With a WIDDLEY DIDDLEY HEEE!

---

We waved goodbye to the peacocks and gave a final glare at the unwanted feathered alarm clock and hit the road. Ollie sped off like a car possessed onto the D400, a well-travelled road for us as whichever way we go on the coast it involves the D400, Woolly thinks it might be one of the longest roads in Turkey.



Woolly says – we do seem to spend a lot of time driving on it! Before I could consume my breakfast bun we were making our way onto the twisty turns and bends of the mountain roads see our blog , I enjoyed the ride so much more this time although I’m not sure Ian was so keen as he was on the sheer drop with no barrier side of the road. We stopped for a coffee at a little place that we had stopped at before and although the owner didn’t seem to recognise me we were given a very warm welcome, a short break and Ollie was ready to go. We sailed through the mountain passes and switchbacks with the awe inspiring views of the ocean laid out in front of us, truly beautiful. By the way, I just want to share something I noticed as we drove through the mountains. The horns on coaches and lorries here are AWESOME!! In the U.K. horns go ‘honk’ or sometimes ‘parp’. Not here….oh no. They go “BAH DIDDLE WHOOP”, “WIDDLEY DIDDLEY HEEE” or “POO PAR BOOM DIN”. Cool eh??



Although we travelled this route in February the views still knocked our socks off, Ian was slightly less enthusiastic and we encouraged him to keep his eyes on the road! Our plan was to camp early and get a good start in the morning with a visit to a castle that we had had to miss on our last sojourn. With the turquoise blue of the sea beside us it was easy to spot Akcakil Camping. Situated within its own little cove with a pebbly beach we were taken down to the pitches, first passing the shower block, then the washing up area quickly followed by the toilets, a short route march later we arrived at the available spots for the night. Hmmm not bad, long way for the facilities,



“How much?” I asked



“Forty lira” the man answered



We looked at each other



“Too expensive, how much?” I tried again



“Forty lira” came the reply



“Bye” we said and jumped into Ollie muttering about over charging.



Thirty five kilometres down the road we realised how much we have already taken to our adopted currency and with the calculator out we felt a bit stupid that we had argued over £12.60 GBP, a bargain in most countries.



Woolly says – I never feel stupid! But we do think in Lira now unless we convert it for the blog. With no more camp sites in view and enough driving for the day we made our way down through the back streets of Kizelsi to find the hotel we had used in February see blog . Ninety Liras later and we had a triple room with breakfast and the mad people I have to live with were happily chortling away about what a bargain it was to have all this for only £30 GBP a night – Madness I say!



One night turned to two, Ian who had been feeling pretty poorly for the last few days felt too bad to carry on and we decided that a day in bed was in order. Being in Turkey does not involve a trip to the Doctors. A quick trip to the Pharmacy, lots of pointing and acting out the problem and medication is handed over. Woolly and I dosed him up and settled for a quiet day in.



Woolly says – Tuesday morning dawned bright and with Ian prepared to go we waved our farewells to Mr Hantur and his hotel and back tracked 20KM down the road to Silifki. Silifki Castle dominates the skyline and looks very impressive by anyone’s standards, I was very excited as I imagined climbing the turrets and towers and searching out the latrines. Ollie bounded up the hillside and we alighted at the bottom of some steps. Like many places we have been to in Turkey the outside walls had received some restoration work, concrete added to hold the crumbling walls! Undeterred we followed the steps up and took the path round the side of the castle barricades. Boy did we get a surprise!



Built in the 4th century BC during the Hellenistic age it was added to by the Byzantines in the medieval age as a bulwark against Arabs. Towards the end of the 12th century and during the Third Crusade, Armenians captured the castle (under Baron Leo, the future Leo I). In 1210 the Armenians conceded the castle to the Knights of Rhodes. The Castle had been derelict for many many years until excavation work started in 2011. We had seen pictures online and it looked like a ruin so we were amazed to find how much had been discovered in such a short time. Currently the dig has unearthered 60 houses and a Mosque and the streets were starting to look as they would have done all of those years ago. There were four men with wheelbarrows moving dirt and stonework around, nowhere to pay so we strolled round. With its twenty three turrets there is still much to find and it would be interesting to come back in another few years to see what else has come to light.



