Blue Waters

Turkey's southern coast has some beautiful beaches along the Mediterranean and we were privileged to check a few out.  One of the them is in the town of Oludeniz about 10 KMs outside of town.  We decided to hitch again since our luck has been pretty good, so got on the road and about 40 minutes later were picked up by two Dutch women, one of them worked in the area and the other was on holidays visiting her friend.

They were fun company and we enjoyed the long car ride chatting about traveling and life in Turkey, which Mar one of the girls has been privy to as she has been working in the country for a few years.  The beach was beautiful, light blue waters all around, white pebbles, and paragliders above.  The beach was dotted with cafes, so the girls decided to eat and we joined them for drinks and company.

One of our car passengers decided to go paragliding, so when she came down, we all met up, bought a few food items from a nearby store and sat down on the grass beach side for a picnic.  We chatted more about life and a little about work and some politics.  All the talk was getting long and it was getting hot, so the sensible thing to do was to plop back into the water, which we all did for a cool off.

Mar had promised that she would drive us back into town, which was extremely kind as it was getting late and the buses had probably all departed.  We sat down for dinner and Mar shared her business plan of bringing disabled people from Holland and introducing them to paragliding.  Her business partner was at the table and we talked at length about the idea of opening up ecotourism to people with disabilities.

We walked back to Mar's car, only to find that the car's batteries were dead, must've left the lights on, so with nothing but uphills all around, managed to get it to the top of the hill where she popped the gear and the car started with a lurch.  We ran downhill, hopped in the car and off we went.

Our next beach destination was Kabak near the town of Faralya.  Kabak is a remote beach tucked away between two cliffs and thus is isolated, quiet, and beautiful.  The beach lies close to the famed Butterfly Valley, so when we reached the beach, we could see a few of these creatures flying around displaying their yellow and blue wings.

You reach Kabak after hiking down the valley for an hour or so, which has great views of the Sea and the surrounding lush green valley.  We were told that in 2009, a hiker was killed after he failed to follow the trail markers and fell off the cliffs to his death.  The beach was quiet except for a brown Labrador who seemed very eager to play fetch.  The beach was void of any sticks, so picked up a small stone, threw it, and he went chasing and brought it back.  We played for a while, even went swimming together, and when it became too hot, found a shade under a tree and zoned out.

Sabeen, the dog, and me had our fill of the sun and the water and so parted ways, the dog gave us a few barks and ran away to find others and we climbed back up the cliff to find a bus to get us back into town.