Marmaris to Fethiye
Turkey, We Are Back!
On the Journey from Marmaris to Fethiye
we encounter nasty glass splinters, hot springs and lots of tortoises. We shine with our Turkish language skills and marvel at the turquoise-blue water in the lagoon of Ölüdeniz. Have fun reading!
A Shit Place
“It could be a pretty shit place,” Joel warns me as we arrive at the Alibaba Hotel in Marmaris at dusk. He had booked this hotel because it has the cheapest room in Marmaris at just €18 per night. The Alibaba Hotel appears to attract other low-budget travellers like us: We meet a backpacker who had taken the same ferry from Rhodes earlier in the day. Unsurprisingly, he is German.
The room itself is not bad. For the aforementioned price, it is even quite neat and clean. However, in the evening we encounter a smelly surprise in the stairwell: A small turd. Probably from one of the many stray cats that occasionally make it into the building through the automatic door. Well, I guess Joel wasn’t entirely wrong about the Shit Place.
Dangerous Hazards on the Road
Finally, after a long break, we are back on the road. I regret it almost immediately, because from Marmaris the main road winds tightly uphill for 12 kilometres. We don’t get much further, because I have my first flat tyre. Really? Come on! In fact, it’s my first flat since I switched to Schwalbe Marathon Tour tyres in Germany. We swear by them, but even they can’t protect me against the nasty glass splinter we now pull out of the tyre.
In Turkey, according to official figures, 98% of the population are Muslims who do not (or rather should not) drink alcohol. Yet I see more shattered beer- and vodka bottles on the side of the road in this country than anywhere else. I would rather people drank in public and disposed of the glass appropriately. Am I too German? I add “glass” to my mental checklist of dangerous road traffic hazards, along with stray dogs, snakes and potholes.
This is What Freedom Feels Like
We cycle through seemingly endless orange orchards. The dark green of the leaves is contrasted by bright orange dots of fruit. We didn’t expect so much green after the barren ride in northern Turkey last autumn. Enchanted, we buy two oranges by the side of the road. The young vendor just shakes his head when we ask him the price. Usually he sells the fruit in 10 kg bags. Nevertheless, we hand him 10 Lira – he can certainly use the money.
In the evening we find a small path leading off the mainroad through a pine forest to a dry riverbed. Unfortunately, there is loads of rubbish lying around the whole forest: handkerchiefs, building material, old carpets, nappies, plastic packaging. Eventually we find a reasonably clean spot to pitch our tent. Then I notice tracks in the dried mud. Split hoof prints. Are these the tracks of a deer? Could it have been a wild boar? We can’t answer that question, because we don’t have a Turkish sim card yet and therefore no internet.
Deciding to risk a possible wild boar attack, we prepare our food a short distance away from our tent as a precaution. Then we tie our food bag to a tree about 100 metres away. From 8pm onwards, hardly any cars drive past on the main road and we have a super quiet night. No wild boars! The next morning we sit in front of the tent and drink coffee while the birds chirp. We look at each other: This is what freedom feels like!
Turkish for Beginners
On the way to Lake Köyceğiz we find a shop in a small village and restock on water and snacks. We find everything we need apart from bread. As expected, the shop owner, an elderly lady, doesn’t speak a word of English. “No worries, Joel!”, I say because I have been learning some Turkish with the Duolingo app for several days now. Joel often takes the mickey, because Duolingo is designed for a long-term effect. In the first few chapters, instead of “hello”, “how are you?” and “goodbye”, I learned phrases like “I’m drinking tea” and “he reads newspapers”. As you can imagine, Joel is accordingly impressed when I eloquently ask the lady where to buy bread. At least that’s how it sounds to him. In truth, our conversation goes something like this:
Me: Ekmek? (“Bread”)
Lady: Makes hand gestures towards the street. Evet, evet (“yes, yes”).
Me: Tesekkürler! Görüsürüz! (“Thanks, see you later”)
Lady: Güle, güle! (“Bye bye”)
Coffee and Tortoises
After an exhausting climb, we look down on Lake Köyceğiz lying between earthy grey-brown slopes. We stop briefly in a parking bay to catch our breath. A couple in a parked caravan eye us curiously and ask if we would like a cup of coffee. We beam with joy. Absolutely! The couple, both in their mid-50s, speak some English. They tell us that they have just been on holiday at the lake and are now going back to their home town of Bodrum. We learn a new expression: çok güzel – very beautiful. From now on, everything is çok güzel: the view, the coffee and their miniature dog, who goes by the name Carmen. As a farewell gift, they give us two huge oranges that they bought directly from one of the orchards. As it turns out, they are the sweetest and juiciest oranges I have ever tasted!
