Coasting and Cruising in Southwest Turkey

Today is Sunday, September 8th.   I had to orient myself to the date by looking at my calendar, but I can roughly tell the time by the location of the sun that is shining endlessly here.  We are in a tiny hamlet outside of Antalya called Cirali.  To get here from Goreme, we went to the station in the center of town at 8:00 pm.  Our bus arrived Turkishly late, at 8:40 pm, and despite promises to the contrary (while booking the ticket), we backtracked an hour to Neshevir prior to heading to the coast.  It was a long night, but we arrived at the station in Antalya and had found our way to a small shuttle bus by about 6:30 am.  The bus dropped us off on a highway overlooking the coast.  We crossed the road with care, and threw our bags into a waiting van at the top of the road. Eight kilometers along a winding, dusty one lane road, with the ocean to our right, we turned left into Hotel Odile, our reward after a sleepless night.  Jon had booked it based on photographs of the pool, and we were not disappointed.

Right now, the forecast looks like pool, with a little beach thrown in and a strong chance of a massage.  Cirali is all about rest and relaxation, but we did manage a few activities while we were here.

Last night, armed with headlamps and 6 liters of water to combat the dark and days’ dehydration, we retraced a path that Jon and I had taken over 15 years ago on my 27th birthday.  We had told the kids about our journey to Chimaera, or as the locals call it, Yanartas, the eternal flame, but it was so surreal to be able to share it with them this time.  We truly outdid ourselves the next morning, awaking before sunrise, and hunting for turtle hatchlings on the beach.  I think we missed hatching season by about a week, but we did watch some locals dig up “unhatched” nests, and count and inspect the eggs. The culprit: flies that lay eggs in the nests, which then hatch and drill holes in the eggs.  It was hard to be too disappointed as we watched the sun crawl up from the edge of the horizon, far out in the mediterranean sea.

Our last adventure in Cirali was to visit the ancient Roman ruins at Olympos, to the south of us along the beach.  Similar to our visit to the flames, it was hard not to contrast this hike with the first time we saw it, 15 years ago.  Rather than a deserted beach, it was teeming with tourists and sadly, quite a bit of trash.  Rather than pulling back vines and peering into the brush, we were following paths and printed signs.  But on the plus side, the ruins had been partially excavated and freed from their shrouds of vines and trees, and it was much easier to see them and imagine them as they must have appeared over 2000 years ago.

Tomorrow morning we will catch a bus that will take us to a boat and out onto the mediterranean sea for 3 nights!