Blogs from Olympos, Mediterranean, Turkey, Middle East
October 13th 2011
Beer'll fix it After the entertainment of a couple of nights ago not much has been happening, really. So little in fact, that sitting about drinking a beer has become an event worth mentioning (yes, that's what I am doing now... again!) It's medicinal, helps me relax and prepare myself for any 'midnight mouse catching' duties that may come my way. As for us, we are still in Olympos, killing time waiting for my replacement shock to arrive. Hopefully it will do so tomorrow. On the upside, there are worse places in the world to be stuck. Olympos, for those who have not been, is basically a backpacker haunt where you stay in a "tree house" and sit around on pretty Turkish carpets in front of a small coffee table doing not much. Particularly when it ... read more
October 10th 2011
A Mouse in the House! Actually, it wasn’t exactly a mouse and we weren’t really in a house. It was a tent. A wet tent. A very wet tent. Last night it rained. A lot. But we were prepared. Or so we thought as we pitched our tarp over the top of our tent. “This’ll keep the water away”, I said, as we put the tarp up for the first time of the trip (hmmm… did I not mention the tarp amongst the many useful items I insisted we bring?). Strangely, the tarp had shrunk. In the lounge room in London it had seemed huge, there was barely enough space to stretch it out. “We’ll get the tent, the gear, the bikes and all under this”, I had thought when we first unpacked it in the ... read more
Olympos our tree hut accommodation at Saban Pensiyon & Tree Houses
Published: October 8th 2011Middle East » Turkey » Mediterranean » Olympos
September 26th 2011
I have split Olympus into two sections as I would like other people to find out about the Pansiyon we stayed at in Olympus. Saban Pensyion and Tree House is a great place to get away from it all and just relax, the accommodation is either in Bungalows or Tree Houses. We chose a tree house as they looked nice and cool and airy and we were guaranteed there were no mosquito's as ther is no glass in the windows. The Pnsiyon is very well run and food is fantastic, a real bonus was that not only the breakfast is included in the price but the evening meal is as well and we are talking about substatial meals. We tried different Turkish dishes here than we had been having in the East and enjoyed them all. ... read more
Onwards to relax in Olympos
Published: October 14th 2011Middle East » Turkey » Mediterranean » Olympos
September 24th 2011
Saturday 24th September - Egirdir to Olympos Before leaving the hostel we enjoyed an lovely hot shower and an enormous breakfast. Our bus was at 10.30 am so luckily we had time to do these things without having to get up exceptionally early. We bid farewell to Ibrahim, who advised us to go to his friend's tree house accomodation in Olympos, and we headed off with our bags down to the bus station. We were about 15 minutes early and the bus was about 10 minutes late, so again we sat waiting at a bus station. Eventually, our bus arrived and we loaded our bags, took our seats and took off towards Antalya. Tickets were 15 try = $8.40 each and the journey was to take about 2 hours. At the Antalya otogar we transferred to ... read more
September 22nd 2011
Olympos, Kas Today after brekky (not for me) we packed up our gear and left it downstairs and headed off on foot to explore the ruins of ancient Olympos. To get there we turned right after the bridge, walked along the beach for a bit, and then headed in through the next valley. Paid a few lira for our tickets and right there beside the ticket booth were a couple of tombs cut into the rock. It's a long fairly narrow valley with a stream flowing through the middle of it and lots of trees. There must have been quite a community there as there are still ruins of many buildings and a few burial areas. We saw a church, a theatre, a roman baths, some water ways built of the rock, etc etc. Explored for a ... read more
September 18th 2011
I ultimately spent 2 nights in Antalya which I think was a mistake since there isn't much to be done in Antalya. The harbor is relatively nice, but it doesn't take long to see, and the city otherwise was rather dull. I went on a 2-hour boat cruise, which was nice enough, but it didn't seem to be worth my 30 lira, even though that's a decent price. I also spent a few hours working on some work for my papers, and got my part all sorted out, which allowed me to leave for Olympos because I guessed (rightfully it turned out), that internet and computer access in Olympos would be a bit more challenging. After I got all my stuff sorted out in Antalya, I left for Olympos by minibus. It was something like a ... read more
Day 120: Canyoning in Olympos
Published: August 30th 2011Middle East » Turkey » Mediterranean » Olympos
August 26th 2011
We woke up early and had breakfast then drove for an hour to get to the place where we were going canyoning. We suited up with wetsuits and helmets and then started down the river. There were some parts which were deep so you had to swim through then, but most of it we waded through the water. It was so cold I was really grateful we had the wetsuits. It was fun going through the canyon and in parts the guides had to help us get up the rocks because the current was quite strong. On the way back through we slid down those parts. We were a bit disappointed because we didn't go very far, the whole thing took only about 1 hours. But by this stage it was 4 pm so we were ... read more
Day 119: Rockclimbing in Olympos
Published: August 30th 2011Middle East » Turkey » Mediterranean » OlymposAugust 25th 2011
This morning I woke up feeling sick, so I stayed back at the place we were staying and had a quiet day. The others went for a walk to the beach, but we were going rockclimbing that afternoon so I wanted to be feeling better for that. So at 4 we headed out to the outdoor rockclimbing wall, which is beside the river which runs through the mountains. It is dry during summer though. The couple from our tour chose to go fishing but the rest of us did the rockclimbing. The guides set up two areas for us to trying climbing, I did the harder one first because I knew I'd be tired doing whichever one I did second. I managed to get up both, have quite a few scrapes and bruises to show for ... read more
July 6th 2011
The next day we wound up spendıng breakfast talkıng to Robbıe (from Vancouver) and Mehmet (Turkısh) who had met on the bus and were stayıng at our hostel. They wanted to go horseback rıdıng and 80 and I thought that was a great ıdea so we bought three dollar cowboy hats and went off to fınd horses. We got an hour long tour of 'love valley' whıch ıs a beautıful valley full of rock formatıons that look lıke penıses. My horse turned out to be a racıng horse so ıt kept tryıng to take the lead (whıch caused some ınterestıng ınteractıons between my horse ad the lead horse). After we went back to the hostel and showered (you shower about 4 tımes a day here due to the heat) and had dınner. Mehmet was goıng the ... read more
Chillin in Treehouses (Dariece)
Published: June 19th 2011Middle East » Turkey » Mediterranean » Olympos
June 19th 2011
(June 5th to 7th) Sleeping in a treehouse, sounds like a childhood dream...or in this case, an adult reality! We arrived in Olympos and were planning to stay in one of the imfamous treehouses that the area is known for. They're technically not built in trees, they're more like platform huts set high up with a ladder to get to them. We took one look at the treehouse and at that moment realized that we have become midrange travellers, also known as "flashpackers" in the backpacker world. The budget backpacker in us was screaming "take the treehouse, it's cheaper!", but we just couldn't do it. They weren't sealed at all, there were massive gaps in the wood walls and a huge gap between the door and the roof, there was no a/c or a fan (it ... read more
