Our last day with this balcony view, which we got up early for in anticipation of a busy day of sights and traveling.
Our first stop was at a nearby attraction named Patara where there were more ancient ruins and a public beach (paid entry) which was a Loggerhead and Green turtle breeding ground.
Side note about paying for access to ruins - it was here that we realized that we would have been better off having bought a “Muzicart” (museum access pass) at the Hagia Sophia, as it would have provided access to all the museums and places with public access to ruins for one fixed price...lesson learned :-(.
The beach was sand and had more waves than the earlier beaches we have been to, but we rented chairs and an umbrella and still had a great, refreshing time in the water!
Turtle nest where they had hatched three days earlier - those are baby turtle tracks!
After a couple hours of playing in the water and laying on the beach, we headed on to Saklıkent National Park, as there were mentions of a canyon hike. We drove pretty much directly to it, but it seemed more like a circus than a national park, so we kept driving for another 30min only to realize that was indeed the park. After a bit of ”travel tensions” we went back to where the map indicated, paid for parking (and the bathroom), then headed into the thrall of people to see what it was about.
Initially we saw people getting in inner tubes and being pushed into the rushing river, apparently to be picked up later and returned. The sun was blazing hot and the water glacier cold, so we opted out of that “experience “.
Wandering around a bit more we saw what looked like entry to the canyon the river came out of, so paid the 9TL/ea to see what it was about - skeptical from the crush of people making their way into the canyon.
While it was crowded at first (reminded us of Zion), after a little walking it thinned out quickly.
There was an elevated boardwalk, like Johnston Canyon in Banff National Park, that led to a river crossing.
We walked up the river for several kilometers, which involved climbing over many boulders, sometimes in rushing water - danger!
At the end of the canyon was a waterfall, which Tammy couldn’t resist :-).
Much of the other water sources in the canyon simply came up out of the rocks.
Near the inner tube launch area, they had these neat tables for the nearby restaurant that were in the water!
We came across a vendor selling time in his “doctor fish” tanks - Tammy couldn’t resist. Skin-eating fish danger...
After Saklikent NP, we were off to our hotel, which we had suspicions about but were hoping for the best (we’d picked “funky” over “institutional” for the next two nights). Rather than take the shortest route, we thought we’d follow the backroads which didn’t add much time to the trip. After driving through farm lands and many smal villages, we found this route led to the craziest-windy-steep-narrow-no-guard-rails-huge-drop-offs-danger-road which we followed perilously for an hour. Having successfully traversed that danger, we came across an amazing little roadside restaurant with a view of the sunset and sea that people would die for.
We had a beautiful dinner there (they spoke no English) and called our hotel to verify there were no issues with checking in late - broken English but sounded straight forward. Then the real danger/adventure begins.
We left the restaurant with only ~20min of driving to reach the address for the hotel, but soon discovered that wasn’t all that was involved to get to our room. The address led to a sketchy dirt road that we descended in our little rental car (longing for the Jeep at this point). This road wound way down the hillside with little signage, but Google assured us it was the right way. We soon found out that we made a wrong turn near the end - no problem, we’ll just figure how to turn around, but it was so narrow we couldn’t really - OK, we’ll just back up. Then a car pulls up behind us and now we really feel stuck.
A guy from another hotel comes out and says “go down the road further” that looked bad but we did it and ended up being able to turn around. Now we are facing head on, so he gets our hotel on the phone to get us on the right track (both weird and nice).
Our hotel tells us to go up to the main road and they’ll come get us. We wait...then call again...somebody in a truck shows up and says to follow them to an Otopark (parking lot), then we can get in their car - danger, danger.
We follow them way too far to the parking lot and get out only to learn that it will cost us 50TL to park there. When we booked the hotel said “free parking” so we tried to clarify that, and how to get back to our car...answer was unclear (remember they don’t speak English well). Tammy stood her ground to not paying for parking and we then learned that there was free parking where we first met them (but not secured as well).
We said that we’d take the free lot that was closer (they were a bit perturbed), but we followed them back to the free parking. Once parked, we throw our backpacks in their truck and get in *gulp* - danger.
The drive down to the hotel (which was indeed on the beach) was yet another even crazier, danger-road, thru a locked gate and down probably another 1,000 feet of elevation. We’re still not sure how they think guests will ever find their way here alone.
After checking in, we were not sure how we will get back to our car in two days, or what condition it would be in. We drop our bags in our beach bungalow and turn in for the night...at least there is A/C.
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