Goodbye to the Sea

Of course the day after it rained all evening...we never did get to see the eternal flames...we woke up to sun and clear blue sky...of course...and left Olympos on the first bus. We spent our last two days on the Mediterranean in Antalya and began our adventures along the Antalya public bus system. After double checking our destination with the bus driver we hopped on and hoped for the best. We quickly discovered that bus stations don't have signs and you can actually make your own stop if you shout at the bus driver loud enough. Never the less we stuck it out long enough that we figured we were close, got of the bus and pulled out the guidebook to figure out where we were. Now looking as obviously tourist as one can get people started asking where we want to go. This was helpful as we were staying in the old Roman part of the city that is full of narrow cobblestone streets and alleyways that seem more like a maze than anything else, and a short time later we were checked into our nicest room yet. Josh was quite excited that the shower actually had a curtain...none of them had had one up until this point. The afternoon was spent wandering the streets, eating the best chicken kebab wrap yet, and wandering down to the harbour where we ran into one of the guys who helped us with directions earlier in the day. He of course worked on one of the excursion boats and we ended up on an hour long cruise of the bay of Antalya. After a little more exploring Josh had had enough walking around so I left him in the room and went back to the harbour to watch the sunset.

The next morning began with public transportation adventure round two. After taking the long way around to what looked to be a dolmus (minibus) stop we again checked our destination with the bus driver, who gave us a confused look, and hoped on after a nod from the lady in the first row, hoping to end up in a park with a waterfall. We had no idea which direction we should be going and after 30 minutes of detours into random neighborhoods we were starting to wonder if we were just getting taken on a scenic tour of the city. But 10 minutes later we saw the tell tale souvenir stalls and knew we had arrived...as well as proving that I have managed to learn at least a few words in Turkish. They weren't the most spectacular falls I've ever seen, but provided a good 20 minutes of fun before we began our trip back to town and the final round of bus adventures. There were about 4 possible buses we knew would drop us off back where we started, but when an older man poked his head our of a bus number we didn't want and said it would take us to the same place we had no reason not to believe him. He turned out to be the next bus driver on shift but as we drove farther and began passing things we had seen on our bus ride from Olympos the day before we decided he had forgotten about the tourists in the back of the bus and decided to abandon ship...or in the case the bus. We weren't quite sure where we were except that we could see the sea and quickly realized that we were at the beach on the other side of town and could see the harbour in the distance. Not wanting to come all the way to Turkey and not set foot in the Mediterranean we proceeded to take off our socks and shoes and walk in the water...the very cold water...until I decided my feet were cold enough.

Back at our hostel Josh and I parted ways again since I wanted to go to the Turkish bath and Josh wanted nothing to do with it. I walked out 1 1/2 hours later the cleanest I'd been in, well, at least since I arrived in Turkey. Short showers in warm, lukewarm, sometimes, cold, maybe hot for 5 minute showers just don't compare to 90 minutes hot, soapy, exfoliating, massaging bliss. I emerged to discover that Josh's last 90 minutes had not been so blissful, as instead of buying bus tickets and maybe a few other things, the bank machine had eaten his debit card. After we went together to buy the fated bus tickets we split up again...he wasn't really into sitting in a cafe...but his luck ran out again when he thought he'd try to take out money with his credit card and the machine immediately turned off. So the last week has been on me. Our two options were to cancel his cards and he could fix it when he got home, or wait until monday when the banks would be open to retrieve his cards. We opted for option #1 and by 8:30 pm were on the night bus to Cappadocia...which I will save until next time.