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Published: October 7th 2011
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Olympos ıs one of my favourıte places ın the world. We stayed at Bayram's ın a lovely lıttle room complete wıth screened windows and aır condıtıonıng. Well, actually, we moved there on our second nıght. The fırst nıght we stayed at Khadır's, the party hostel, whıch ıs great fun if you want to drink every evening but we were both feeling too mellow and sleep deprived, so after a nearly sleepless night (heat, music, and a few mosquitoes) we moved down the road.
We had a wonderful time in Olympos. The town itself is basically just a collection of hostels along a dirt road at the bottom or a valley with trees and other foliage coating the hillsides. The road passes through a tumble of old ruins before ending at the beach. The ruins are a museum of sorts (though it is the kind of museum that you can climb all over) so you have to pay to get in, and to get to the beach, but it is very cheap and well worth the money. The ruins are all overgrown and there are a couple of streams running through them. There is also a larger stream alongside the footpath
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The Eternal Flame that is a home to some species of turtle and about a billion frogs. You can watch them roaming through the reeds and meandering through the thick green plant sludge that coats the surface so thickly that even large frogs can float on it.
We spent 4 days on the beach, or lounging in the hostel drinking beer and fruit juice and reading books, or swimming in the incredibly clear blue water. We picked up another couple of fellow travelers, Tim and Caroline, and they came with us on an afternoon kayaking tour. That night we ran into another Vancouverite who we had actually met in Mardin, and a couple of South African girls joined our group, and we sat up and chatted until the late hour of midnight before all declaring that we were exhausted and must be getting old since we are going to bed so early.
Ev and I had been wondering whether to book a 4 day 'Blue Cruise' to take us from Olympos to Fetiyeh. We wanted to see a few places along the coast between the two spots (Kas, the sunken city, and a couple little coast towns). We had intended to
just get there by car, hitching as usual, but this cruise would hit all of those places and would probably save us time, which was important as my visa was getting close to expiring. Tim and Caroline had already booked their tickets, and encouraged us to do the same. We looked up some reviews online, discovered that some people thought it was the best thing they had ever done and others said the food sucked and the captain was drunk and hit on all the girls. We decided we would hope for the best, set our expectations low and if necessary we would smack the captain. It turns out we needn't have worried. The cruise was one of the best travel experiences we've ever had.
Our ship was a small Gulet (sail boat) with tiny cabins (which doesn't matter because everyone sleeps on the deck under the stars). It was crewed by a small family, Dad at the helm, Mom cooking, and 14-year-old son doing odd jobs. The captain had a hilarious sense of humour and his English was quite good. Fatima, his wife, was a brilliant cook. We stuffed ourselves on first rate Turkish cooking 3 times a
day (plus tea and cookies in the afternoon), including a lunch of fish caught from the boat that very morning. And our travel companions were excellent as well. There was a total of ten of us, all from different countries, and everyone was easy to get along with. We bonded quickly. During the day we would motor along for a bit (they never set the sails. I've only seen one boat in Turkey which was actually sailing). Every so often we would stop and Fatima would announce "Swimming time!" and we would dive over the side, goggles and snorkels in hand. The water is so salty that you float without treading water, and the temperature was perfect. We would splash around, swim to nearby islands or beaches, chase fish, and on one occasion we found part of a sunken ship and floated over that for a while. Sooner or later, Fatima would ring the dinner bell and there would be a mad scramble to get hosed off and to the table. Then food, then most cruising, the occasional stop at an interesting place (we hit a a couple of beautiful coast towns), and in the evening beers and stargazing. There
was a sound system on board so we listened to Bob Marley and Manu Chao and the Stones and the Forrst Gump soundtrack and whatever else came to mind. It was perfect.
On our last evening we were anchored near Christmas Island (so named for St. Nick, who I believe is entombed there). We were playing cards and enjoying the view when a speedboat pulled up next to us and offered to tow us. They had two three-seater innertubes attached to the back of the boat. We rounded up a half dozen people and for about 5 bucks each we spent 5 minutes screaming at the top of our lungs, ricocheting off each other, having a blast. They went fast, and we nearly went flying, but it was fabulous.
After dinner, another speedboat pulled up and sold us ice cream, and the next morning we bought chocolate and banana gozleme (crepes) from another boat (they had a grill, a cooler, even a board for the woman to roll out the gozleme, all on this tiny little boat) then we cruised a bit more, had one last lunch, one last swim, and said goodbye to our wonderful boat, the
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Olympos kucuk mustafa (little mustafa) and its excellent crew. What a great way to spend 4 days. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
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