Woolly says – I looked for the latrines but I don’t think they have found them yet, the houses though must have been tiny more my size than human size. Having wandered where we could, we made our way back down the steps to Ollie and set off. The plan had been to camp at Erdemli but as it was still early we decided to keep going, the only drawback to this is that we had been unable to find another campsite online for another 700KM so we knew that it meant another hotel for the night. Down the roads Ollie flew past thousands of pomegranate trees with their brown fruit ready to drop, into areas with nothing but Olive groves to admire. We spied several tortoises with their own motorhomes on board trying to cross the main roads, some with more success than others.



We had the option of two roads, the trusty D400 or the much newer toll road, with the toll of 2.75 TL (approximately 75p GBP) we thought to try the ‘faster’ route, Ollie tore through the miles, we passed through a radar scanner but with no sign of anywhere to buy a ticket or vignette we were unsure what to do, so we keep going. The second scanner set off an alarm and changed from a nice green colour to an angry red! Pulling over to the side of the road I went over to what appeared to be a toll booth. A gentleman with a limited amount of English smiled happily at us and seemed to say flashing and beeping no problem, keep going! Feeling a little unsettled and not wishing to end up with a fine we choose to leave at the next exit and go back onto the D400.



Woolly says – well that was a silly idea, we pulled off the exit and straight into the city of Adana, the traffic was everywhere, hooting and honking were the means of communication. I gripped onto the dash board as Ian and James navigated our way through the throngs of vehicles, scooters and stray pedestrians, it was worse than Birmingham in the rush hour. After several side roads we regained the main drag and shot off towards the mountains in the distance.



As we started to climb we were seeing much smaller and poorer villages, many people were toiling in the fields and stopped to stare as Ollie continued on his way.



Woolly says – We were getting some funny looks but I’m guessing they don’t see many English cars in the Turkish Mountains.



We reached a peak and stopped to marvel at the plain in front of us, a patchwork quilt of fields as far as the eye could see. Crossing the plain and up into the next group of mountains, with ears popping we finally made our descent into the city of Gazian Tep.



Woolly says – what a place, even more noise and people as we followed James directions. I could only be glad that we had found a hotel on the web and didn’t have to try and locate one in the huge place that we found ourselves in.



On the map Gazian Tep didn’t look that big, in reality it is HUGE!! Ian masterfully steered Ollie through the roads and into the back streets to the Hotel Zingaro, too tired to look for anything else we paid our 100 TL (approximately £33.60 GBP) and parked Ollie across the road.



Woolly says – the room was fine, basic and clean, I was more interested in my tummy. We set off back to the main road, with everyone staring at us!



Everyone is in jeans/trousers while we were trying to look causal in shorts and flip flops, a definite case of spot the tourists. We made short shift of finding somewhere to eat, luckily one of the Turkish restaurants had someone who spoke some English who helped to explain what we wanted. Seated on our golden chairs we tucked into a butter bean stew for me with Ian and Woolly sharing what was supposed to be a beef stew which turned out to be lamb, with rice, bread and salad, pretty good in all for 20TL (approximately £6.50 GBP).



Woolly says – I hadn’t even licked the juices off my tusks when the man arrived with a massive plate of fruit, it felt quite rude to refuse but even I only have a limited amount of room for food. The nice gentleman stayed to chat, in German, which was different and as we smiled and nodded we could only hope that he wasn’t telling us anything sad or bad!





Fully sated we made our way back to the hotel with the world and his dog looking at us, nothing like standing out in a crowd is there! Tomorrow we head north which is a relief, being less than 70KM from Syria is probably close enough at this current time. On our original plans we were going to head to Georgia and Armenia but as the British Foreign Office says to avoid all of these areas this will be something to look forward to in the future.

---

Comments

[Dancing Dave]

WELL DONE
You made it...looks well worth it

[traveltalesofawoollymammoth]

Thank You
We did indeed and well worth it to