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Published: June 25th 2011
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Private enterprise
A couple of women in boats tried to sell craftwork to the tourists on the boats. The ice cream man must have had a better business as his boat was motorised. There’s a festival going on outside so it’s a bit noisy just at present with lots of people milling around in the square. As we walked home from dinner we were looking at some photographic displays and Deb was intrigued by the juxtaposition of sounds. We could hear Electronika-style music (perhaps with some didgeridoo mixed in) coming from the festival stage and the sound of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.
Yesterday we did one of the main tourist activities in Kaş - a boat tour. We were the only non-Turkish speakers on the boat. This was quite good as we had a number of people talking with us to explain what we were seeing and to also practice their English. A young high-school geometry teacher spent quite a bit of time talking with us. So what did the boat trip entail? Mainly eating and swimming broken by visits to historic sites. One of the features of the tour was a visit to a sunken village. This is an ancient village that was sunk by an earthquake many centuries ago. Most of the village is submerged in very deep water but the shoreline in this region is covered in
stone stairs and the remnants of old houses. We were also able to see old amphora remnants through the glass bottom section of the boat. Later we stopped at a small, out-of-the-way village which was home to a Byzantine castle. It was a short, but steep, climb to the top of Simena Castle but when we arrived we were rewarded with magnificent views. The castle was surrounded by numerous tombs/sarcophagi including one which now sits in the water.
Today was an even better day. We caught one of the local buses to the mountain village of Gőmbe. Our hotel manager told us that this would be a 45 minute trip but it was 2 hours before we arrived. We passed over 2 mountain passes with lovely valleys in between. As we were approaching Gőmbe one of the other passengers on the bus asked us if we were planning to visit the Green Lake and waterfall. We were, and so we agreed to share the cost of transport out to them as they were too far to walk to. Our travelling companion (Christine) was an approximately 60-years old German woman who could speak Turkish and who has holidayed in Kaş
each year for numerous years. Christine was able to speak with the bus driver who in turn organised a taxi to take the 3 of us to the lake and waterfall. It turned out that it was a very busy day at both the lake and waterfall. Apparently, the waterfall and lake are sacred locations for Alevite Muslims to pay homage to their spiritual leader, Abdal Musa. This homage-ing was happening today and there were about a dozen large buses parked near the waterfall and lake. The passengers were making their way up to the waterfall/lake to pray and to also collect water. Men were carrying 10 and 20 litre containers back with them. The buses had come long distances (e.g. Istanbul) so it was quite a friendly, party atmosphere. The ages of the people ranged from young children aged about 4 to old people bent right over. Many of the women were enthusiastically picking various herbs off the mountain – Deb could recognise thyme and some of the others looked familiar but we were uncertain just what they were. After our walk we went to a restaurant at a trout farm and had baked trout for lunch, then a
walk through the local market where we bought some honeycomb. Finally we caught a local bus back to Kaş but this bus went via a different route to the morning bus. A 107 year old man got onto the bus at one village. He was still going strong although he did need a bit of a hand to climb into the bus.
Tomorrow we head to Fethiye for a couple of days prior to catching a ferry across to Rhodes.
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