overtake us, on a blind corner, with a sheer drop on the other side; how he managed to not hit the oncoming car when it came round the corner, we will never know.
After getting off the bus, we caught a taxi to our apartment, which took us back up the hill we’d just come down, and then down some other steep hills - Kaş was a very hilly area!
However, the view from our apartment was spectacular, and well worth the trip…
While loading the taxi this morning, Dan unfortunately twisted his back, which meant the journey had been a particularly painful one. When we got to the apartment, Dan relaxed on the couch while Alex and I made the 15 minute trek back up the hill to the shops to get food for dinner.
We had our dinner on the balcony, and were enjoying the view of the setting sun, when we were surprised to see a wild pig suddenly come out from the bushes!
Our apartment was a two-storey one, with the kids in the converted loft. It had an incredibly low and sloped ceiling, which carried on into the bathroom. The door into the bathroom was the same height as Abi, and to get onto the toilet you had to go side on. You couldn’t even stand up straight in the shower!
Of course, Dan saw none of this, as he could barely hobble around the ground floor…
Day 321 - 8 May ‘24 - Kaş. 10:30pm before the kids went to sleep, 11:30pm before we went to sleep, 6:30am we woke up to the sun, 8am we woke the kids up.
Dan’s back hadn’t improved in the slightest, and he was now walking around like a sideways banana. I rubbed some doTerra Ice Blue on his back, which helped for a while.
“It will come right in a few days,” he assured me. “I’ll just keep rubbing the cream on and taking ibuprofen. That usually works!”
I left Dan with the kids to look after him, and walked down a very steep hill, to go to a Turkish hammam on the other side of town.
The view from this side of the hill was amazing, and as I got hotter, the sea looked more and more inviting.
My 50 minute walk took me past the tour boat marina, through town, and then to the “we have lots of money” marina. I had never been to a hammam before, but had read online what to expect.
However, I wasn’t expecting it to be so incredible!
To start with, I had to get naked (obviously) and was given a disposable pair of undies that was an elastic band with a one inch wide strip of black mesh. I don’t know why they bothered.
I sat in a sauna for around 15 hours with two English ladies. I swear to god it was that long, I was almost dying from the heat!
Then I was led into a marble room with four heated marble benches to lie on. I lay on my back, then my bath lady (natır) poured hot water over my entire body, rolled me over, then poured more hot water over me.
Next was the special mitt called a kese, with which she rubbed every square inch of skin (and I mean EVERY square inch), with incredible vigour! It wasn’t just the top layer of skin she was removing…!
Lying on my back again, she asked if I wanted a mud mask for an extra 350Tł. Yes please!
Again, every square inch was covered in a thin layer of mud, and once she’d done the front, I rolled (read: slipped and slid) onto my stomach again, and she did the other side.
My heels, which are chronically dry, cost me another 150Tł for her to file smooth, which I was more than happy with, considering the price I’ve paid to go to a podiatrist.
After lying for a while with the mud soaking in, my natır then gave me another exfoliation, this time with coffee grounds!
It was then time for some fun…the bubbles! The lady would dip a large material pillow-case tube thing into a bucket of soapy water. She then opened it up, spun it a few times around to trap the air, then compressed it to make all the bubbles squeeze out, then poured them over me.
Super slippery and warm and bubbly, and lots and lots of them!! Another massage, (“too much hard, you need medical massage” when she got to my shoulders), and then a final rinse of water poured over me again.
I got up off the table and was made to sit on another bench where she washed my hair, and then I stood up, got completely naked, and got rinsed again!
I don’t think I’ve ever been so clean in my life!
In the end, I was there for just over an hour, had a full body massage, my hair washed, two exfoliating scrubs, my heels filed, and a bubble bath, and all for just $116.45NZD.
Sheer bliss!
I met Dan and the kids back at the main town, after going into a couple of larger supermarkets, where I bought two packets of gluten free pizza and four packets of precooked buckwheat.
Dan had managed to make it down the hill, but was still bent sideways. While he rested on a bench, I walked to the tour boat company our host had recommended, and booked our spots for a day trip tomorrow to the sunken village of Kekova.
Then we began the Abigail’s Hunt For Lunch adventure.
Restaurant one: I don’t want Turkish food, I want sushi.
Restaurant two: I don’t want moussaka or beans. Can I have chips from restaurant one?
Restaurant one again: They don’t have chips today.
Restaurant three: I want an omelette. You’re not having an omelette, they’re $15NZD. We’ve got 15 eggs at home.
Restaurant four: I’ll have the aubergine with mince. There’s no aubergine today.
Restaurant five: I’ll have the aubergine with mince. There’s no aubergine today, but there is chicken and chips.
So, at 2pm, we finally got to sit down and have some lunch. Dan, Alex, and I had a Turkish pide each (yummy, long pita with topping, like a pizza), and Abi had chicken and chips.
Which she ate half of then declared she was full.
