Day: 33

When we woke up this morning we realized the water was way to deep to dive for my plate, so I just wrote it off and apologized to the captain, who seemed to have a good laugh over the whole thing, probably because he was 50 lire richer.

The only real plan for today was to get off the cruise ship, find an internet café to play blog catch-up at and see about getting an overnight bus to Istanbul. Our boat let us off in Fethyie around 10:30 am and we set out to find a internet connection for what I knew would be about 4 hours of work. I found a nice, cheap, gamers café where I went to work and Jasper and Akbar checked their emails and headed out to have a look around this little port town while I continued working and watched their bags.

They finally made it back around 2:30pm and I was just about ready to go so I wrapped things up and headed with them down to the waterfront, near the bus station where an overnight to Istanbul was supposed to leave. We had a couple of beers and around 5pm we made our way to the bus station to buy our tickets on the 12 hour, 7pm ride. When we arrived we found out it didn’t leave until 9pm, so we bought our tickets and headed back to the waterfront for another round of beers and then found a place for dinner of lamb kebabs.

I made a few phone calls to my sister, mother, and friend Ed, then got on the bus (fortunately not the Kamil Koc bus) that left precisely at 9 pm. Akbar, being a Dr. in general medicine, carries around an assortment of pill for various ailments and gave me a few pills to help me sleep on the bus. Within six minutes of the bus departing I was out like a rock.

As I said, today was rather uneventful.

Day: 32

I’m pretty sure the captain of this ship hates us. This morning he was so hung over that he would only grunt and didn’t even tell us what we were going to be doing for the day. I believe we were supposed to stop in a town on one of the nights but I think he is keeping us in little deserted bays so we get bored and buy his booze. The ship moved maybe 3 kilometers today, yesterday when he said “bad weather” (slightly cloudy) wouldn’t let us stop where originally planned. I think his planned may have paid off for him, we were out of vodka by this point so we sat around drinking Efes all day and just sitting in the sun. Late in the afternoon when they dropped us off at a deserted beach that looked like someone’s front yard.

We spent the entire day bullshitting and hanging out until some time around eight we decided to drink our entire bottle of Raki (its awful by the way) in 5 minutes. 4 shots each and about 3 ½ minutes later our bottle was empty and we were about to be really drunk, which was good because we had been kind of bored all day. Once the Raki kicked in we became loud, offensive and a general all around pain in the ass to the crew. Who were inside and we were on the front deck.

We had been picking at our dessert (sliced apples and oranges), when I found one of the apples was slightly bad in the center so I began throwing the rotten slices into the Mediterranean, somewhere around this time Jasper and Akbar were laughing there asses off at something else I must of said and Akbar says “don’t throw the plate in the water”.

Now, in classic Rob style what else was there to really do other than throw the plate in the water?

So I grabbed it and heaved.

Now, all three of us were rolling around laughing our asses off like it was the funniest thing in the world. That is until the captain and crew came out giving us dirty looks and the first mate asked.

“Where is the plate” (probably all his English)

I quickly responded “you took it a little while ago” (hey you never know, I might be that sneaky)

Akbar agreed.

The captain pointed at me and says “You throw” (accompanied by a series of throwing gestures)

Damn. He had been watching me. I was caught.

“To much Efes” I said hoping to blame it on the alcohol.

But he wouldn’t have it he wanted me to pay for the plate. I offered him 15 lire ($12 for a plain white plate), but he wouldn’t accept he wanted 50 lire ($40)! So in my drunken haze I threw down a 50 lire note just to get him to leave us alone.

But first Akbar had the balls to order another Efes!

Brought down slightly, we continued to giggle for the next hour over a plan to dive for the plate in the morning and try to get my 50 back. Not that we thought we’d get the money back, but it’s the principal of the thing.

I am sure the Captain hates us now, especially me. Well, I’ll tell you one thing, He’s not getting a tip when I get off this boat.

Day: 31

A knock on my cabin door wakes me up followed by a Turkish accented “Breakfast”. I mumble something and head up to the deck to find a spread of olives, tomatoes, cucumber, hard boiled eggs, goat cheese, bread, an assortment of jams/honey and tea. I am sure going to be spoiled when I get back to countries where my dollar doesn’t go as far. The captain tries to explain the day’s itinerary to us but all I understand is that we will head into Kas for an hour to walk around and look at the tombs in the cliffs, then travel west for two hours when lunch will be served. He said a bunch of other stuff but that was all I could decipher, I seem to be having the best luck of our group so far understanding what he said, so Akbar and Jasper just deferred to me and made me the bad-english to bad-english translator because they say I speak it fluently. I headed down to my cabin for about and hour to type up yesterday’s blog entry (can’t get behind, even if I can’t post it) and photoshop a couple of pictures.

