70 k’s out of Konya the landscape started changing for the
better. As usual we have tried to avoid the highways, preferring to travel the
slower and often more scenic roads.
The town of Beysehir lies on the beautiful
turquoise lake of the same name. We stopped for a chai before taking the
road out of town, which snakes along the waters edge.
This road, like all we have traveled
on, was under construction. Ancient trees are being felled to make way for the new
road, so I suppose we can count ourselves lucky that we are seeing the area
before the roadworks take their toll on the landscape. After a good few kilometers the road starts the steep ascent of the rugged limestone mountains.
The verdant green forest of Pine, Cedar, Spruce, Oak and Juniper cloaks the
mountains that seem to reach for the deep blue sky above.
A wrong turn finds us in a small farming village on market
day. From the looks of the villagers and the giggles of the young girls, we are
definitely a novelty. With only sign language to communicate with, we manage to
buy a feast of sun-ripened peaches, plums and grapes.
We have noticed that every few kilo’s along the roads there
is a water point and a drinking trough for animals, which are still used to
this day. We stopped at one shaded by some large pines and washed and ate our fruit
banquet, picnic style.
The road continued to wind its way through the mountains,
before descending to Egirdir and the quaint little Pension Charley, our bed for
the night. Aside from reversing into a telephone pole slap bang in the middle
of the parking lot, we had a great trip. Fortunately, I opted for the no excess
option on the rental.
The pension sits high on the steep cliff, with uninterrupted
views of the lake and a variety of different levels, steps and sloping floors.
We strolled along the lakeshore before returning to a meal of local trout,
aubergine filled with a tomato based filling, peppers stuffed with spicy rice
and salad. In Turkey you always get something extra at meals that you neither
order nor pay for. At Charley’s we had a variety of dips and a bowl of olives
as an aperitif and two baklava with our thick, slightly bitter Turkish coffee.
Actually the freebies would have sufficed alone (but then we did have a couple
of baklava with our tea earlier on).
22 September – Egirdir to Çirali
Egirdir lies in a valley surrounded by high mountains,
similar to Ceres in the Cape. The road out of town is lined with apple
orchards, their branches straining with massive red and green fruit.
The scenery becomes more dramatic as we enter the Yaziki
Kanyon. Once again the beautiful mountains are about to be destroyed by
roadworks. Sadly rock spill and scarred rock faces are the price of the wider
roads. Litter is also a huge problem in Turkey, wherever you go plastic water
bottles, bags and millions of cigarette stompies, litter the area. It seems as
if every male smokes here.
Continuing, the dramatic mountains give way to
agriculture. Herders with small flocks of rather tall, longhaired goats are
common and small patches of land are being prepared for the winter crops.
All
too soon we hit Antalya. Like all large sprawling cities the roads are lined
with motorcar showrooms, petrol stations and all the normal shops and offices, I
suppose this is called progress.
Heading west along the coast we come to the well preserved ruins
of Phaselis. This ancient city situated on a small peninsula jutting into the
aquamarine Mediterranean, is believed to have been established in 690BC.
It consisted
of 3 ports, an agora (meeting place), a theatre and a wide street with
bath houses on either side. Devastating earthquakes rocked the city in 141 and
240AD, but the city continued to prosper until 1158.
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| A section of the aqueduct |
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| The wide street that forms part of the Agora |
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| The Teatro |
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The sleepy higgle-d-piggle-d seaside town of Cirali,
pronounced Cher-ah-luh, lies at the end of a serpentine round that winds its
way down the mountains for 10k’s. Lorna was upbeat, but I wasn’t happy with our
tree house accommodation. Firstly, it was not in a tree, nor off the ground.
Instead it was a wooden bungalow, which in SA we would call a zozo hut. But we
tend to judge too much on external appearances, in reality it was a house made
from trees, it was spotless, just like all the accommodation in Turkey. Once
settled you start to get into the place and by the time we ate breakfast in the
garden filled with pomegranate, orange and other fragrant smelling plants, we
loved it.
After dark we climbed the broken down stairs ( a million of
them and each with a larger riser than the previous) to a place called the
Chimera.
Here methane escapes from between the rock and spontaneously burns,
you can only imagine the legends that surround this place of the eternal flame.
Three kilometres down the beach from Cirali lies the ruins
of Olympos, a pirate city.
Now these were not your run of the mill Somali
pirates, at Olympos they built an entire city. Time has taken it toll, but you
can still see that Olympos was an impressive city.
Built on the banks of a
river, which they canalised, there is a theatre, churches with mosaic floors
and domed roofs and perimeter wall with an entrance gate 4,88m high.
Various sarcophagi’s
can be seen, the one depicts a family tree and another a ship and has a poetic
inscription.
Floating in the warm waters of the Mediterranean, the scent
of fig heavy in the air, one can only imagine what life must have been like
when these ancient cities prospered.
We thought of Dean, who turned 50 today, while we ate our
casserole of beef and vegetables, happy birthday and many more.
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| Çay boilers like this are common throughout Turkey and ensure that fresh chai is always available. |
We ate lunch on the roof top terrace, cooled by the gentle
sea breeze while overlooking the bay of Kekova.
