The Lycian Way

The Lycian Way
The Lycian Way

Sawsan and Petra

Sawsan and Petra
Sawsan and Petra trip planning in Newport RI

Friday, September 30, 2016

Arriving in Antalaya

It was a shock to be in the city after all the time in the mountains of Lycia and small villages.
Our hotel was in the old town, Kelici, very charming.

With a small swimming pool in the courtyard.
The entrance in a little alley.
We had a posh dinner on Thursday night at a restaurant overlooking the sea.
On Friday we explored old town and visited the archeological museum.


Thursday, September 29, 2016

Day 19. Yayla kuzdere to Roman bridge and then car to Antalya

Our last walking day, we miss the Likya Yolu already, it has been such a fantastic walk through culture, history and nature. Still need to tally up the actual distance covered but we estimate that we have walked at least half of the 509K. 

Morning view. 
The first part was downhill through pine Forrest.
We had plans to meet Paul our organizer, guide and general superman at noon in the upper village of Guzeleme. Quite out of character for us we were an hour and a half early. So we had some Nescafé and pears outside a little market when the family decided to harvest the rest of the walnuts.
That meant the grandfather climbed up the ladder and bashed the tree with a huge stick so that the walnuts came crashing down, while the grandmother watched and the grandson mimiked with a stick of his own. The walnuts were gathered and left to dry in the sun.
The grandmother was interested in my knitting.

Since we had time on our hands we decided to try and find the cave with stalactites when we ran into a tour of Ukranians that were also searching.
 We didn't find the cave but we did find the remnants of a castle.
Up close. 
A look back at the mountain and the saddle.
Then a change of plan from Paul, he was waking from the Roman bridge to meet us, but it was a lot longer than the 5k that the sign said, so we set off to meet him.
We were at the green flag and he was at the junction after 2 hours of fast walking from the Roman bridge.  The distance by road was 5k but Along the red Lycian way more like 15k and yes an ascent and then descent or vice versa depending on the direction of walking. We met up in an hour or so.
And changed our plan to get a ride to there
An bridge after an hours additional climb.
Another view of tahtali.
The Roman bridge.
A sad goodbye to the Lycian way. 
And also a sad goodbye to Paul.
And Suleyman from Beycik whisked us of to the big city of Antalya. 

Day 18. Beycik to yayla kuzdere

Definetly the toughest walk due to 4 hours of ascent and high altitude.
Morning view. We climbed 3,725 feet ~1,300 meters in 4 hours to get to the "saddle" of mount Olympos (tahtali dagi) with Nikki and Michal. We were starting out at ~1000 meters in Beycik.
That's the peak ahead, the climb started slow. 
That's the view below. Should we or shouldn't we go to the top of that mountain? This was the topic of conversation for a couple of hours last night and some during the long slow climb to the saddle.
There was a ladder to climb to a tea shop two thirds of the way up the mountain.
We loved referring to the saddle even though at first had no idea what it exactly was.
Sweet tasting spring water, plumbed through a tree trunk by a very creative tea shop owner. We emptied our water bottles that contained tap water and refilled them with the spring water. It wasn't until that evening that Sawsan realized she had another full 1.5L bottle of water in her backpack that she had been lugging up and down the mountains.

And also a fountain.
We had fresh squeezed orange juice and caught our breathe before the last push to the saddle.
We're getting closer, and also out of breathe.
We had lunch at the saddle,  a white bread sandwich never tasted so good and with all the excitement I didn't actually take any photos. Sawsan and I decided not to tackle the additional 1,700 feet of scree to the summit, we still  had a few km to go through yayla kuzdere. So it was a quick farewell to Nikki and Michal who were up for the climb. They had been in Cirali for two months staring at the summit.
The beginning of a descent back to 1000 meters.
Mostly on logging roads, sadly we lost the Lycian way, as new logging roads bullodoze through the footpath. Once again we were saved by the Lycian way app and gps. It was a longer route but less steep. Another bonus of this route was the huge plane tree, probably a few thousand years old.
Shortly after we found the Lycian way for the last hour downhill to Abla Sevim's (big sister) house. 
So happy to see the red and white waymark of the Lycian way, if a little faint on a water source.

We made it at 6:30 pm to find some grinkos aka 5 Englishmen taking photographs of the mountains with big cameras. So it was an entertaining home cooked dinner hearing tales of the Englishmen who had been going on annual walking holidays together for the last 20 years.

Alba's oven in the morning with the empties where she cooked dinner.

They were traveling in the opposite direction for 7 days and had just completed their 2nd day of walking.
Once I sat down that evening I couldn't get back up for a couple of hours, but the aches are all good ones. Alba's house was full so she gave up her bedroom for Sawsan and I, there are no other pansysion in this village.


Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Day 16. Rest day in Cirali

We explored the ancient city of Olympos and then spent the afternoon on the beach. Resting up before two days of walking, we think that there will be lots of climbing.

Mosaics that are about 2000 years old.

Overlooking the beach where we spent the afternoon.
 The Roman arches were built after the Lycian constructions.
The main Olympos avenue from 600 AD.
More ruins
Beach time.

Day 17. Cirali to Beycik

Yet another tough but spectacular walk today.
Mostly mountain climbing. We were joined by Nikki from New Zealand and Michal from Southern California. The walk started out as a gentle ascent.

 Our first landmark was The Eternal flames.
Apparently they have been burning for over 2000 years. 
We did a lot of climbing (of course).


There were wild cyclamen.
A fantastic lunch in a stream where trout is farmed.
And then we got lost for a couple of hours.
Amazingly we found the Lycian way again and made it to Beycik at 7pm. 
There were views of the mountains.

The owner of our pansysion was driving around looking for us at this time. It was a total of 21.2k in a total of 5 hours 45 mins. We're at 2,500 feet after starting out at sea level. 

Spent the evening debating whether and how to climb the summit of mount Tatahli  tm ( highest no brain in Turkey) with Michal and Nikki. It will be a game time decision tm at breakfast.