After lunch we had been hoping the weather would clear up but unfortunately it stayed cloudy all day and the sea was too choppy to stop where the original plan had said we would. But in truth, none of us could really understand the original plan, so the new plan didn’t make us feel like we lost out. We were now on our way over to see the island covered in ruins where old St. Nick (yeap, Santa Claus) lived out part of his life. As I stood on the top of a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean it came to my attention that our image of Santa couldn’t be farther from the truth. This is a hugely tropical environment, where there is no snow or reindeer, (although I did see a few feral cats) and you would never need a huge coat. My childhood feels lessened.

After our hike around Santa’s island, we headed to the boat for a quick swim (extremely quick, the water is freezing), a shower for me, watched the sunset, ate dinner, and continued to drink until all of our vodka was gone. The captain of the ship had gone to town for the evening and came back extremely drunk around 10:30, stumbled across the deck and went to sleep on one of the cushioned deck benches. That was my queue to head off to sleep as well and hope for better weather tomorrow.

Day: 30

It’s time to move out of my tree house and head out to sea for a few days. The cruise I’ve booked was a great deal, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I may just end up spending three days on a tug. Sometime around my morning omelet I came to realize this trip was only going to be three of us, me, Akbar (a 28 year old Pakistani optomologist who works in Chicago) and Jasper (a 32 year old Canadian finish carpenter and long term traveler). The owner of the Treehouse place, Kadir, was going into town so we all hopped into his little van for a ride to the harbor which was about an hour and a half away. Somewhere in the middle of our car ride we talked him into stopping so I could hit an ATM and we could find a store to buy some alcohol, batteries, cigarettes, and hot sauce (for Akbar who began to complain that everything in this country is to bland for his Paki tastes).

When we got to the harbor we started looking at all the boats there trying to figure out which of the small tugs was for the three of us, but we soon learned that the 85 foot yacht with a crew of 3 was all for us. We were rather impressed and are sure whoever runs this tour company is losing money on this trip, especially since we brought our own booze to avoid buying it from the bar. As soon as we were underway, we made some cocktails (Vodka, Sprite, and OJ) and headed to the deck to get drunk and wait for our lunch and first stop in Simena for a short walk around the island. We powered through our first bottle of vodka just short of our stop and staggered ashore to see an ancient castle (which we didn’t go in because it was 5 lire each and we figured to all pitch in and just buy another bottle of booze instead), women selling scarves and bracelets (which we bought), and more boats and sun. After about 30 minutes we realized our boat was starting to leave without us and the little power boat was going up and down the coast trying to find us. We jumped on board and climbed back on our yacht soon to learn that the harbor police were upset with the boats captain because he didn’t have a list of our names and passport numbers so he was forced to set sail without us.

We spent the next couple of hours heading east towards Kas, listening to Jack Johnson on my laptop while laying in the sun drinking Raki and water (a Turkish licorice alcohol similar to Greek Oozu, 90 proof). At lunch we decided to play a game and eat everything given to us for the entire cruise, now lunch wasn’t to big but when they brought out dinner the crew must have caught on to our game because they brought us so much food that it took us a good 45 minutes to eat it all, but we still managed. We were so stuffed, but out come our server with a dessert of apples and oranges, they took us the better part of 2 hours to eat. The game was getting exhausting. I had realized that Jasper and Akbar were good company (we got along like teenagers, just talking about stupid shit all the time), although it is too bad we couldn’t of convinced 4 or 5 women to join us on this cruise, it certainly would have made things more interesting. We spent the rest of the night on deck acting like 15 year old jackasses, telling stories, making up new ways to piss off the crew (who seemed a little peeved about us bringing our own alcohol), having another glass of Raki and a smoke. I went off to bed (which my legs hang off all the way to my shins) a little after 10 hoping that tomorrow would be sunny and warm so we could get into the sea.

Day: 27

I rolled out of bed around 9am, and thanked whoever was in charge for letting me get back to my normal sleep cycle. All that waking up at seven for the first three weeks of my trip was really starting to F with me. I headed over to the kitchen and started my day off with another vegetarian omelet full of a salty cheese, tomatoes, onions and mushrooms, and chased it down with a strong glass of Turkish tea. I didn’t have any real plans for the day, so I asked Benny (one of the Aussies that helps run the place) about a good hike in the area that would take the better part of the day. He told me that there was a nice hike up to a small meadow and the lost city of Olympos, sounded cool.

