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Published: February 21st 2007
6 May After an early night in my funny smelling room and looking forward to a nice relaxing breakfast I head to the balcony and am immediately confronted by an annoying voice of a very crazy lady who sounded very rude. I tried to not pay any attention to her and was trying to focus on the fact that I would soon be on my cruise with 4 beautiful days of sunshine. Then I hear her say to two other guys that she will see them on the cruise that leaves today. Aaarrgghh, that’s the same one as me. ‘You’ve got to be kidding’ I said to everyone when she left the balcony ‘She is going to drive us all nuts’. I even start to rethink the cruise on the transfer into town as she is in the car talking absolute crap and once we arrive in town she rants and raves in the office bagging out certain nationalities (she’s lucky I didn’t hear anything about Australia). When I asked the tour people if I could use the internet, they told me that it was down as there were some problems in town with the power. The crazy lady then starts
Babaveli
Our Hometalking about the potential of a terrorist attack!!! FREAK. Once we all arrive at the boat we are given a very short briefing to say that the ‘Crazy Lady’ would not be coming as she would have ruined it all for as. Bloody oath! We are all very happy and relieved, especially me as I would have been sharing a room with her (just imagine that!) and now have a room to myself. We already start to chill out on the front of the boat before we take off and are given the few boat rules before we are off. The tour consisted of Alison and Kate (Aussies), Carolyn and Eve (Canada), Molly and Jeff (America), Adam and Joel (UK), Jeremy and Peter (Canada) and me of course. The weather to begin with was terrible and rainy so we hung out in the cabin reading and chilling, until we arrived at Butterfly Valley were it was too cold to swim (I was all rugged up) but some of us got off and went for a nice walk to see a waterfall, seeing some butterflies along the way. The water was a beautiful turquoise and the pebbled beach was awesome. We
St Nicholas Island
Taking in the scenery then sailed on to Oludinez but were unable to stop due to the weather. Our last stop for the day was St Nicholas Island where some of us again got off to explore the ruins on the island and watch the sunset which was truly magical and the best I have ever truly seen. Back on the boat we had a cute lady in her own boat sail up and sell us yummy pancakes, mine a banana and Nutella (that was so good I almost bought another) and we were left to chill (something that I can see will be happening a lot on this cruise) playing cards and Kate and Alison taught me how to play backgammon. I slept on the deck and it was fantastic.
7th May We were woken up at 4:30am by the boat engine as we were leaving to our next destination. I continued to sleep with Carolyn and Adam on either side of me. For a few hours we got to visit Kas (pronounced Kash) where we see the roman theatre, Jeff poses dead in a tomb (!!!) and I stock up on some snacks, check out a Lycian Tomb and head
back to the boat for lunch where Carolyn is surprised to see a slug in her lettuce! So I stick to the bread and capsicum filled with rice and yummy stuff! We then head to a bay in Kekova were we all have a swim in the freezing water which was ‘refreshing’ as Carolyn would say but I would have to say numbing. Dinner was once again fantastic and we had a bonfire and BBQ mmm mmm. We even hugely applauded the crew it was that good. Guzel, c(h)ok guzel (good, very beautiful). Once again we played cards and backgammon and after everyone went to bed Adam and I stayed up till 4 to listen to Coldplay and had some deep and meaningful convo’s. He was good to chat too and is a nicer person away from Joel (who made a nasty comment earlier in the night, I almost thumped him). I saw heaps of shooting stars and it was a great sky to sleep under.
