As the ferry pulled into the huge secluded caldera of Santorini, I was dumbstruck. The island of Santorini is a huge ancient volcano where the middle has dropped and been exploded out (creating a caldera) and the sea had rushed in. What this means is that you have a couple mildly active volcanic islands in the middle of a huge bay, and this is surrounded by a broken ring of islands with huge cliff faces, upon the top of which sit several traditional whitewashed Greek towns! This just may be the most beautiful place I've ever seen! Unfortunately, for me to stay in the interior area of the island would break my budget heavily, so I proceeded to head to the backpacker's area near the black sand beach of Perissa. Here, I spent many hours relaxing ... read more

After a sad farewell to Fethiye and all the great people I had met there, I hopped on a fast ferry (a hydrofoil, where the boat floats up out of the water on account of a wing in the water below it) to the Greek island of Rhodes. As the ferry pulled into the harbour, the first thing you see are some very imposing medieval walls guarding an old Greek town. I wandered the city for nearly an hour with my big backpack on in 30 degree heat (darn my stubbornness for not taking taxis) and finally found my hostel, which had a pool that I promptly cooled off in. I took some time this day to wander aimlessly through the old walled town taking lots of photos and indulged in some wonderful bacon-wrapped souvlaki (my ... read more

I needed to head back to Fethiye in order to make my way from Turkey to the island of Rhodes (Greece) via a hydrofoil. In a flash of poor planning, I failed to look at the ferry schedule and arrived on a Thursday, with the next ferry departing the next Tuesday. Sooo, with very little reluctance, I checked back into the V-Go hostel, complete with bar, pool and a very fun and friendly staff contingent to spend the next 5 days. My first order of business was to set up another chance at doing my paragliding, but the weather wasn't going to be good for a day or two, so I decided instead that I hadn't had enough boat time and hopped on a boat to cruise around the Fethiye bay to do a little swimming ... read more

After a sad departure from the boat, the whole group of us checked into the same hotel (we weren't done partying yet) in Olympos. Olympos is a bit of a backpacker's paradise, in that it is a great place to chill out in your treehouse room, drink beers with like-minded travellers at communal low tables, chill on the beach, rock climb, hike, cliff dive and any number of activities. Really, after doing essentially nothing but party, swim and sleep on the boat, we were in pure chillout mode and spent many hours in the communal areas relaxing, drinking and playing cards... We also swam in the ocean, jumped from ~10m cliffs and spent awhile relaxing on the beach to move around a bit... We did manage to squeeze in one nice (and very hot) hike up ... read more

I gathered up my stuff in Fethiye and made my way to the harbour with 12 other extremely fun travellers (5 Aussies, 4 other Canadians and 3 Singaporeans) to get on our home for the next 4 days: the Kucuk Mustafa. After getting insructions from the crew (a Turkish family consisting of: Dad/Captain Yousef, Mom/Chef Fatima and Son/Deckhand Mustafa; we set sail (well, motored anyway) out of the Fethiye bay. The next few days are a bit of a blur though, likely due to excessive amounts of Efes (Turkish beer), relaxing/playing cards in the sun on top of the boat and taking countless dips in the pale blue waters of multiple beautiful rocky coves. A few things I do remember though are: 1) Hiking through the "Butterfly Valley" and climbing up ropes through waterfalls to small ... read more

I took a 6 hour bus ride through some of the most rugged, yet lush, terrain I've ever seen and arrived in Fethiye in the early afternoon. Fethiye is a lovely small seaside city set in a sheltered bay. After arriving at my hostel (V-Go Guesthouse), I promptly befriended the hostel's manager (Orhan) and their chef (Ramazan) and spent the day relaxing barside with them and a few other travellers over some beers and tasty eats... I spent some time in Fethiye wandering through the town. After seeing a ancient 600 person and some rock tombs, I decided I needed to beat the heat and sit down on the side of the street to have a beer with a local. He turned out to be the dirtiest old man I have met (naturally I liked him ... read more

I travelled, via a rather uncomfortable 11 hour overnight bus, down the western coast of Turkey to the small town of Selcuk. Selcuk (pronounced 'Selchuk') is a quaint little town with not too much to offer other than relaxation, and it is a very short walk to the amazing Roman city ruins of Ephesus. I spent my first day in Selcuk wandering around the town, visiting the ruins of a very nice church, as well as meeting and chatting with several locals. The people here were very friendly and inviting, so much so that I was buzzing from all of the caffeine from the many teas I drank. The real draw to this area is the Roman ruins of Ephesus (aka: Efes). At this point I thought I was ruined for ruins after seeing so many ... read more

I wandered into the Istanbuli neighborhood of Sultanahmet fairly refreshed thanks to a deep ativan-induced sleep (thanks Renee!) on the night bus from Cappadocia. My first impression of this area was "where's the locals, all I see is tourists!". But it was understandable, as all of the main touristy things are clustered in this area, making it an ideal option for tour bus travellers. I quickly knocked off: 1) the Aya Sofya: a massive 500AD church which I think is decidedly ugly from the outside, but the beautiful splendour of the interior easily makes up for it; 2) the Blue Mosque: a rather more delicate but still huge 1600AD beautiful mosque which I enjoyed more than the Aya because the light inside had a nice blue tinge, caused by the light through the windows being reflected ... read more

From Gaziantep, I left at midnight on a stuffy, warm and rather stanky 6 hour bus ride. It was rather hard to sleep on this one unfortunately, but when the sun came up, I was rewarded with a lovely view of the snowy peaks of Mt. Argeus (an ancient volcano) complete with several other smaller cone volcanoes surrounding it. After a short and groggy connection in a small town called Kayseri and another hour of bus (less stanky this time), I had arrived in Goreme (a town in the area known as Cappadocia)! Now, how does one go about explaining what the Cappadocia area is like? Basically, it has a similar look to it as the land/rock around Drumheller, but far more variety. The most interesting part of Cappadocia is how the locals have dug into ... read more

To get from Aleppo (Syria) to Gaziantep (Turkey), we hired a taxi from a driver who smelled vaguely like gasoline, barely said a word and (after crossing the border) promptly stopped the car and pulled a carton of cigarettes from down his pants and grabbed who knows what from the undercarriage of the car and tossed it all in the trunk... An interesting ride and my easiest border crossing yet! The guidebook describes Antep (the Turkish name for Gaziantep) as having a "modern, laissez-faire attitude", and they couldn't have nailed it any better! It is a very laid back, with a relatively young and very friendly population. We sat with a young shop owner for tea and chatting (via a translator on his computer), and as we were leaving he insisted on giving (as a gift) ... read more