It’s been a while since I’ve slept through the night and not gotten woken up by something before I was ready to wake up. While staying in the city and town centers, we’d invariably get woken up by the muezzin who announces the morning prayers at 5-6AM. We thought our problems would come to an end when we’d stay in smaller towns. No such luck. Roosters apparently crow at night, and not just once or twice. Dogs and cats also like to put in a word or two in the middle of the night. This has given us new appreciation for our own home, when all is still except for those rare nights when the coyotes howl and the owls hoot.
Well last night was the first in a long time when I was able to sleep through the night, and wake up on my own terms this morning. With a good night’s sleep, I had no excuse not to exercise. Joe and I hit the park for some body weight exercises to try to get back some of the muscle mass we’ve lost since coming to Turkey.
With that out of the way, we were ready to start the day exploring. On today’s agenda: Tlos ruins and Saklikent National Park. Gleaning from the guidebook, I really didn’t get a good picture as to what to expect at these 2 sites. However, we’re always down for ruins and parks.
Tlos
Tlos started off as an ancient Lycian city, but eventually was occupied by the Persian, Byzantine, and Ottoman. Each empire built upon the city, so you get to see Lycian tombs mixed in with Roman theater and Ottoman castle in one place.
We thought we had finished our tour of the ruins as we were about to exit the site, but a stone sculptor by the name of Ibrahim approached us and wanted to show us the Medusa on the sarcophagus lid outside the ruins.
Side note, a lot of vendors throughout Turkey will chat you up, give you some historical information relevant to what you’re looking at, and show you around, hoping that you’d visit their shop (usually a carpet shop) and eventually buy something from them. So far we’ve managed not to fall in that trap, but I don’t know what happened to us today when we allowed him to lead the way. Maybe because we felt the visit fell a little bit short, and wanted to see more. Or that people outside the major cities are more trustworthy. Fortunately for us, meeting Ibrahim proved to be worthwhile.
Ibrahim, originally from the Anatolian region and descends from the Hittite, took us down a narrow foot path outside the ruins entrance. At one point I asked Joe (in Mandarin) if we were going to be murdered because we seemed to be heading down towards a stream. But my worries were short lived when we saw more Lycian tombs.
We were quite satisfied with the tour (and I was relieved we were still alive) so we followed him to his shop, and were pleasantly surprised by how nice the stone carvings were that we ended up buying a small one from him.
When Joe gave him the money, Ibrahim tossed it on the ground explaining that we were his first customer of the day, and by doing so brings good luck (more sales) for the rest of the day. He also had his youngest daughter give me a free woven evil eye bracelet. Now I feel bad for thinking he was going to murder us.
Saklıkent Milli Parkı
I never pass up a National Park. If it’s in the area, I’d check it out, because I’m always game for a nice hike. I hadn’t researched much about this park, as I assumed that it would be a nice little stroll in a tree covered path. I did read that there was water crossing, but thought it was just a few streams we needed to cross along the hike. So I made sure we wore shorts and hiking boots.
We got up to 1000 meters into the canyon and that was the point where the park had warn people to turn around if they didn’t have enough equipment or canyoneering experience, which we have neither. However, there was a “guide” there waiting to guide us past that point. He told us that we were not allowed to go past that point unless accompanied by a guide. Again, we must not have put on our thinking caps today, because we took him up on the offer.
The water was deeper past the 1000 meter point. It went up past my upper thigh at one point, and the guide helped us maneuver through a few tricky sections. We opted not to go past the small waterfall, which is 200-400 meters past the 1000 meter mark.
When we got back to the 1000 meter point, Joe wanted to give him 20TL as a tip, but he wanted 100TL. They ended up settling with 50TL. We knew he wasn’t an official guide because he and his buddy took off shortly after we paid him.
We stopped off at a local gözleme stand along the roadside for a quick bite.
We had a rather unexpected day, and had a really fun time. At the same time, Joe and I promised each other that we not be so gullible for the rest of the trip. Need to put those thinking caps back on.
FIRE'd @ 47 