June 2nd, God gave me a wonderful birthday:)

Happy happy birthday, today’s Treanna’s special day! Happy happy birthday, in a land so far away.

We began our day bright and early, attempting to wave down dolmuses from the main road. Finally one stopped, and it was packed full of people. We were smashed up right against the sliding door, which slid quite quickly and nearly killed us twice. The driver, for a little extra cash, went off his route to take us all the way to the Antalya airport.

Ankara turned out to be beautiful contrary to what everyone said. Waiting for our baggage we received help from a wealthy businessman who then took us to see the city in the ten hours we had to do so. We went to Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Ataturk who was the first president of Turkey after it gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. This was a bit of modern Turkish history we had not learned in school or read about prior to coming.

Along the walls of the Ataturk museum were cases full of old books. We were told that upon changing from Arabic script to Roman script in the 1930s, Ataturk required the burning of all old books. The books in Anitkabir are supposed to be the only ones in the entire country published prior to the 1930s. He also changed the school curriculum so children only study Turkish/Muslim history, and made it illegal to identify oneself as anything but Turkish. For example, there are many ethnic groups throughout Turkey such as the Kurds and the Assyrians who are now prohibited from passing down their language to their children. It was shocking to see these types of laws and actions being glorified, when in the eyes of an American it looks more like a travesty of freedom. Due to American influence in this part of the world, there are efforts being made to bring back the ethnicities of Turkey.

After the Anitkabir we were pampered for five hours at a gourmet restaurant overlooking Ankara’s only lake (even though it was more of a weeded marsh). We had four authentic Turkish courses, birthday cake, wine and cocktails. The waiters were excited about how giddy and happy we were over cake, because they said that Turkish women are harder to please, asking for many gifts.

We had a great religious, and political conversation and the man bought us English Qurans and himself a Turkish Bible (that he said was from us). We promised to read them and continue our conversation online.

A reoccurring subject was how American women think that men just want something from them when they are nice, but really it is just Turkish hospitality. However, he soon fell in love with Emily, big surprise, and said he would commit to her if she said ok. He offered to fly her back to Turkey anytime she wants. After carefully weaseling her way out of this conversation, sticking hard to her love of her new job and how she has a “boyfriend,” we were able to get a ride back to the airport at 12:30 am, and are now on our 22-hour internet-less journey home.

Alas, the fearless duo is at the zenith of their odyssey.

Monday and Tuesday: Days with the "Gods"

We got up early to see the Duden waterfalls before heading to Olympos. Unfortunately the Alp Pasha dropped us off at the wrong dolmus stop where we waited for an hour and a half. The funny part is that I asked several other people at the stop while we were waiting, and they all said we were in the right place as well. Later we found out Antalya has a reputation for mistreating tourists.

Anyway we never made it to the Duden because we ran out of time. Fortunately Olympos was so splendid it more than made up for the bad experience in Antalya. Kadir’s was full of friendly, adventurous young people like us. Like everyone on this trip, they were all surprised to see Americans in Turkey. We met an Iranian girl who was there for rock climbing, a couple who had hitch-hiked all the way from Ukraine, two Swedish girls, and a bunch of Australians. The people that worked there were really cool too. Only half of them were Turkish, and the other half were people like us who visited Kadir’s, but then decided to stay and work. I asked if they had to get work visas and they said no, they didn’t actually get paid, they just got to stay and eat for free.

The hostel itself was adorable. The tree houses had bright paintings on the side and the camp was full of roosters, chickens, and a puppy that liked to pull on girls skirts. The entire area was full of similar tree house hostels, and they all had solar panels on top.

We had been planning on taking a day cruise, but it turns out they only do those on the weekends. So instead we decided to try rock climbing. The rock wall was 17 meters (60 feet?) tall. Emily was dumb enough to wear shorts and her legs got completely scratched and bruised. Treanna wore herself out too fast and could only make it about 14 meters. It was hard, and our Turkish guide acted like it was no big deal and we were being wusses.

We finally got our long awaited White Russians at the bar that night, and then slept very well. The next day, we beat the camp to breakfast and hiked through the ruins of the ancient city of Olympos and saw a turtle and wild turkeys. How ironic.

Then we left on a sea kayaking trip with the same guy who took us rock climbing, and met up with a trekking tour group of Canadians, British, and Germans. The Lycian coast was incredibly beautiful, and it was a shame we didn’t bring our camera. There were caves and rock formations that were fun to maneuver around, and we saw a sea turtle swimming around. It was good exercise, so at one point we shored the boats on a tiny 10-ft. “beach” and started deep water soloing up the cliff faces and the rocks and jumping off. The water was a perfect temperature, and was clear as could be. We almost wished we could have spent the whole day sea kayaking.

Later that afternoon, Treanna convinced Emily to try scuba diving for the first time. Treanna is certified, however had never dove on her own before. Nonetheless, she assured the scuba guide (Jenks) that she would be fine to follow us on her own. Only ten feet under, mighty Poseidon struck and broke her mask and stole her flipper. Emily and Jenks courageously swam on despite the tragedy (they ignored Treanna’s pleas for help), and saw a seahorse (“denizalti” in Turkish). Alas, brave Treanna trudged to shore, where sun-kissed Aphrodite took pity and saved her.

That night after dinner, we survived a treacherous and expensive drive to Çirali and hiked part-way up Mount Olympos. In the activity description it said we’d be hiking with torches, which we were thrilled about. We were disappointed to find out that “torch” was just a British term for flashlight. It was still a cool hike though. For those readers that don’t know, the Chimera Flames are eternal fires that burn on the rocks of Mount Olympos. They are burning on natural gas, but the ancient Greeks believed it was the breath of some type of monster called the Chimera dragon. The Chimera flames are what inspired the Olympic torch.

Upon returning to the camp, we shared a bottle of quince wine with the Ukranian couple and listened to their stories about hitch-hiking through the former Russian confederation. It was fascinating.

Then off to sleep for an early start to our day of travel to Ankara.