Fethiye and Olympos

After the bus ride from hell, we arrived in Fethiye all hot and sweaty. We went on a quick orientation walk of the harbour and shops. Then a bunch of us quickly grabbed doners for lunch and caught a dolmus to the beach (it was a famous one... but I can't remember the name at the moment). We paid extra to get into the blue lagoon and were surprised to see the beach chairs lined right up to the water's edge. It cost something like $20 to rent a chair so we settled into the pebbles. The water was super salty (this made treading water really easy) but a bit dirty. After suntanning and swimming out to an island, we decided to leave.

We caught another dolmus to Karakoya, an abandoned Greek town. It cost 8TL to walk around the buildings so we just snuck around the outside, snapped pics, chased the goats and played with old, scary farm tools. We checked out a souvenir stand and then caught a domlus back to Fethiye.

The next morning Kenzie, Linnea, Shelly, Shane, Kathy and I woke up really early and hiked up the hill to see some ruins that had been cut into the hillside. They reminded me of a basic Petra and we got some nice views of the city.

On the way back to the hotel we walked through a local fruit and veg market. I was pretty much drooling over everything. We bought some apples for the road. I loved seeing the huge sunflower seed plants. The Turkish countryside is dotted with sunflower fields.

The bus ride to Olympos was 5 hours long but the scenery was beautiful. The area is called the Turquoise Coast for a good reason. The water looked beautiful and we were all wishing the bus would make a stop at one of the many beaches we passed.

In Olympos we stayed in dorms in a hippy-dippy-trippy treehouse type place. I think I would have liked it more if it hadn't been so VERY humid. I mean, it was worse than Japan-humid...worse than Thailand-humid. We were all just oozing sweat from morning until night. The dinner at the hostel was delicious though.

Obviously, most of us headed to the beach in an attempt to cool down. Unfortunately, the beach at Olympos was super dirty. There were cigarette butts everywhere and piles of garbage. After a quick dip, I was ready to go back to the hostel.

That night we piled into a bus and travelled up the mountain to see the Chimaera. This is where the gas mysteriously escapes the earth and spontaeously ignites! I think I had this image in my head of the scene in Princess Bride when they go through the forest with the fire (you know, the scene with the ROUS - rats of unusual size). After climbing up the mountain for about 20 minutes I arrived soaked in sweat to find little fires that look like little more than campfires. Hmmm...I think we were all a little disappointed. But hey, there was a guy there cooking an entire dinner over the fires....

The next day was too hot to do anything. I tried to read, tried to blog but it was just too hot. We caught an overnight bus to Goreme. This bus had air-conditioning and bus cake AND bus ice-cream!!