Ok, so we decided to dolmus it back to the Patara turnoff from Kalkan, complete with the same walk down the road we were bamboozled into doing days before. This ancient city happens to be where Santa Clause was born, by the way. Much nicer area than the North Pole!
From Gelemis we continued to hike down the road to see some of the archeological site. The site is not actually on the trail, but we wanted to check it out. It was too huge to see the whole thing though, at least, not if we were going to hike back to Kalkan.
So after wandering around lost, we picked up the markers in a field by some cows, and promptly lost them completely again. As usual. Lost, lost, lost. Lost all the time. We gave up, and followed the road up, seemingly going backwards. It was frustrating. Our early start became a late afternoon start because of all this nonsense.
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| Robin at Patara Gate |
So Yes. It took us two hours to find the start of the trail. But we did. It mainly followed a dirt road, which was great. But then, as usual, it started taking us through nasty shin-scraping brush. I got so pissed off, I decided to just stay on the road, while Grant agreed to follow the trail. In this experiment, we could see each other the whole time, but while I was enjoying my walking, Grant was tortured for no reason until he rejoined the road I had been walking on the whole time. Why Kate, why? Of course, there were great views along the way, and it was a beautiful day.
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| Lycian Way Signpost; only took us two hours to find this one! |
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| Finally back on the trail, overlooking Patara Beach |
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| Robin wasting time reading the Lycian Way guide book |
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| Close up picture of harvested Olives drying |
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| Olives Drying, Peninsula Hike Patara to Kalkan |
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| More Olives |
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| Look at that! A John Deere Tractor in Turkey! |
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| Wyoming! Where the men are men and the sheep are nervous! | What? Where are we? |
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| Ahh, the Lycian Way - you fickle serpent |
We made it to the trail junction with a site labeled as Delikkemer. The wind was really picking up, and we didn't think we could make it safely along the cliff-side trail to Kalkan before dark, so decided to hike down the road back to the highway to flag down a bus...
Well, there was no bus on that highway. Only huge tourist buses that weren't going to stop. We had no luck hitchhiking either. A friendly elderly goat herder told us we had to hike further on to the village of Yesilkoy to get a local dolmus to Kalkan. That was so frustrating as the total road walking was further than what the trail would have been! Finally, out of desperation, we flagged down a car, who happened to be that nice old man with his family. In broken English and Turkish we were able to get the son to call our cab from the day before, and communicate where to pick us up. Well, that's what we were hoping happened! They left, and we sat there with our fingers crossed. Sure enough, the taxi arrived about 20 minutes later! Yes, we're saved!!! It was unbelievable that we even had that man's card with us. Lucky us I guess.
Lycian Way, you beat us again. What was supposed to be one of the most scenic and enjoyable sections of trail, turned out to be just as frustrating and impossible as all the other sections. Thankfully, the wonderful Turkish people came through for us once again.
Effes, food, yum, good night.
Map:
http://www.mapmyhike.com/routes/view/195310248
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Keep it clean. Don't be mean.