Turkey Part 1

Upon landing in Istanbul, Turkey, I had to go through customs and obtain my Visa. Apparently the Visa office only accepts US$ or Euros€ and not the Turkish form of money (the Lira) which I found interesting. I had Hungarian Forints on me and Romania Leu but no dollars or euros, so they sent me to the ATM to unnecessarily remove either of these cash forms regardless of the fact that outside of the customs office I needed Lira. Being that you don't question anyone from customs, I politely went to the ATM and withdrew Euros since the chance of them being useful at some point on my trip was more likely than any US dollars. After paying, customs didn't ask one question, and I continued to my boarding gate for the connecting flight to Antalya.

I forgot to mention one thing earlier. Being that I bought my flight on a Saturday while in Brasov, arrived in Bucharest on Sunday to explore, and flew out of Romania on Monday around noon, I hadn't had time to book a place to stay in Antalya. I had glanced online an had a vague idea though. On Sunday while in Bucharest, I did remember that Jarrod'a friend lived in Istanbul. I messaged Jarrod and got his name so that I could see about visiting his friend, Can (pronounced John), in Istanbul. I sent Can a message on Facebook, asking if he would be around Istanbul any weekends and if he could show me around. His reply was something along the lines of...I have bad news, I moved to Antalya two months ago so won't be in Istanbul, but if you make it here then let me know. Little did Can know, this was great news! I let him know I was flying into Antalya the next day. He said alright, well then you can just stay with me and I can show you a little of town when I get off of work. I was stoked about the great news. When I arrived in Antalya, I took a long adventure on the bus, first going extremely out of the way by mistake. I asked a local how to get to "Terracity" which is where Can lives. He spoke to someone at the bus station and walked me to the bus I needed to take back into town. Since I had to take Euros out at the airport instead of Lira, I had no money for the bus ride. It was about the equivalent of $1. The gentleman helping me insisted that I take the money from him to get the bus. So far, the Turkish people were presenting to be very friendly. After meeting up with Can, we went for a traditional Turkish dinner and met his friend for a drink before calling it a night.

View of the coast on the East side of Antalya.

Gateway to the old town Antalya

On Tuesday Can had to work but he offered for me to use his washer to do my laundry. I am not sure I have ever been so excited to do laundry! The last time I had a chance was before leaving Austria, and I was running low on clean underwear which is never a good thing! After hanging everything on the drying rack, I set off to walk to the old city of Antalya along the ocean which is met by gorgeous cliffs. I found an area to scramble down the rocks where there were also some fisherman, and I enjoyed an amazing view of the ocean and the mountains across the bay. After some exploring, I continued my journey into town. The old city consists of narrow roads and extremely old buildings filled with shops and restaurants. I walked by a younger gentleman sitting in front of a rug shop, clearly bored. He asked how I was doing and then where I was from. Since I had about six hours to kill before Can got off of work, and the Turkish people seemed so friendly, I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a quick chat with him. After a couple minutes, I said good-bye. He offered me tea inside the shop. I politely declined. He insisted, saying he needed to practice his English. I decided since I was on no time schedule, I could sit down inside the shop for five or ten minutes and talk to him and his father who owned the shop. They were really kind and told me a couple places to visit in Turkey, and then the son sent me in the direction of the boat docks a couple of blocks away.



Rug shop in Antalya





Antalya Port



I was staying one more night at Can's and then heading to the countryside to a place called Jo.Si.To Camp which "houses" lots of rock climbers near tons of climbing areas. Can allowed me to leave some things I didn't need at his house before setting out to rock climb and camp on Wednesday. It was quite the adventure (of course) arriving to the climbing camp. First I took bus KL94 to the main bus station (Otogar). At Otogar, I asked the information desk about bus 521A that Can had looked up online and said should take me towards Geyikbayiri which was a few kilometers further than Jo.Si.To. The lady at the information desk said to walk a couple blocks to a smaller bus area where bus 521A would leave from. I found the spot surprisingly well, with an hour to kill before the bus departed at 4pm according to online when Can looked. At this small station, no one spoke English well, and there is no way I can pronounce Geyikbayiri, so I had written down the town name and the bus number. I was told the bus going all the way out to this village wouldn't be leaving until 5:15pm so I found some food nearby and sat down in the grass nearby to read. The gentleman that helped me at the bus station where I needed to leave from offered me tea from the Taxi stand across the street and a picnic table to sit on. He then proceeded to fend off the taxi drivers for me (including his brother) who love trying to convince you that you need to take a taxi to wherever you are going. One taxi driver even guessed where I was going (I'm sure the backpack gave it away!) and showed me a picture of the Jo.Si.To camp entrance sign. I showed him the paper I had that said bus 521A to Geyikbayiri. He tried to tell me I was going to have to walk 5km to arrive at the camp unless he took me in a taxi. I really had no clue if this was true, but 5km wasn't a big deal either way, and especially not for the price difference it would have been. When the bus finally arrived at about 5:20pm, I jumped on and headed for the countryside. It ended up costing 5 Lira which is less than $3. Getting closer to the camp, I asked the bus driver if he could stop at the road leading into Jo.Si.To and he seemed clueless. I was thinking great, as it was starting to get dark out. The locals on the bus overheard me though and motioned for me to sit back down and hand gestured while speaking Turkish that they would tell the bus driver when to stop. Sure enough, he pulled over right at the entrance and the locals pointed me down the road towards camp. It was about a quarter mile walk in as it grew darker, but I was all smiles as I could see silhouettes of rock and mountains around me.

I checked in and proceeded to find two trees where I could set up my camping hammock I had been traveling with. I was pretty excited to use it for the first time. The campgrounds and cabins at Jo.Si.To are complete with a restaurant/bar that is open from 8am until 11pm for the climbers to relax and meet new people. Another building has gas stoves and cookware for anyone to use, as well as showers and toilets. On Thursday morning, I found a Canadian to climb with who was also traveling alone. After a good first day back at climbing, we walked to a restaurant not far away and bought some fresh trout from the kitchen. I bought two whole trout, about a foot long, setting me back about $2.25...not too shabby. I arrived back at camp and cooked them quite proudly, being that it was my first time to cook whole fish. I checked the weather for rain since I didn't have a tarp to throw over my hammock. It appeared that it was possibly going to start raining around 6-8am the next day. I decided to risk it and went to sleep around midnight only to be so rudely awoken at 4am by rain drops on my forehead. They were light so I wasn't concerned. Thirty minutes later though I wasn't so lucky and they began to pick up. I decided I should pack up my hammock and bags so they didn't get soaked and throw them in the camping kitchen area. I move myself and sleeping bag to the swing on the covered porch of the restaurant. You might be asking yourself what I was going to do next. Well, I figured I could sleep, but at this point I of course wasn't so tired. I decided to take the opportunity between 5am and 7am to catch up on my blog entries which brings me to the present moment at which time I will bid you adieu until further entries (and hopefully better nights of dry sleep).