“Look Jana, there are turtles!” calls Joel. Oh yes, two of them. No, three! The little shell-covered animals some distance away on the lakeshore seem to be performing some kind of strange dance. Are they fighting? I look closer. Oh no, on the contrary – there is a wild mating ritual going on. We continue and give the three randy reptiles a bit of privacy.
A Mud Bath Please!
At Lake Köyceğiz we have a very special destination: Located next to the small village of Sultaniye are hot thermal springs which we want to visit. After some negotiation with the caretaker of the site, we agree on 150 Lira (€7.50) for the use of the springs and camping. In return, he promises us, we can use the baths all night long while the gates close for day visitors at 7pm.
The thermal baths resemble a swimming pool: there is a hot indoor pool for women only, a mixed indoor and outdoor pool, a mud bath and cold showers. Apart from the occasional bit of algae or lint floating in the water, the springs are otherwise really relaxing at a lovely 40°C. We rest our tired muscles before venturing into the lukewarm mud bath. After rubbing the mud in, there are only two ways to wash it off: The cold showers or a dip into the lake. We decide to jump into the lake. Brrrr, it is so cold that for a brief moment I can’t feel my arms and legs. Afterwards, even the cold showers feel warm! Back at the tent, we make a campfire from pine branches lying around on the floor and enjoy the sunset over the lake. Then we snuggle into our sleeping bags and enjoy the peace and quiet.
Nocturnal Troublemakers
I wake up shortly after 10pm to the sound of several men approaching. The beams of two torches flit across our tent. Footsteps come closer and someone walks past our tent. This is strange, because we have pitched up below the access road directly at the lake. There is only a pile of wood between our tent and the shore. What could the men want there? I wake Joel: “I think there’s someone by our bikes!” Joel sits up, turns on the light and peers out of the tent. The footsteps move away. To our relief, the bikes stand untouched where we had locked them. False alarm.
At 1 am I wake up again when a boat with a rattling engine drives along the shore several times, a few metres away from us. I wonder how Joel can continue to sleep peacefully with this noise. I listen tensely into the darkness until the boat moves away again. What a restless night. I would have slept better in the wilderness.
The Coin of the Holy Christopher
Freshly bathed, we leave the hot springs the following day via a small, steep dirt road. When we get back to the main road, I abruptly stop my bike. The Holy Christopher! The coin of Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travellers, must have fallen off my bike at the campsite. “We have to go back!”; I shout. “What?”, Joel looks at me uncomprehendingly. ”That’s three kilometres downhill and then uphill again on the dirt road! Surely the coin can’t be that important!” But I insist on retrieving my little talisman. So we make a plan:
Joel unloads all his panniers and rides back to the springs, while I wait with our things at the roadside. But not idly, of course: I’ll make us a coffee!, I decide without further ado. So I unpack the camping stove and start boiling the water. In the 20 minutes I wait for Joel, two out of ten passing cars stop and ask me if I need help. 5 stars for Turkish hospitality! In Germany, probably 1 in 100 cars would have stopped – if that. When Joel is back and blissfully sipping his coffee, he has a surprise for me: Not only has he found the Saint’s coin, but also my sandals, which we had forgotten next to the tent. Surely thats a sign!
A Salmon-Munching Tortoise Gang
In the evening we find a reasonably flat spot for our tent on the edge of a forest above the road. For three days now we have had no access to the internet. On the one hand annoying, because we are so used to googling things, checking the weather and sending messages. On the other hand, it is very liberating not to have to spend what little time we have for resting on the web.
Our campsite has a view over a small village in the valley and we can hear the muezzin singing. Next to me, a tortoise wanders by. That evening, I treat myself to a portion of shrink-wrapped salmon with my bowl of bean stew. As always when we sleep in the forest, we place our rubbish bag a few hundred metres away from the tent before going to bed. When we collect it the next morning, the bag is torn and the contents scattered on the forest floor. Joel suspects a wolf and I disagree, believing it to be the work of a non-vegetarian tortoise gang.
Fethiye and Ölüdeniz
In Fethiye we meet Joel’s mum and her partner and enjoy a week together. Among other things, we visit Ölüdeniz, a place well known to many British people. The almost 2000 m high Babadağ mountain is coming up directly from the sea and attracts many paragliders. Ölüdeniz lagoon on the beach with it’s picturesque turquoise-blue water is also worth a visit. The fact that many English people come to the town of Ölüdeniz is also evident from the imaginative names of the shops: FootLokcer, Choco Bucks, Marc’s and Spengers, and Saintsbury’s Shopping are just a few variations of well-known brands that make us snigger.
