24th June Termessos & Karain Caves

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Last evening we saw what my ornithologist friend in the UK said was likely to be a short toed snake eagle – very impressive & massive. We also saw a couple of butterflies the size of small birds but this place is moth central in the evening before it goes dark...

I was looking forward to a good night's sleep as it had cooled & breeze had started up; after we'd gone to sleep it turned into a storm & tree's branch was bending over & whacking Billy's roof most of the night, grrr!

After some tyre inflating off we went to Termessos, only a few kilometers away, situated on top of a mountain at c. 1100m. We drove most of the way but then had to walk the final mile or so up a steep track in 32* heat – hard work but so worth it. It is around 3000 years old, neither Greek nor Roman & the city defied even Alexander the Great apparently. It's one of the best preserved (but still pretty derelict!) ancient cities in Turkey if not Europe & it is really impressive. The theatre is just remarkable – able to hold 4,200 people & perched on the cliff of the mountain. It is so big that it wouldn't fit on one photograph, so I took a video..unfortunately this site doesn't host them.

I managed to almost step on a small snake..no idea what is was but spent the rest of the morning being very vigilant.

We then went off to the Karain caves, around 12 kilometres away. Whilst the main cave is impressive in itself, what is more impressive is the fact that people have lived there for over 25,000 years! Bear in mind the pyramids are 5,000 years old...

Back to the site for mid afternoon for a late lunch, prepped the Dyson for tomorrow's journey, evening meal, a couple of beers & bed for tomorrow we head for Dinizli for a couple of days in order to visit Pamukkale (literally cotton castle) a World Heritage site...

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