Easter Sunday

Well, the bunny doesn't visit backpackers in Turkey. I gave Cecily some wild flowers and she reciprocated with a shiny stone. Today brings our long days do hiking with full packs to an end. These past two days we hiked from Cirali to Tekirova. The book says that is an 8 hour hike but it took us over 12 (Sandy isn't giving herself much credit here, while we do move slowly, she is including our long lunch and swim breaks in that time estimate). Today we were on the trail from 9:00 to 4:30--with some rest stops and a swim. The terrain has changed and we are meeting fewer backpackers. Many of the Germans and British were here for "holiday" ending on Easter or Easter Monday. We are not in a farming area and have seen no goats for 2 days now! Instead there are beach resorts and an extended area for mining chrome that has been inoperative for at least 30 or 40 yrs. last night we camped in the shelter of some ruins from a mining camp.

The hiking has been going up hilly peninsulas and then down, crossing a beach and then up and down another peninsula. Lots of work in hot sun, but good company. I am usually ready to call it a day by 3 or 4; Cec's batteries run longer.

Tekirova is perhaps the least appealing town/city we've been in. On approach, from one of those steep climbs, we saw a huge new hotel surrounded by new little boxy villas. At first it looked like a Disney version of a mosque. Walking much further into town, it was still new, luxury hotels. The first city where no one offers us a ride. Does money make people less friendly? When we finally reached some pansiyons, they were full or being torn down. A saleswomen finally helped us and explained that all affordable places in town were occupied by workers building and fixing the luxury hotels. She called us a taxi which took us to Sundance Camp--3 km out of town--more than I could walk with a pack at this point in the day. We took their last bungalow after glimpsing the somewhat cheaper "tree house" with shared toilet and "dus" (shower).

This is a strange place and pricy for this trip--$50/person for the night with dinner and breakfast. Very "new age" with people taking poses around geodesic domes. No one greets or talks to us to explain how things work. We found some posters which showed that we arrived on the final day of a three week long "Skinner Release Technique" workshop(?). We also found a Scrabble game which was a treat except that it was in Turlish with multiple kinds of u's, g's, and i's and no q, x, or w, and very different point values for letters. Playing was not so rewarding though Cecily won handily.

Tomorrow we are thinking of taking a cable car to the top of Mount Olympos and down again. Cec, of course, would have been game to climb it but I know my limits.