(Our trip may become an awful lot cheaper soon, when there will only be three of us…)
We walked to the bus station to enquire about our next bus to Patara, and caught a taxi back to the apartment, rather than walk up the killer hill.
Abi had a tantrum for almost half an hour, because she wanted Mentos and nobody was walking the 15 minutes uphill to the nearest shop.
In the early evening, I sat out on our balcony and had some “semi sparkling” wine from Moldova, and enjoyed the sunshine and the view of boats on the water. Dan came out to talk to me about accommodation in Egypt:
“Look at you!” I exclaimed. “You’re so bent! You’re honestly like a banana. I’m going to call you Bananaman, or Eric for short!”
(People who grew up in the UK in the 80s will get the reference, ha ha ha ha ha)!
Dan, sorry, Eric didn’t take too kindly to my new nickname for him. I really don’t know why?!
Because of the kids’ dreadful behaviour last night, they were in bed at 7:30pm, and Abi was put in our bed; I carried her up the stairs later. We’d done this method countless times, and it really was the most successful way of getting them to sleep.
Day 322 - 9 May ‘24 - Kaş. Too hot. Creaking floorboards. Crickets. Squeaking fridge. Soft mattress. Sunrise.
Consequently, when our alarm went off at 8am, we were already awake, and none too thrilled about it.
It was overcast when we left the house, which was a bit of a shame. Dan’s back was slightly less bent, but the walk down the hill remedied that, so he was back to being Eric.
We made it to the dock for 9:30am, which gave us just 15 minutes to find a shop that was open, so we could buy some drinks and snacks for the trip, and make it back to the boat. I admit to being somewhat stressed about this, given Dan’s inability to hurry, however, I am pleased to report that we made it with five minutes to spare…and then the boat didn’t leave until 10am anyway.
I’d booked our seats on the upper deck, which was all sun loungers. Three of our loungers were under shade, which I was regretting after half an hour!
Being on a boat moving at any speed, is naturally colder than being on a boat that’s at port. The wind made us feel cold, the shade colder, the clouded sky colder still.
Our first stop was an hour after we left the harbour, at the sunken city of Aperlai. We could see walls and ground under the exceptionally clear water’s surface, although none of our photos looked anywhere near as good as professional ones, taken from a height, with polarised lenses!
A few brave souls went for a swim, and from the squeals and gasps the men were making, the water wasn’t particularly warm.
We stayed there for about 45 minutes, then went to our next stop, which was called the Aquarium. Again, it was incredibly clear, and a beautiful turquoise colour; the captain said there were currents here, so the water was colder, and not to swim too far from the boat. Only two people went in this time.
While anchored there, we had our pre-ordered lunch. I’d chosen chicken, and Dan and the kids had fish. Both meals came with a tomato rice and bulgur mix (which Abi couldn’t eat), bread (which Abi couldn’t eat), salad (which Abi didn’t want to eat), green bean stew (which Abi didn’t want to eat), and Turkish tzatziki (which Abi didn’t want to eat).
I ate every single thing on my plate, particularly liking the green beans - they were so soft, and tasty, and I’ll need to find out the recipe. Alex also enjoyed his tzatziki, so I told him I can add that to our salad plate when we eventually get back to our house.
Even though we were going to be stopped here for about 40 minutes, we left earlier than planned, as nobody was swimming. Our next stop was the sunken city of Kekova.
The ‘sunken’ part of the name was kind of a misnomer. Yes, there were parts underwater like at Aperlai, but the ‘sunken’ referred to the numerous earthquakes (one every 100-150 years) that caused the island to gradually collapse. In fact, it continues to sink into the sea, even though only by millimetres a year.
We saw lots of building remains dotted along the hillside, steps that led from the water to something that used to be there, square holes cut into rocksides that used to be the second storeys of buildings, and the outlines of historic roof ridges.
Our next stop was Simena Castle at the current village of Kaleköy. There was evidence of settlement since the 4th century, and Simena was a Lycian city, which forms part of the famous Lycian Way hiking trail.
At the bottom of the stairs, was a large collection of water bottles and soft drinks, which everybody was ‘encouraged’ to carry up some of the way. Nobody had any real objection, but there were also no instructions on where to take them, so we dropped them off at what felt like an okay distance, then continued on up the hill.
We decided not to pay the entry fee to the castle grounds, and instead walked along the ridge line until we came to a Lycian cemetery. The tombs were all very tall, and definitely had the best view over the water.
By the time we got back to the bottom, Dan’s back was sore. The steps had been quite steep, and at times uneven, and he was late taking the last lot of painkillers
“Maybe the next swim will help, as you’ll be weightless and your back can relax?” I suggested.
The sun had finally come out, and as we were all getting hot, we’d decided we ‘might as well’ get in the water. The boat stopped at a spot called Yağlica, and all four of us got in for a swim. It was quite cool, but after a while we got used to it. We swam to the beach about 150m away, (Abi aided by a pool noodle), had a few moments on the sandy shore, then got back in the water and swam to the boat.
