So I am quite a few days behind. I thought I was a week but I guess it’s only
really been 5 days. We put a TON into
those 5 days! We also both managed to
get colds about the time we left for Olympos and 2 days later, by the time we
landed in Denizli THANKFULLY, I had the full blown runs for 48 hours
straight. I know, TMI, Suha and I have
ate and drank everything the same, not sure how I got so sick and he didn’t but
thankfully he missed out. Needless to
say, between all the playing and traveling and sleeping trying to recuperate, I
haven’t had much of a chance to tell some pretty amazing stories!!
Let me back track….5 days ago, I got up and packed for
Olympos. I don’t like being so ignorant
about the region I’m in or the historical events that happened in the places I’m
visiting but really, every part of the trip so far had been one amazing Ah HA! Moment
after another!!! So we find ourselves on
a bus after a strange morning. I have a full blown cough after a couple of days
of the sniffles; everyone speculates it’s the AC blowing on me at night. We get ready to go and after Suha and I had
figured out how to use the train, his parents insist on taking us to save
time. Funny thing is they dropped us off
about a mile from where we needed to be, the signage around here is something
to behold….or easily miss, one or the other.
We find our bus and they rush us on, once the seats are filled we head
out…literally, no buying tickets, showing money, nothing. Anyway, off it goes, out the gate, only to
stop EXACTLY at the spot his parents dropped us off. HUH??
He beeped a few times, yelled OLYMPOS!!
And two more people got on. He
asked a mother to hold her 10 year old daughter on her lap to open up a seat and
we drove on…SLOWLY (yawash yawash) beeping here and there, people waving us down,
more people getting on. May I remind you
there are no seats left. After a while
when you cannot fit another soul on the bus unless I sit on Suha’s lap (he said
the driver may ask us to do it though probably not since we aren’t wearing
rings.) we drove down the road at a better pace. We did stop here and there exchanging
passengers once in a while but for the most part I would say the first 30 to 40
minutes was reserved for filling the bus THEN the hour and a half bus ride
began. Oh yeah, later, much later Suha
mentioned that the driver had called a friend to see if he had passed any
police men on the way. I guess going
over your allotted seat limit is a big no no and a hefty fine.
The Buses here are all independently owned. There is a set fee but you fill it as full as
you can and charge them when they get off.
The owner will buy a Route and then run it and reap all the profits. They have to pay parking fees when they enter
a bus station and are not allowed to pass on the fee to their ridership. All of the buses look different, decorated
according to their driver/owners taste. It’s
a very interesting system to say the least.
So far I get sick in all of them, cars too. I just pray we get where we are going
quickly, safely and in one piece. I can’t
wait to get out as soon as I get in! But
the light rail rocks!! Minus the occasional
car that dives in front of it, causing squealing brakes and tumbling
passengers. Anyway, back to our story…
We arrived at the top of a hill overlooking a beautiful
valley, I wanted to take a pic but they rushed us from one van to the next,
paying the first and guessing on the second.
Suha and I were not very fast so we were on a side bench which turned
out to be terrifying and I got REAL sick as I didn’t have enough time to get
over the first trip before descending down the steep curvy roads into
Olympos. This driver drove way too fast
and slammed on his breaks at every turn as if he was driving an endless Lombard
street in a Ferrari AND it was a race!!
I happily jumped off at the first, and most famous, stop. Kadir’s Place. It was the original “tree house” hostel in
Olympos. Suha went to visit it about 13
years ago. As we walked through the rest
of the valley to the sea, he just reeled at how much it had changed. We got our bearings, settled in and had a cay
before deciding ANYTHING; I think we were both a bit unraveled. I’m so out of the loop of travel plans since
I don’t know enough Turkish to figure out that the plan has changed. I didn’t
realize his parents were waiting on me to leave that morning, I got real car
sick on the way down, we are both hacking up lungs and going through Kleenex like
it’s free AND we hadn’t picked out a place to stay! So, carrying all our luggage, we walked (downhill
3.5km) the entire strip and all the way back up the hill to the original kadir’s
since it was the best choice. The only
thing I knew about and wanted to really do, sans walking through ruins to the
beach, was to hit Chimeras the eternal flames.
When we asked what there was to do at the activities office, the guy
shrugged his shoulders. I changed the
question and asked how it worked to go to Chimeras and he said it was 50 L each
($50 total) and it was an unguided, difficult hike that left at 9pm and
returned at midnight. No big deal
right? Well this day is weird anyway, being
none the wiser, we forked over the money, reserved our spot and headed for the
beach or at least that was Suha’s understanding. I thought we were meandering through ruins to
the beach so I kept taking side trips and he kept telling me to watch out watch
out at every stone, getting more and more frustrated. After hitting the very crowded beach, looking
for a spot in the shade, we made our way over to some rocks. The rocks in the water were slimier here so
we kind of decided to head back the way we came….of course after I explored the
ruins above us. It was up a cliff to the
remnants of a medieval castle overlooking the bay. It was stunning, I had a half guilty thought
about leaving Suha holding our stuff on the beach below but I kept thinking, “I’ll
be quick.” I hadn’t really told him how
far I was going or how long. Needless to
say, when I hit the bottom he was gone.
