Starting to notice the change in the toilets now. The sit-on ones are slowly not there, the footprint ones are more to be seen. For a while we have had to put toilet paper into a bin and not in the toilet, things change!
Leaving Burdur il Siniri early in the morning we travelled down the mountain roads with snow on the hills around us, poppies in the fields, lovely dry stone walls and even more lovely brilliant red roses. Outside the towns there are farms everywhere and now grape vines can be seen again. There does not appear to be a shortage of water here, probably melt water from the snowy mountains. Turkey is a beautiful country spoilt only by the rubbish dumped by the truck load in places on the side of the road, but thankfully not everywhere. I was surprised to see mosques with shops as part of the building.
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| A general view of the area |
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| A mosque with integral shops |
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| Block of flats with hot water solar panels |
We stopped at Saklikent Gorge and the Karacay River late in the morning. The gorge is 18 kilometres long but because of the flooding river we could not walk very far along the gorge as what was seen was interesting. There was a tourist complex with hotels at the entry to the gorge and tree houses for hire as well. Apart from the river being very noisy it was a pleasant place to stay for a while.
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Views of the gorge |
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Springs coming out of the mountain |
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At 1330 hours we arrived at the Sugar Beach Campsite in the village of Oludeniz. Chickens, dogs, cats and one rabbit run round here as they feel like. It was hot when we arrived and became hotter as the afternoon progressed. Those who were to go paragliding tomorrow had a meeting with the company concerned while the rest of us kept out of the sun.
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The camp site caters to the British for weddings using the bay, which is called the Blue Lagoon, and the mountains around the bay as a beautiful backdrop. Everything is available here for the wedding including £1000 for the legal paper work to be completed. Anyone interested contact the Sugar Beach Club!
The nearby village, about ten minutes walk away, is a tourist paradise and a rip-off. All prices are inflated and the place looks like Yarmouth beach front though the beach here is much better. There is nothing but restaurants, cafes, bars and small shops with different grades of hotels. Included in this is the obligatory British man who is topless and horribly frontly challenged. Ugh!
Views of the main shopping roads in Oludeniz (there are hardly any other) and a map of the area (if it can be read).
I decided to treat myself to a haircut and beard trim requiring two translators to make it clear to the barber that I did not want all the hair taken off. The haircut included having my eyebrows plucked, the hairs at the side of my eyes and the hairs on the top of my nose plucked. This was not quite the end as he then used a flame to burn the hairs in my ears! I have never had burnt ears before and they did smell as well! I did have tears in the corner of my eyes at the end of the 'haircut'. This concluded after more than an hour with a head, back and arm massage, and all for £7. I even bargained for the cost of the haircut!
Having a haircut
Pick your breakfast
After the haircut I treated myself to a full English breakfast, at 13.00 hours (1 o'clock in the afternoon, really living it up). Care had to be taken that the board advertising the meal was read beforehand as it had to include tea, if not it was an extra, and that there were one or two eggs, one or two rashers of bacon, proper English sausages, and not to be forgotten, HP sauce. I did see the bottle and it looked like and tasted as the real thing! One board advertised a full Sunday roast beef and yorkshire pudding meal. Some of the others in the group went paragliding and I saw them land on the beach. They all enjoyed themselves and celebrated with cocktails!
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| Breakfast |
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| Coming in to land |
Most of the voices to be heard were British. Talking to the staff at the campsite they said that the biggest number of tourists came from the UK and the second from South Korea, not expatriates but direct from South Korea. The reason is the paragliding as Oludeniz is considered to be the second best place in the world for paragliding. I do not know where the first best place is though. There was certainly a lot going on while we were there. The bay is said to be rated as one of the best five in the world and we definitely disagreed with this as it is a pebble beach, where there is sand it is very coarse and the sea has an oily scum on it where the tourist boats near the shore. There are definitely better beaches than this, even in Turkey.
Hot water solar panels are really the thing here. I did find one hotel that had an array of 72 panels in the garden. They are absolutely everywhere as I have mentioned before.
I have ordered a chocolate cake for my birthday which will be ready to be picked up tomorrow.
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