Sakliekent and the goodbye to Kas

We did a lot of driving while in the Antalya region, we went from the city to Kas- a good three hours- and then to all the sites and places Ali wanted us to see. Of course, Ali was quite mysterious each morning when we were getting ready to leave. Alice and I got pretty frustrated a few times because we wanted to know if we should bring bathing suits and towels or if we needed to dress less like tourists than usual and all Ali would say is "We're going somewhere special."

While with Ali we saw so many places it's really difficult to talk about them all. We went to Demre and saw the tomb and church of St. Nicolas- yes, that means the church of Santa Claus!!!

We headed back into the mountains and drove up and around and over and under and all around until we came to Xanthos and saw an old amphitheater and temple. It was a Roman city (??? I think???) and is special because the city was often conquered and reconquered and the citizens of Xanthos prized their freedom so much that on two occasions they burned themselves alive rather than be enslaved by encroaching armies.

After visiting there (a place Ali took us because seeing ancient ruins must be done, not because he was at all interested), we headed farther into the mountains. Cumra is rather yellow, dusty, and dry- there are lots of crops, some trees, and water is abundant, but it looks like one of the yellow and orange Van Gogh paintings while the place we were heading kept looking greener and greener.

As night was falling, we finally parked and got out of the car. We walked a ways and crossed a rickety foot bridge over a river. Halfway across the bridge, I looked to my right and the mountain next to me opened up into this great, massive gash with a river pouring out of it. It was amazing. And as we walked into that gorge, along a thin metal pathway the temperature dropped A LOT and then we found the source of the water...the present source anyway. It was bubbling out of the rock like lava spurting all over and then tumbling out to where we first passed over the river. We kept walking, through a restaurant situated over the water (apparently a popular (and pretty nifty) way to eat in Antalya), to a section of the river that we could cross to continue up the gorge. The water was FRIGID!!!! but we made it through to the other side and walked up the gorge a ways.

Now, most of the gorge only has a trickle of water coming down it and there's mostly just mud- very good for the skin- and mud graffiti. Unfortunately, we went to the beach and Xanthos that day, so we only had a half hour to explore. It was enough to see amazing, beautiful rock formations and feel the water, but the gorge is 18 km long, so we definitely couldn't make it all the way to the end. Ali's father has several times and he said there are trees and water and they call it a hidden paradise.

After visiting the gorge, we ate at one of the restuarants- situated over the water again- and had fish. One of the most surprising things about Turkey is how much fish they eat...maybe it's just Antalya, but I don't know because we had fish in Cumra too. They love it. A lot.

And, from there we parted ways with Antalya and headed back to Cumra for some rest and visiting. We intended to meet some of Mustafa's friends and visit some of the places neared to Konya...We had plans for Cappadoccia and the Mevlana museum and simple visiting. But first we stopped to visit Durmus, Mustafa's brother, in Side...And I started to have what I thought was a small case of car sickness (with driving in Turkey what it is, I thought this a reasonable solution to a slight stomache).

(Side)