Wednesday, 4.15.2009
Got off at the bus station in Antalya. Got breakfast. I had some kind of bread with cheese in it. Of course I have no idea what it was. Sorry. Took a mini-bus for an hour, maybe hour and a half-long ride to Olimpos. Chilled for a while, then took a shuttle thing down to the... I don't know what to call it. The bottom, haha. We were on a mountain and the shuttle took us down to sea level, I guess. Checked into our hostel thing. The big thing down there is tree houses. We stayed in a bungalow instead of a tree house though, because the bungalows had running water. Oh yeah.
Headed out to the beach. I just have to say, Olimpos is absolutely the most epic place I have ever, ever been. You have to walk (or hike) through ancient ruins to get to the beach. I'm not even kidding.
So we scrambled through a necropolis, a Roman theatre, a Roman bath, past someone's sarcophagus, and through a bunch of former walls and columns and roads and such. It was amazing. You have no idea. I was grinning like an idiot the entire time because, really, ancient ruins? When in your life do you get to do that? It was all still in the wilderness too, which gave it more of an epic and ancient feel. Like this stuff was just chilling there. So it was different from running through castles and stuff in Ireland, and even seeing the Roman leftovers in Arles and Nîmes, because that stuff was obviously kept up. This was just... gah. Gah, I say.
So the road finally leads out to the beach. There's a river separating the ruins into two areas, really. We did one side today and the other tomorrow. But oh hey, beach!
There are even ruins on the beach!!Yes, I'm a geek. Yes, I loved it. Yes, I desperately want to go back. The Mediterranean was beautiful. And cold. But I went in anyway! Twice. But it was so blue. And so many shades of blue. Ahhh. And the surroundings of course were amazing. Mountains and ruins and green. I think I've only seen that much green in Ireland. Can you tell I'm in love? D:
After a few hours we hiked back, showered, and lounged around doing nothing until dinner. Dinner was very Turkish, I'm told. Salad and soup and bread and... well that's all I can name. There was other stuff and it was really good. We sat around outside for a few hours, around a fire they'd made. We mostly listened to other people talk. (There was a really obnoxious Canadian with a group of people... I don't know if he assembled the group or attached himself to it. But he was funny to listen to, in that "Are really hearing this?" kind of way.) Also tried to figure out the languages other people were speaking when we heard them. Geeks? Nah.
And then glorious sleep. It was glorious. There was a wannabe club thing over the dining hall and you could hear the music loud and clear, but it didn't keep us from passing out for nearly 12 hours. Mmmm.
Ancient Ruins!!
After a few hours we hiked back, showered, and lounged around doing nothing until dinner. Dinner was very Turkish, I'm told. Salad and soup and bread and... well that's all I can name. There was other stuff and it was really good. We sat around outside for a few hours, around a fire they'd made. We mostly listened to other people talk. (There was a really obnoxious Canadian with a group of people... I don't know if he assembled the group or attached himself to it. But he was funny to listen to, in that "Are really hearing this?" kind of way.) Also tried to figure out the languages other people were speaking when we heard them. Geeks? Nah.
And then glorious sleep. It was glorious. There was a wannabe club thing over the dining hall and you could hear the music loud and clear, but it didn't keep us from passing out for nearly 12 hours. Mmmm.
Ancient Ruins!!
No comments:
Post a Comment