Olympos

After another all night bus ride and a few short bus rides, we finally arrived early in the morning in Olympos. It's a small and extremely touristy town, which was pretty much dead given its the low season. The "town" consisted of a bunch of treehouse hotels and a few restaurants which were pretty much all shut down. We stayed at the Turkemen Treehouse Pension, although we stayed in a bungalow aka small, dilapidated shack as the treehouses don't have heating. We walked along the beach which we had to pay for since its a national park with ancient Roman ruins. They were pretty dismal, but the beach and mediterranean were beautiful but the shore was fairly rocky. The landscape was fairly similar to Colorado with lots of pines, rivers and rocky cliffs but with the addition of the mediterranean. We ran along the beach for a bit, trying to avoid the incoming waves and jumping over the rocks in the sand.

On the plus side, breakfast and dinner were included in the rate, and we had an amazing dinner beside a huge fire. Dinner consisted of rice, chicken breast, a salad, and garbonzo bean/tomato soup. There were construction workers all over as they were building new luxory treehouses complete with jacuzzis...crazy eh? In the summer apparently, the place is a big party town...kinda glad we avoided that. Sadly we didn't go see what olympos is famous for...the chimeara, flames coming out of the side of the mountain. Everyone gave really vague directions and they wanted to charge us a fortune to bring us there, and so we decided to skip it. Probably would have been cool although I suspect it would have been one of those things that is cooler to say you did it, than actually seeing it;) Louise and I exchanged Arabic and Farsi lessons, which will hopefully come in handy later on. Talked for awhile with a German chap that I think owns the place. The only other tourists at the place was a Canadian girl that was dating a Turkish guy. Called it an early and turned the heater on full blast, hoping to finally get one warm nights sleep...after awhile 10' by 8' shack felt a bit warmer. There is something to be said for a good heater, and it's something they seem to be lacking in this part of the world, at least in the $20 hotels;)