Off the Turkey Tourist Track

  Dalyan, Turkey
Friday, April 13, 2007

Today took us to Dalyan.  Although mostly famous for the loggerhead turtle nesting, we aren't in the proper season for that so we had to do some exploring on our own.  We remembered Nate telling us tales of swimming across the river instead of paying for the boat trip across, so one of us swam each way while the other trekked across with the bags.  The locals clearly thought we were crazy, but the water felt great in the hot sun.  From the town, you can see these carved buildings high up in the cliff wall face. 

Rockin Rock Tombs

After crossing the river, we managed to find a path up to some of them, crawling all the way up inside.  They were ancient tombs carved directly into the rock.  Again, the views continued to be amazing, and we couldn't quite believe where we were.  We followed a small road towards the ruins of the city of Kaunos.  Along the way, we were passed by a farmer who offered us a ride on his tractor and hoped down to show us a lizard that he had somehow managed to see in the bushes (even from where he was pointing it took us a few seconds). 

We got to the site and had a look around.  The ruins were actually really great.  The site has mostly been excavated by prisoners from the local low security prison.  They've done a fantastic job! We were the only ones at the site at the time, with the exception of a local woman selling hand squeezed orange juice inside the theatre grounds.  She was very friendly, and in a combination of Turkish, English, and sign language, told us that she had either been married thirty four years, or had thirty four grandchildren, and that Gabrielle had great childbearing hips! She was a little disappointed that we hadn't gotten started on that yet, but made amazing orange juice, so we played along. 

Good Child Bearing Hips

It still amazes us that you can roam around freely around these thousand year old ruins.  You can jump up on the columns, walk into the ancient churches, and there are no ropes to stop you.  At the bottom of this site there was a temple area that they had partially restored.  New marble columns and some roofing stood on the ancient base of this temple, according to how it had been thousands of years ago.  It looked breathtaking. 

Old meets New

We looked down what clearly used to be a road between massive buildings on either side, and could climb on top of the stone pedestals that contained the imprints of statues feet in the stone.  The whole street was lined with them!  The sides of the temples were covered in writing, overlooking what had previously been a major harbour city.  We trekked back to the town, Gabrielle taking her turn swimming back, much to the amusement to the locals on the row boat ferry.  I on the other hand learned how many Turkish people you can squish into a row boat without it sinking, if only taking on a bit of water.  We both made it back in one piece and had an amazing day again.  Today we really felt like we got to meet some genuine people.  Turkey just keeps getting better and better.  The towns have been disappointing with how quick they jack the price for tourists, but once you hit the edges where most tourists don't go, the people are friendly, and treat you so well.

A Tiny Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

  Tomorrow we have another day in Dalyan.  We couldn't find a cheaper way to get to the turtle beach, despite there being a lack of turtles we figured it would still be cool, so we are going on something that was organized by our tour leader.  It includes lunch and a mud bath, so it should be good fun.  There are hot springs there too, but they are apparently used for gynecological healing and meant to be done in the nude.  We figured we'd leave that to the Turks.  

All our best from Turkey