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Published: August 15th 2007
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Kas theatre and Kastellorizo island
Kastellorizo is a greek island! We didn\\\'t make it but we will return to Greece somewhere soon (but not within this trip...)! The last time we have written from the harbour town of Kaş. Now we are in the heart of Turkey in Central Anatolia. Again, in a few words what we have done in the last 8 days and some general impressions so far.
Kaş was a pleasant stop to slow down a bit. All services were easily available. After one day mostly spent at the beach, we felt that some culture would be good and visited the Antiphellos ruins which includes theatre and tombs. The day after we went sea-kayaking over the sunken city of Kekova (resulting from a series of earthquakes during the 2nd century AD). It felt definitely better to paddle on the sea then to sit lazy on a yacht! In addition, we got a lot closer to the ruins than the boats.
Last beach stop on our trip for a very long time was Çıralı. The fourth pension we enquired about revealed to be a star. We were the only non-Turkish guests and the owners did not talk English. A great way to test our Turkish language skills but it wold not be fair not to mention Fatoş who helped us out whenever necessary. The
pension included dinner and we have made the experience that the food is the best when you don't have a choice. Sometimes we have been a little bit disappointed when we had chosen a meal from a (large) menu. At Thatavilla every single plate that arrived on our table was great just as the family that owns this place. The first night we went up to Chimaera; a mystical place! In many different spots gas is seeping from the earth and the contact with oxygen turns it into fire. The flames at Chimaera are burning for centuries now and has its place in Greek mythology.
Çıralı hosts also the ruins of Olympos which was an important Lycian city by the 2nd century BC and later a Roman city. All that just a stroll from a beautiful beach! On our last day we were at the beach at 7 in the morning to watch baby Caretta Caretta turtles crawling from their nest to the sea. A though fight because the rising sun dries them out very quickly if they don't reach the sea. Not all survived, but amazing to see how good the 30-minute old babies can swim if they reach
the sea!
Before leaving the coast we spent one night in the harbour city of Antalya. Its old city (Kaleici) is quite beautiful but completely possessed by tourists, pensions, expensive restaurants and carpet shops. We still don't know how this carpet found its way into our backpacks!!
Finally, a 10-hour bus trip brought us to Göreme in Capadocia. A spectacular place (just watch the pictures - so we don't need to describe) with good hiking possibilities. We did two hikes so far, twice we did some rock climbing to find the way out of a valley! The views are great; it is worth the risk! We also visited a lot of churches, a monastery and an underground city all carved into the soft stone of this landscape. Most of these buildings have been created between 9th and 13th century AD by Christians fearing persecution from different Muslim ethnics.
As planned, we are going separate ways for the upcoming weekend. Annamaria is going to Switzerland for a wedding and Silvan will be travelling from Göreme to Kayseri and then further east to Erzurum where we will meet again next Monday.
Thanks for all the comments concerning our
first entry! Continue to write us it is a pleasure to read your comments. To answer Spyros questions about transportation: We travel mostly by bus or minibus (dolmus). There are trains in Turkey and also Iran. Silvan plans to travel by train to Erzurum and we will do at least one train trip in Iran as well. People are always helpful to indicate us the way to the next bus stop or do even sometimes propose their car to bring us there. As we experienced, it is not a problem to stop a bus in the middle of nowhere and hop in it hopping it brings you at the right place! Night buses are far from the quality and comfort of Chile's buses.... actually, we could not sleep at all! Behind us a family of 4 shared the two seats, stops were frequent and once policemen collected and checked all passports... one person was not allowed to continue, we never knew why!
A la prochaine les amis!
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annie
non-member comment
wow again and again!
C'est génial de suivre vos pas à travers ce blogue! Vous semblez faire un superbe voyage hors des sentiers battus... Je me réjouis pour vous! Annams, bon mariage ce w-e... Sylvan j'espère que tu ne t'ennuiras pas trop ;) Jusqu'à quand restez-vous en Turquie? Bonne continuation... Faites attention à vous et continuez à nous raconter votre histoire!