Olimpos - Gün 1

Shammara and I took an overnight bus to Antalya yesterday evening. We arrived at Antalya Otogar after 8 hours on the bus, and found...ugly, rainy weather. We were dead tired and still had 2 more hours to go. So, we hopped in the front seat of a dolmus:


As we wound along the coast, we saw a car accident, the Mediterranean Sea, palm trees, and some of the most amazing mountains with clouds swirled about their tips. The dolmus dropped us off at a roadside restaurant, where after 10 minutes some more exchange students met up with us.



The restaurant had some wonderful views, and there were grapes, gourds, and flowers growing everywhere.




So, we took another dolmus down the mountain, and were dropped off at Saban Pansion.

In the above photo, you can see our "tree houses" to the right in the back. They were set against a small orange garden and it was very nice.

The inside of the cabins were very small and basic, but there was electricity and everything was pretty cheap. 15 YTL per night, Turkish breakfast and dinner included.


A 3 minute walk from Saban Pansion brought us to the ruins at Olimpos (above), which were hidden back in much greenery (below).


At the end of the path through the ruins is a beautiful beach, lined with mountains.

This mini-mountain was actually climbable, and Torben, Edin and I did so.

The view from the top was really nice.


After the beach, we decided to go eat some tost (like grilled cheese sandwiches, but you can get sausage in it too), and we ended up walking a bit further for ice cream...and then eventually to where there was nowhere else to walk. The sky was getting progressively grayer, so we decided to head back just in time for it to start raining.

I never would have pictured myself "cafe-hopping" from place to place, having a cay at each little cafe along this small piece of the Mediterranean Sea, but it was really nice. We eventually ran out of cafes, and the three of us ended up hiding in the crevices of the mountain. And this was our view (kind of grim except for the one maniac who wouldn't leave the Sea, despite thunder and lightning):


The rain stopped, and we had to walk through the now flooded ruins, back to our tree houses.


Today was Torben's birthday, so they bought him a cake and one large candle. The others were exhausted from the overnight travel that morning, so they went to bed afterwards, leaving just Torben, Lisa, and myself. A man from South Africa convinced us to go to the "Orange Dance Bar." It was basically a dance floor, bar, DJ, neon lights, and a campfire all under an open ceiling. So, when you looked up from the dance floor you saw the mountains and the moon.