“That didn’t help my back at all!” Dan said as we climbed onboard.
“That’s no good,” I sympathised.
“And my hamstring is sore from my leg kicks!”
About an hour later, we stopped at our final swimming spot of the day at a place called inönü, but only Alex and I went in that time. There was a slight swell, and it was a bit colder in some spots, but still very refreshing and a beautiful turquoise.
“I should have come with you!” Abi said after we got back onboard.
“Yep, you should have!” we both agreed.
The boat was equipped with two showers, which was awesome, as we could rinse off the salt water. We then lay on our loungers once again, and enjoyed the gentle rocking of the boat.
We got back to port at 6pm, where we got an amazing view of our apartment, high up on the hill (it is the second furthest white blob to the right), and the town centre of Kaş on the waterfront.
We got a taxi back to our apartment, and Dan made scrambled eggs for him and the kids; I wasn’t hungry after my large lunch.
It had been a wonderfully relaxing day on the boat, and Dan and I talked about the monetary value of it.
“When I bought the tickets yesterday, I didn’t think it was that great a deal,” I said, “as it was $250NZ for nothing more than petrol for the boat, and lunch, and three-and-a-half hours of it we weren’t moving.”
“But if you compare it to what you’d get in New Zealand, that was INCREDIBLE value!” Dan argued.
“Yes, I was actually thinking the exact same thing.”
“You wouldn’t get much change from $500 back home for that.”
“No, you definitely wouldn’t. New Zealand businesses seriously overcharge for things.”
“And that was just one boat. There were three other boats out that we saw. And it’s not even summer time! That harbour was filled with boats, and they’d all charge about the same I reckon.”
“I don’t know why anyone would visit New Zealand, when it’s so far away and expensive to get to, and really expensive when you’re there!”
“Because everything to see is all close together.”
“I guess, but the water’s not even as nice as this! So clear, and a beautiful turquoise, and warm! I can see why Turks come to this area for their summer holidays.”
Kaş was a beautiful place, and our view was amazing. Our host had said a week here would be ideal to see everything, but we were leaving tomorrow to go further up the Turquoise Coast.
Day 323 - 10 May ‘24 - Kaş to Patara/Gelemiş. Everybody was tired after the day on the boat, and both Dan and I had the best sleep out of the three, even though we were still woken up at dawn. A pillow over my head certainly helped!
Yesterday, we’d asked our taxi driver to come and pick us up at 11am. Neither Dan nor I had ANY faith in him turning up, and sure enough, at 11:10am, the road was still empty.
Our host kindly called the company, and another taxi was soon taking us to the bus station. We made it with just one minute to spare, although another bus would have left half an hour later.
It was a little mini bus, and very full. I had my rucksack on my lap, some other passenger had Abi’s rucksack, Dan was in the front seat with Alex’s rucksack, and Alex had our bags of food. Dan’s rucksack was in the boot. People were standing in the aisles.
We drove through a few small towns, and were eventually dropped off at the side of the road. We got on another bus that was waiting, and that bus dropped us off at our accommodation, which was on the road to the beach.
Our host kindly checked us in almost three hours early, and said we could use his hotel’s swimming pool, which was right next door. He didn’t recommend the beach today as it was very windy, but it was forecast to die down later on.
Abi and I went for a brief walk to the nearby shops; it was pretty hot at 29°C, so the pool became very tempting! The town didn’t have much in the way of food supplies, so it was lucky I’d been to the supermarket the other day.
“It’s going to be pasta, tomato paste, and tinned tuna and veges for dinner,” I said when we got back.
“Oh,” said Dan. “We may need to pay for a taxi to drive us the 6km to the nearest supermarket.”
“Yeah, or we go to one of the four restaurants that was there. They were all selling traditional food like pides, including the green bean stew, which Abi could eat. Or there were frozen chips from the shop. All the meat products had breadcrumbs in them.”
“And what about lunch?”
“What about lunch?”
“What were we having for lunch?”
“What lunch?”
“We could have chips and bread?”
“There was no bread. I got some crisps.”
Later in the afternoon, I took the kids to the pool. They said it was warmer than the sea, but got out shivering after a few minutes. Plus, Alex was running over the wet tiles, and Abi was sneezing into fresh air (and letting her snot drip into her hand), so Mummy was done.
“Right, get out the pool, we’re going back up!”
We started watching The Mummy, and were thrilled to spot Ben Aït Haddou in Morocco as one of the filming locations.
When it came time for dinner, we had nothing. Rather than cobble together some pasta with tomato ketchup and a tiny snack tin of tuna, we walked to the nearby shops again.
Success at restaurant two, where they could make Abi some chicken and mushrooms in cream. Other menu items such as prawns or vegetables, were not available yet - too early in the season. In fact, a further six restaurants in this tiny town were not open yet!
When we got back to the apartment, we finished The Mummy, the kids went to bed, and Dan and I watched Napoleon. The wind had stopped, so we were looking forward to seeing Turkey’s most famous beach tomorrow!
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