Days 11-13 – Urgup to Kaş

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Bloody hell, it’s hot. The weather geek in me says that because we are now at the coast it should be cooler than inland locations. Wrong. The little thermometer attached to my day pack (I did mention weather geek) told me that it was 38°C in the shade earlier today.

After 4 wonderful days in Urgup, we left the town 2 days ago and travelled to the southern Mediterranean coastline by bus. This was a 10 hour bus trip but thankfully relatively interesting. After the interesting terrain around Urgup the terrain flattened out to very flat countryside. They appeared to be growing wheat and other crops but these were growing in very rocky, unappealing looking countryside. The largest city that we travelled through was Konya, which is the centre of the “Whirling Dervishes” – these are the Sufi Muslims that whirl to gain a mystical union with God. We weren’t all that interested in visiting Konya but we were both very surprised at how modern the city is. There is obviously an ancient part but the bit that we saw from the bus was characterised by 4-8 storey modern apartment buildings. They appeared to be bull dozing old farm buildings to build these new complexes. This has been the same for quite a few of the cities that we passed through. One thing that has impressed us is the use solar hot water – pretty much every apartment complex has its roof covered by solar hot water systems and satellite TV dishes.

Once we passed through Konya the countryside became much more mountainous (lots of wildflowers initially) and eventually we were passing through some pretty serious mountain ranges. Both of us commented that it reminded us of driving through Colorado. Eventually we reached the coast and travelled west for an hour or so until we reached Antalya. We were surprised that along this stretch the bus would stop at corners in the middle of nowhere and let people off.

Antalya is a large city and not somewhere that really interested us so we had arranged accommodation for only one night. This was in a pension in the old town. We were lucky enough to share a taxi with an American couple and what a trip that was. Antalya has some interesting features in its traffic design where the traffic criss-crosses at relatively high speed – no room for being meek in this traffic. Lane lines are considered as a suggestion only with 4, and perhaps 5, cars in 3 lanes at times. Our room in Antalya was basic but clean and the owners and managers friendly. The owners were a Norwegian couple who took us in tow and marched us off to a local restaurant (no tourists) that they had found the previous night. It was good. We explored the old town the following morning before heading to the bus station to catch a local bus to our current location, Kaş (pronounced Carsh).

The trip to Kaş took 5 hours and was quite scenic, travelling both through the mountains and a little bit along the beach. Kaş is a very attractive town set on a port that caters to many tourist operations. Along this stretch of coast it is possible to do multi-day boat trips that travel the length of the western Mediterranean coastline. We’ve spent our first day in Kaş sight-seeing. The hills surrounding the town are dotted with various historic sites. These are from the Lycian civilisation. We saw ancient tombs and an old theatre. Later, we went swimming in between walks. Our first swim involved a scramble over large rocks and my second swim was at “Big Pebble” beach. The water is very cold although at the first swim site noticeably warmer than the second.

Tomorrow we are doing a bus/boat tour to a sunken city and a couple of difficult to reach villages.

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Photos

Antalya harbour
This is an ancient harbour that now is home to all the tour boats.

Antalya bread seller
This guy asked/offered to have his photo taken

Kas
View from the Lycian tombs in the hills behind Kas

Old theatre - Kas
Build by the Lycians and repaired by the Greeks in 200AD. Seats 4000 people.

Big Pebble Beach
The width of the beach at the water line would only be 10 metres or so. Lots of kids (mainly boys) having fun.