Wednesday, April 09, 2008

The Lycian Way: Day 5

Today, the backpack felt lighter. My body and mind had gradually adjusted to carrying more than the usual daily burden of laptop, wireless moused and unmarked test papers up the hill to the taxi stand and I was arrogantly starting to feel like I knew what this trekking thing was all about. And, I had the beginnings of a very sexy tan.

It was a late start. Damon was eating everything on the table at braeakfast and so for no reason other than it felt good, I slipped downstairs for my second hot shower in 24 hours.

We headed up to the Otogar and took a bus ride to Kaş. We had decided earlier that to cover the best parts of the Lycian path in our extremely short period of time then some shortcuts would need to be taken to avoid the uninteresting bits. In fact, back in Faralya we had received it on good authority to avoid leaving Kalakan by the waymarkers since we would have been following tarmac for eight to ten kilometres. Damon and I had instead opted for 45 of returning to the ways of modern transport and lisntening to the kind of modern Turkish pop music played therein rather than suffer several hours snaking along the paved coastal road, listening to car honrs and soaking up exhaust fumes.

As Kaş it was time to stock up on supplies - namely a small pot, rice, lentils, bread, soup mix, chocolate, lighter fluid, fruit, and the kind of sweets that Australians call lollies but that I never ate unless a) my grandma gave them to me or b) I'd just had a vaccination and the doctor's receptionist felt obliged to offer something for the pain. Damon chose a bag of candy called Olips and I laughed quite a lot because that sounds dirty to my ears.

We went downhill until we reached the harbour and then kept moving so that I saw nothing at all of the town but instead was out among the trees, bushes and other nature-type things within no time at all. I distinctly remember us losing us way, confused by either a junction waymarker that in fact was not a junction and a house with turrets that we were supposed to turn left at but in fact wasn't even in our field of vision. After sometime we confirmed the junction was a lie and the house situated around to the right. I finally understood the guide book contained about the same quantity of literal truth as the any of the Holy Books.

On Day 5 I began to hum Goodbye Yellow Brick Road to myself, a tune I would find in my head some three days later. When ar you gonna come down? When are you goin' to land? Still have no idea. We came to a strange field with rocks that were amassed in no particular fashion but that would have looked at home at some pretentious modern art installation gathering somewhere in your local wanky upmarket neighbourhoood. Entitled Rock(y) 1. There next hour of so involed a lot more prepositions of movement and some confusion involving our first motorised cistern and a temporary gate made of chicken wire. We separated ways for 500m to ewnsure we werne't actually going to take a wrong turn, though after being truamatised with chicken wire and animal kept within in at a young age I in fact just need a couple of minutes to compose myself.

Soon we were sitting down again eating more chocolate and then we were following a blue piece of rope across a field of young pomegranate trees. Next, more rocks led up to the windswept Çoban Plajı. I had once of those successful anger management moments after seeing inordinate piles of non-biodegradable plastic refuse strewn in an otherwise deserted location.

More walking before we arrived a couple of hours later we found ourselves at another protected and this time clean bay, replete with an outcrop of ruined stone buildings and cistern containing foul-smelling undrinkable water. It was here that we decided to pitch camp for the evening.

We set up the tent and proceeded to gather firewood. A lof of fun too complicated to explain was had with an enormous piece of granite and some very thick branches, although maybe it'll get lost in translation here. The fire started first time around. Fire started ensured that, and at only 1.85 YTL, it was clearly a bargain and a product for which I would need to find more uses.

The rain set in and we cooked dinner over the campfire. A few fishing boats chugged into the bay for the evening. not a sound but water softly lapping against the rocks. As had already become our habit, we slept soundly that night.


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