Wow - our second last blog already. It seems like only yesterday that we started this. I think I will miss it when we stop - I don't suppose anybody wants to read about the life of an unemployed architect? I didn't think so.
After the excitement of Paragliding it was time for a bit of a relax. We headed by bus to Ucagiz where we boarded a boat for some southern coast cruising. It was a great boat - it had no bedrooms so the nights were spent sleeping on the deck - inside on the first night - but outside under the stars on the second. We spent the days swimming, eating, swimming, drinking, swimming, eating, swimming, dancing....etc. We even managed to start and maintain a conga line around the deck for about 15 minutes. Our lovely hosts cooked the most delicious food and we all felt very spoilt. We did also visit a few local historical sites including the "sunken city" and some local villages for home made ice cream.
Chilling on the boat
Sunken City (more crumbled than sunken I think)
Dinner fresh from the sea - delicious
It's a hard life
Our home for 2 days - nothing to do but relax and swimAfter leaving the boat we were on the road again heading for Cirali. Cirali is a tiny town located on a long wide beach with beautiful mountains surrounding it. While it is home to 2 of the most impressive things we saw on our trip it is not at all touristy and the main inhabitants seem to be chickens, cats and dogs who co-exist in a very tense, danger fraught relationship.
The first attraction we saw was Chimeira. We set off about 9:30 at night and climbed what seemed like 1000s of stairs up to a rock outcrop where flames have burned naturally out of the rocks for around 4000 years. There are lots of flames which vary in size from the one you can see below to tiny little ones. It made all the stairs worth while - I've never seen anything like it.
The next morning we headed to the ruins of the ancient city of Olympos, which are located on the beach we were staying at. They were unlike any of the other ruins we had seen in turkey as nature had done a pretty good job of reclaiming them. It felt very Indiana Jones as we pushed through vines and crossed streams on fallen tree trunks.
The first attraction we saw was Chimeira. We set off about 9:30 at night and climbed what seemed like 1000s of stairs up to a rock outcrop where flames have burned naturally out of the rocks for around 4000 years. There are lots of flames which vary in size from the one you can see below to tiny little ones. It made all the stairs worth while - I've never seen anything like it.
The next morning we headed to the ruins of the ancient city of Olympos, which are located on the beach we were staying at. They were unlike any of the other ruins we had seen in turkey as nature had done a pretty good job of reclaiming them. It felt very Indiana Jones as we pushed through vines and crossed streams on fallen tree trunks.
The ancient city of Olympus (and Ben)
View from Olympus - aka heaven
Ben relaxing near the natural flames at Chimeira
Burning rocks of ChimeiraFrom Olympos we were back on the bus and headed to Antalya for the night. Once we'd arrived at the hotel Ben and I set off for a bit of an explore and happened to come across the "Orange film festival" parade. We saw all the big Turkish movie stars and the crowds were going crazy for them. You could tell the tourists by the look of confusion on their faces. Needless to say we recognised no one.
Giant hand in Antalya
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