Patara, Antalya, Turkey
Friday, July 23, 2010
Today we went rented a jeep and went to Saklikent Gorge, which is only navigable during the summer and fall months because during the winter and spring it is filled with water that has melted from the snow in the mountains above the gorge. There was still quite a bit of water in the gorge, some places the water was chest deep but never over your head. Where the water was coming out of the mountains it was ice cold, so cold that it was painful to walk in it even in the hot weather. The destination in the gorge is a waterfall at the end of the portion that can be navigated without special climbing equipment, although the waterfall proved to be much smaller than I had hoped. The large waterfall could be seen if you went further into the gorge but that required ropes, etc. But by the time we reached the end we were exhausted it was a difficult 2 hour hike in and a slightly easier 1 hour hike out. The hike out was easier because a lot of the places that required an amazing feat of climbing up a slick, water smoothed rock on the return trip you could just slide down on your butt. When we made it out we were muddy, soaked and a little bit cut up on our legs but no worse for wear
. Im really glad we went it was quite an experience. Im also glad we went early because on our way out it was shockingly crowded and there were lots of tours arriving.
After Saklikent we went to the ruined city of Xanthos, which has a long history filled with tragedy such as the entire city committing suicide in 400BC rather than be conquered by the Persians and fighting til the last 180 people when Brutus tried to conquer the city. It had the usual ruined city accoutrements, amphitheater, mosaic floors, road, church, etc. I never thought that seeing cities from before the common era would become such as ho-hum, everyday activity.
After that we went to Kaputaş beach near
Kalkan because we were about to pass out from heat stroke. It was beautiful, clear blue water, pebble and sand beach. But the beach is in a gap between two mountains, so the road is above the beach and there are stairs to get down to the beach.