By now it was 10:30 but before I could start my hike I was missing one vital ingredient, Sunblock. Me being as white as I am can’t really go for another day without some 40spf. I asked around and someone told me there was a little shop about 10 minutes up the road that sold my fix. I headed over there, meandered the isles for a couple of minutes and finally found a nice bottle of Nivea 40spf for a cheap $27 lire! (that’s about $20). Holy Freakin Crap! $20 for sunblock! I knew I was getting taken so I tried to barter the store clerk down, but I am pretty sure he took one look at me and knew he had a sale even if he charged 40 lire. Bastard. I shelled out the money and headed to the trailhead.

The hike was great even though I had a light rain about 2/3rds of the way up. When I got to the top I found a spectacular meadow filled with wildflowers and trees. I spent 20 minutes taking pictures and to the lookout point where a Turkish father and son where enjoying their picnic lunch. We got to talking and I told them all about my trip and they told me other things I just had to see in Turkey. They even gave me an extra cheese sandwich that they had so I could picnic with them. It was great especially since all I had for the day was a bag of peanuts leftover from my ferry ride a few nights ago. I took a long break, meet some more hikers (2 Swiss guys and an Aussie) and headed down so I could still make the end of happy hour at the hostels bar. I also must say that after six hours of hiking I feel out of shape, it was tiring.

I spent the rest of the night drinking Efes (the local Turkish beer), eating another Vegetarian dinner, meeting and dancing with a couple of cute British girls, Rachel and Honey, and just having an all around good time. I think I finally staggered to bed some time at three in the morning.

Day: 26

I rolled over and woke up I my treehouse when the roosters started making a ruckus around 6:30am. The night before had been a great time but I was still feeling it a little, mainly in my bladder. The bathroom is about 50 feet away and I’m sure I can still hold it for another hour or two.

15 minutes later I was up and dressed to piss.

I went back to sleep for a few more hours until around 9am, when I finally got up and headed down to the kitchen to see what my “free breakfast” consisted of. I was in luck, they custom make omelets here for each person! Spectacular! I may never leave. For $10 I get a bed, omelets in the morning and all you can eat vegetarian dinner. Turkey is treating me well, it’s the first country I can afford to drink in. Things are looking up, not that they ever looked down.

There was supposedly a Mediterranean beach and some old ruins around here somewhere so I decided to head out and see what I could find. The beach was wonderful and the skies clear, the pictures wonderful. I spent about four hours just wandering around checking out the area, I even found a shop and bought a bottle of vodka for the next few days. I spent the evening just having a few beers and talking to everyone about politics and religion.

Day: 25

I was rudely awoken as the ferries engines rattled to a stop as we pulled into the port of Chios, Greece, at 5am. I put my contacts in, took a piss, grabbed my bag and headed out with everyone else to the cold, windy, island of Chios for a 3 ½ hour wait until our next ferry would take us into Turkey. Our plan was to try to make it to the area around Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast. Needless to say, when we arrived on Chios nothing was open so the four of us just decided to take a walk and find a great spot to watch the sunrise over the Aegean (at least I think this body of water was still called that). We found a great little jetty with a monument to the Greek soldiers of WWII, and a broad ocean View. George got out his flute and played us some Christmas songs (I have no clue where he came up with idea to play Christmas songs), Lotte climbed onto the rock jetty and tried to meditate, until a wave hit her and she got dripping wet, and I just took pictures of myself, the sunrise, my new friends and everything else around.

We spent about an hour just fooling around until the wind picked up and it was so cold that we just huddled together behind the WWII monument and hid from the cutting ocean winds. It was about 7:30 when we grabbed our things and decided to try to find some food and tea for Maarten (who always seems to be hungry, even more so than myself), and find out where our boat departed from. Before we boarded the boat we had to go through E.U. exit customs, I had to wait in a special line for non-E.U. citizens. The border patrol seemed to be giving everyone the third degree about there purpose in Turkey, how long they had been in they’d been in the E.U. and such. When my turn finally arrived he flipped through my passport looking for my E.U. entry stamp, well it turns out I entered three different E.U. counties (Ireland to change planes, Italy, and Greece) and the only one that gave me a stamp was Ireland which said transit under it. It didn’t suffice. He then got slightly frustrated and asked where I have been, where I am going, to see my ticket stubs, and he finally gave me an exit stamp, but not before admonishing me to make sure I get entry stamps or next time there my be a fine.
Whatever.