I hadn’t seen him on the way down so I started back up the beach to our
original spot and then about a half mile more before turning back. I finally saw a blue spec immerge from the
trees where the trail to the castle was.
We had somehow missed each other and he spent quite a while yelling my
name at the top, envisioning the worst and asked two people who had seen me,
what a mess. ..We sat on the beach mostly in silence till the sun went
down. We did go swimming and there were
tons of fish but the bottom was hard on the feet and the water smelled
fishy. Back on the warm pebbles we started
talking again while watching locals fish.
He mentioned my tendency to hurt myself or get into pickles and this
huge responsibility he felt to bring me back in one piece unharmed to my
parents. I had no idea he felt so
burdened! I tried not to laugh. I mean, I could tell I had really scared him. I also wasn’t counting on him going up and
seeing what I scrambled up, (nothing too dangerous by my standards but he on
the other hand…) I feebly tried to explain that if I came back in a cast the
only blame would be sent my way. My
parents would just say, “Oh Jen…” and the empathy would go towards him who had
to pick up the pieces. I promised to be
more careful and he promised to be more explicit and interpret more. So we now understood each other, just in time to walk back, grab dinner and
head for Chimeras….(queue scary music here)
Chimeras, well, if I had known what a trek up hill, climbing
huge slippery marble stone steps the length of my ankle to knee as big and
steep as the butte IN THE DARK, I wouldn’t have dared. Obvious enough to say, Suha will never go
again, even in the day time!! It was one
of the craziest scariest most awesome trips EVER!!! I’m really glad we didn’t know anything going
into it, I don’t get scared too easily but this had me thinking I might be in a
boot or cast again at any second. We
ended up having a good AND SAFE time, even though it capped off our really
weird day with a bang. We raced to the top;
Suha said if we stopped for a break he was heading down. We climbed up with another guy staying at
Kadir’s Place named Stephan from Bordeaux, France. He was a hoot and kept Suha in good
spirits. We got to the top where there
were columns and stones with Latin scribed into them laying half buried next to
rough rocks with flames shooting out of them…WHAT??? It was a trip!! We tried to take some pics but I’m serious,
it was inky black and the stars were amazing but no moon made it pretty
hazardous. We had a tiny flashlight
between the two of us. We hung out by
the fire for a while but remember its cooled down to almost 100 degrees outside
with 84% humidity so after a climb like that along with our stuffed up sinuses
and wheezing lungs we weren’t exactly interested in sitting too close. Our legs were still jello from the climb when
we started to descend. We left before
the others due to the fact that we wanted to take it slow and careful. They caught up with us about half way down
and I wasn’t about to keep up. I am very
proud to say we didn’t stumble once!! I
also don’t remember falling asleep that night just glad to have the off day
over with.
The next day we ate a big breakfast, packed to leave and
headed down to the ruins, WITH the understanding that we were exploring. We had an awesome time! Saw lots of really cool stuff, learned a ton,
like this was the city of the Lyceans and they were the first known people to
make money and it was never a Turkish occupied city etc. We started and ended at a sweet little spot
where Suha got me half a melon with lemon and cherry sherbet in it…MIND BOWN…best
treat EVER!!! We were carrying all our
luggage (we packed light mostly but still) so we didn’t go down to the beach,
when our arms and feet were tired we happily headed back. There was
a very cold creek. I decided to cool off
and get my hair wet. Suha suddenly said
Jen, there’s a water snake, Jen, a snake, JEN!
He teases me so often that I wasn’t too interested in getting out since
it felt so good to have my head in cold water.
At the last almost shout, I turned my head a little and most definitely
there was a little almost guarder size snake swimming towards my hair. Another boy picked it up and I promptly got
out.
We had one more cay before heading to the van that takes you
to the top of the hill. I was very reluctant
to get in. The guy did the traditional
5mph, honking all the way, picking up passengers. At one point he got out and left for a while,
returning with a gallon of yogurt. Suha
and I were in fits of giggles making up stories about this and that. He drove us through a neighborhood we hadn’t
seen yet and stopped at a small run down farm with chickens and turkeys running
around in the yard. Here a lovely woman
came out and got the yogurt while the driver collected the toll passing that
off to her as well, then he shot off like we were running from a tsunami back
up the treacherous road, Suha and I trying so hard not to bother anyone with
our fits of laughter and coughing. We
got home exhausted and crashed hard after another one of Anne’s amazing
dinners.
