Sunshine and St. Nick

Yesterday was just one of those great travelling days. We awoke to glorious sunshine and once again set off in a southerly direction. Most of our drive was right along the coast of the Mediterranean and offered stunning views of the coastline. We stopped briefly in the town of Demre to visit St. Nicholas's church and statue. The story goes that he was very generous and saved a poor man from having to prostitute his daughters. The good saint tossed a bag of gold coins into the man's house through the window, and he was able to use the money as a dowry for one of his daughters. When St. Nick went back to leave more money for the other two daughters' dowries, the windows were all closed so he climbed to the roof and threw the money down the chimney. I can't quite understand why someone would want to move from the sunny Mediterranean coast to the North Pole, but there you have it.

We continued on to Olympos which isn't really a town at all, at least not in the modern sense. The only accommodation is in "tree houses" or rather bungalows along a dirt road through the forest. A few kilometers from our bungalow was the entrance into the ruins of Olympos (circa 100 BCE to 600 CE). We spent a couple of hours wandering through the ruins, none of which has been restored and are very broken down. I think the tomb of Marcus Aurelius is here - there is a memorial tomb for him as well as what I believe was his real tomb but am not 100% certain. Pretty cool either way. The forest has all grown up around these ruins so it's somewhat of an Indiana Jones adventure to visit them.

At the far end of the ruins, we came out at a beautiful beach where we relaxed in the late afternoon sunshine and had a swim in the sea. It was a much more enjoyable swim in the Mediterranean than I had experienced a couple of days ago. Once the sun left we beach, we ambled back through the ruins to the gate and I left the others to explore some more ruins on the other side of the site. I'm glad I did as I saw a cool necropolis, theatre (totally broken down) and the Roman baths which were really lovely.

Once back at the tree house, we settled in around a bonfire and had a few drinks before dinner. We played some campfire games and generally had a pleasant evening. I'm really lucky to have a such a great entourage this time. They're all so young but wonderfully intelligent and well-educated - I'm learning so much from them. Kyle, the Canadian martial arts instructor, gave some self-defense lessons to our guide which kept us amused for a half-hour or so.

After dinner we climbed back in the bus and headed for a place called Chimaera which is famous for its burning rocks. These aren't actually burning rocks but gases which leak out of the rocks and are perpetually on fire. We climbed up the hillside and finally came to the area which is covered with these little fires. We sat by the fires and looked up at the sky which was wonderfully clear and absolutely loaded with stars. It was one of the most beautiful evenings of my trip.

We got to sleep in this morning and woke to rain. After a very late breakfast we set off for Anatolya which is a fairly large city about an hour south of Olympos. We spent the afternoon here and I chose to be alone, wandering around the city and exploring the shops and sites. Being a major centre, we were back into the hassles and touts which I found particularly irritating, probably because I was getting used to the quiet of the smaller towns. Many of the touts were addressing me in German so I assume there is a large German population here or at least a lot of German tourists.

We're leaving here at 7:00 this evening for an overnight bus ride to Cappadocia which none of us is looking forward to. Hopefully we'll be able to get some sleep. Cappadocia should be good as we have lots of activities lined up there.