8th May After a freezing but refreshing morning swim we head off again and the first thing we see is the sunken city which Jeremy tells us sunk after an earthquake. It’s
A beautiful Sunset
our first nights stop apparently 6 meters under the water line but you can still see some of it on the land and from the boat. The water was once again crystal clear and beautiful. We then head across the bay to Simena and make the journey up to the top of the hill to see the castle. A local trying to sell us scarf’s follows us up and points out her house in which I tell her she has beautiful views, then she points out her son and everyone from the tour jokes that she is going to be my mother-in-law hihihi!!! I sit and observe the views and also watch heaps of mozzie larvae tumble around in a water filled hole in the castle walls. We see some more rock tombs, goats and even a turtle making me “crikey” in excitement. Back at the boat we sail to Pirates Cave and then swim in until I start thinking about horror movies and something coming out of the water at me and swim quickly back to the boat. Our stop for the night was Gokkaya Bay and we are told our club ‘Smugglers Inn’ is closed so there will be no going ashore
The Pancake Lady
hows that for service...mmmm to party. I formally invite everyone on the boat to join me for a party on the roof of the boat before again swimming and getting ready for our party. Desert was so awesomely presented that we didn’t wanna eat it, but we did. We then had a hilarious visit from Madam Zora (Molly) a fortune teller. When she looked at my palm she told me a few things about relationships and she saw 1 child which I told her I wasn’t happy about!!! We then began our party (and what a party) on the rooftop and the choice of music was excellent (as it was all tour) and everyone got up to dance at least once, even the crew which was great. There were a few times I thought the roof was going to collapse or cave in but we were fine. We started the party pretty early so we stopped drinking earlyish. Another boat that had been following us the last few days saw our party and heard our music and they even came over to join our party, but I didn’t really like them and neither did anyone else on our boat so we told the crew
My Room
that i actually never slept in to turn the music off and we told them that we were going to bed. When they left and arrived back at their boat we turned the music on and kept going hihihi.
Seeing the D.J crew man swing from the top of the boat down to the deck, I thought I would copy in a moment of feeling like Mrs J Tarzan and actually hurt my shoulder pretty badly that I couldn’t move my arm; pretty funny while I was drunk but not for the weeks that followed of a sore shoulder.
After we all eventually drifted off to bed I was one of the last and on making my way to my bed (the best spot on the boat) on the deck I tripped over the cords that keep the cushions down. It bloody hurt, but I didn’t land on anyone or my face so I was relieved about that. I giggled myself to sleep even though it felt like my foot was bleeding; I didn’t take off my sock to look. Carolyn and Adam helped me into bed and had a nice laugh at me too. Adam helped me get to sleep by
Chillin on Baba
did heaps of this stroking my hair (hihihi)
9th May We have a last morning swim and we just chill out (surprised) and have one last dance on the roof with Kate, Alison and Joel before Joel completes his dare and dives into the water naked hihihi. We then cruise along listening to The Beatles and I soak up as much sun as possible. We are all sad when we have to leave our awesome crew behind who were absolutely superb and so nice to us all. We were also sad to leave the boat, but I guess all things, even great, must come to an end. With the cruise part of our tour over we head via mini bus to Demre, where apparently St Nic, Santa, originated from. I then checked out Myra and another theatre, but what was the main draw card were the honeycomb rock hewn Lycian tombs set into the rock face. There were also heaps of carved theatre masks into rock lying all around the place. When we arrive at our last stop, Olympos, I decided I didn’t really want to leave everyone, especially Carolyn as we were getting along well, and after spending so much time
with people I didn’t really want to be on my own. I decided to stay with Carolyn and her friend Eve at Bayrams tree houses (the only form of accommodation at Olympos). We all then sit and have an apple tea before Alison, Kate, Jeremy and Peter leave for Cappodocia. The rest of us stay and some of us head down to see the beach with its clear water, cute pebbles, huge cliffs and ruins. Later in the night we go and see the Chimera flames and weren’t overly fussed by what we saw; basically too many tourists around to watch a few small flames coming out of the rocks. The Lonely Planet says “today gas still leaks from the earth and bursts into flame upon contact with the air. The exact composition of the gas in unknown, though it is thought to contain some methane. Although the flames can be extinguished by covering them, they will re-ignite when uncovered again.” This cluster of flames could actually be blown out by the tourists and we noticed people re-igniting them with their lighters. We didn’t see any re-ignite on there own, and although it was kinda amazing it was a bit
of a rip off for the transport up there.
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Neens
non-member comment
love it!
Moooo, great blog as usual... gorgeous photos, can see why you loved Turkey so much. Nice work finding the Oz Bread! Cannot wait for the next blogs. xo.