Once on the ferry everything about the hour long ride went smoothly and we arrived on the west coast of Turkey just short of 10 am. I now had to go through Turkish customs and get a visa ($20) which actually turned out to be less of a hassle than getting out of the European Union. We exited the ferry station and where in the middle of nowhere. There was a shuttle bus of sorts that was filling up on the curb with a bunch of Greek ravers (gigantic 7-day psy-trance festival in Antalya to celebrate the solar eclipse). We got taken on the price (7 euro), even after a little negotiation from our new tri-lingual (Greek, Turkish, and English) raver friends. Our only other option was to walk the 2 kilometers into town and try to find a bus to Izmir from there. We joined this new group and our small party of 4 going to Antalya became 10. The Greeks where stoked because with ten people we could bargain on the bus price for a group discount. I was stoked because I don’t speak Turkish and they where going to take care of my transportation woes, without too much difficulty for me.

When we arrived in Izmir around noon we found a bus that left in an hour and would have us to Antalya around 7:30 or 8 pm. I had a couple of $0.80 sandwiches from the street vendor outside of the bus station, bought a bottle of water and mentally prepared myself to sit in a bus for another seven hours. The seven hours went by uneventfully, other than a few bathroom breaks and some face painting by Lotte on Jose, one of our new Greek raver friends.

When we finally made it to Antalya it was a little after 8. I knew I had to move on to outside of the city because this eclipse has brought in around 100,000 people to the area and everything I had seen online was booked. George had a friend in town and he headed of to see her and Lotte decided to join the ravers and head to the psy-trance festival. I had booked a small hotel for Maarten and I about 70 kilometers along the coast and although they didn’t answer there phone I thought I’d give it a try and see if we could make it with the shitty directions they had posted online (After the big mountain, we are on the right). My options where limited, but we managed to find a short bus with about 15 seats that was headed in the direction of Olympos, we also managed to find a Japanese guy, Yosh, who also was headed that direction to a hostel which the internet had said was full. The hostel is where I really wanted to stay, but I didn’t know if they were booked and Turkey is extremely dark at night. The bus driver managed to squeeze 22 people into this bus and Marteen even had a Turkish man sleeping on his shoulder for most of the ride. It was classic, just like a movie.

We told the bus driver we needed to go to Olympos, hoping we would see our hotel and we could call for a stop. Horrible idea, we where on a twisting costal road similar to PCH around Big Sur and just as dark in the middle of the night, pitch black. Whenever we passed a sign we could never read it fast enough to find out where we were going. Finally the driver pulled over on the side of the road and said “Olympos treehouse” (I think they were the only two English words he knew), unloaded our stuff on the side of the road, pointed down a small road to the side of the highway, and drove off. I was pretty sure he just assumed we were all staying at the hostel.

Now I hope someone can sympathize, I just got left on the side of a deserted Turkish Highway at 10 pm at night in the pitch black, with Maarten the Dutchman and a Japanese guy who spoke very broken English, and I’m trying to rummage though my pack to find a flashlight before the taillights of the bus leave us in complete darkness. I am slight bit nervous as to how this night might turn out, I think Marteen was more so, and Yosh just started asking us if we had drugs.

“LSD? Pot?”

We started walking in the direction we were pointed and after one kilometer I began to second guess myself, after two kilometers I began to mentally prepare myself to sleep under a tree (which wasn’t really a problem for me, it was warm out), around the 2 ½ kilometer mark we came across a Turkish family an the 12 year old son spoke a small amount of English who told us we had another 10 kilometers to go. Damn. He told us his father would drive us for 20 Lire (about $16), but we managed to bargain him down to 15 Lire, which is still a huge price here in Turkey for a 10 minute ride considering that the 7 hour bus ride I just took cost about the same. But really? What am I going to do? Not spend $3.50 and walk until 1 am after all the ferries and buses I’ve taken over the last 30 hours. This nice man drove us right to the door of the hostel without ever saying a word. It was just before 11pm when we three staggered up to the reception desk to see if they had beds, fully expecting them to be full and for us to have to sleep outside.

Good news! They have an open Treehouse (literally a little shack in a tree, I’ll get pictures tomorrow) that has three beds in it. Sweet! The Aussie at receptions shows us our little hut, tells us to leave our bags and he’ll buy us a beer at the bar and tell us about the place. Things are looking up.

Now comes the moment of truth. It’s Saturday night, I haven’t showered since Thursday afternoon, I slept for a few hours last night on the floor in a ferry, 20 minutes ago I was wandering aimlessly down a completely black Turkish road, I’m exhausted. Now, what would you do? Me too! I spent the next 3 hours getting completely smash with Yosh and all kinds of other people. It was a little bit of a celebration of me conquering one of my most challenging and nerve-racking days of travel. I haven’t seen it yet but supposedly it gorgeous outside here. I can’t wait for tomorrow.