Aug. 24- Took the 11.15am bus to Orteca, and a dolomus (small local bus) to Dalyan by 6pm. Walked thru town & found the Cinar Pension and booked a room. This place was mentioned in the LP book, and for good reason. It's clean, with a great roof terrace view of the famous rock tombs across the river. The owners are Ali and his wife, and Ali's parents, Salim & Fatma. We walked around town, and had dinner at Caretta per Ali's recommendation, where we met the nice staff including Mike & JJ....yes, JJ! Had great turkish pizza w/spicy meat & thin crust, and a steak w/peppercorn sauce. The local wine- Doluca- is not to shabby. We didn't try the featured dessert- "Viagra of JJ"- but were definitely intrigued... Had an Efes back in the room while Jason tried to climb that rummy mountain and cut down on JJ's lead.
Aug.25- Along with rooms for rent, Cinar Pension also offers boat tours of the surrounding area (like tons of tourist companies). We decided to do all of our boat excursions thru Cinar, to keep the tourist numbers down and deal with people we already knew we could trust. So, at 6am, we boarded the Cinar's boat, along with our captain/guide- Salim.
Salim is in his 60's and speaks no English. He's a lovely little man with a heart of gold, and a bit of rheumatism in his shoulders and knees. He likes boating, thermal baths, and grilling fish for friends and family... OOPS, got off onto a "Dating Game" tangent there for a moment. Well, all of this is true of our man Salim. He took us to see large turtles (about 3 ft long), to the Koycegiz lake that the river connects to, and to a thermal/sulphur hot spring for an early morning bath. That's where we learned of the rheumatism from Salim (we take it back, he knows SOME English...like "rheumatism").
Back to the pension for brekky on the beautiful terrace, and prepared for boat ride #2. Napless but content, we got back on the riverboat with Salim & five Turkish tourists, Murat, Orhan, Zuleyha, and another couple. Our first stop was the ruins of Kaunos, where Zuleyha got us the Turkish discount (2 lira instead of 4), due to her determination, Turkishness, and probably a little femininity! After finding out that there is the Turk price and the tourist price, she convinced the guy to give us the same price since we were her friends. He grumbled something like "I'm not supposed to do this and you are not being fair using that Jedi mind trick on me!" and let us in for the cheap rate.
Kaunos was impressive, but nothing compared to Efes even though it supposedly is only 10% uncovered. Only the future knows. After Kaunos, we headed to turtle beach, which is a peninsula separating the ocean and river. We had a quick lunch on the boat w/Salim and headed to the beach side to check it out. After a few hours of reading/body surfing, we headed back to the boat. We headed north up the river to the mud baths. We spent a cheap 4 lira (less than four bucks) to get the total mudbath treatment, swimming in the mud pool, dry in the sun, back into the pool, shower off, and hot spring bath to top it off. Next, we headed back to the lake, and had a sunset swim- the same spot where we took a dip during sunrise!
Back at the pension, we had grilled fish & lamb dinner prepared by Ali & his wife, and hit the hay- we were pooped!
Aug. 26- A looooong ride to Oludeniz! First, the main bus ride was longer than expected. Then, the dolomus seemed to pick up every single person walking alongside the road and at every corner. The 20 minute dolomus estimate was more like an hour. The beach at Oludeniz was beautiful, but the small rocks which made up the beach reminded us of one of our least favorite parts of Greece. But after Greece and Oludeniz, it's obvious you have to sometimes give up comfort for beauty!
After returning to Dalyan, we had another great dinner at Caretta. Before telling our friends bye, we sat in the front (the other side) of the restaurant and had a coffe & Bailey's, while watching the man across the street wash his upper body with a rag in the middle of his bakery. Minutes later, his son did the same thing. It was no wonder that he had zero business while we were having our coffee. Then off to a nargileh place for some R&R. Saw their pet- a large rooster perched on the bicycle next to the bathroom, and enjoyed some good music.....over, and over, and over again. Over time, we have learned that many people like to put a CD into the stereo and let it go. They don't seem to notice the same songs repeating every 30 minutes. Maybe it's the language thing? All I know is, J3 almost became "Psycho Killers" after hearing the song with that name by Talking Heads 4 times! We decided to chill out with a nightcap nextdoor at the "Rock Bar", where we met Iceberg (bartender) and Psycho (DJ) while listening to awesome metal music, like Nirvana, System of a Down, Korn, Metallica, RHCP, etc. Ahhh, what a relaxing way to finish a beautiful day....
Aug. 27- Another great brekky on our terrace, then out to hike the rock tombs we've been gazing at for days. Took the rowboat across the river, paddled by one of the little old ladies working the boats. We made the stiff but not-too-difficult hike to the tombs, which gave us a magnificent view of the river, Dalyan, and the surrounding areas.
We returned to Cinar, said goodbye to our gracious hosts, and were off to the bus station for our next ride- this time, to the famous land of Cappadocia.
WOWOWOW.
I'm jealous.
Why would you guys come back?
But really, are you ever coming back to see your friends in the US? We miss you terribly.
Love Brian, Suzy, Declan & Jake.
Posted by: Brian | September 16, 2005 at 01:29 PM