Drive from Antalya to Fethiye, and an encounter with the Turkish police.

We were a little late leaving yesterday. Had the car all packed up and ready to go by 11:00am, but our Airbnb host was a little late coming to get the key, and then we stood and had a nice chat with him for a while before leaving. But, we knew there would be very little traffic, it was only a 200 km (124 mile) drive, and we couldn't check in to our apartment in Fethiye until after 4:00pm.

Again, weekends are on lockdown for the Turkish people, but foreign tourists are exempt. We figured being on the highway there might be stop checks.

But we only saw one stop check the entire time. And it was on the other side of the road as we were leaving Antalya, so it didn't affect us.

The route we took led us up into the mountains from sea level up to about 5,500'. Lots of great scenery! Here are a few pics from the drive...

As we figured, there were hardly any cars on the road.

Our car has a thermometer on the dash that measures the outside temperature. When we left Antalya (which is on the coast at sea level), it was about 13C (55F) but of course as we drove up in altitude I was watching the temperature steadily drop. As we reached the highest part of the drive, we also reached the lowest temperature, at 1C (34F) and we even had a few snow flurries.

Beautiful scenery, and empty roads.

Ruth had packed a lunch so we made a stop along the way and sat and took a break and had something to eat. We wanted to get out and go for a hike somewhere along the way, but we didn't really want to do it where the temperature was hovering around the freezing mark! So we continued on until we were at lower altitude.

We had an hour and a half or so to waste, so we took a bit of a detour. It was about 2:30pm when we arrived at the base of a hill that leads up to another ruins site that I had researched. We weren't really intent on the ruins site itself, it was more the uphill hike and exercise that we were looking for.

So we parked the car, and off we went. It was 5.7 kms and 1,200' uphill to the ruins site. And as I said, it was already 2:30pm.

Heading uphill.

And yes, it was still a bit chilly!

More great scenery.

We were about half way up when we heard a vehicle coming up behind us. 

Surprisingly, it was a Jandarma van with four officers in it.

The Jandarma in Turkey is a federal police force operated by the army. They have jurisdiction in areas of the country where there is no other police force. They also do traffic control on the major highways. 

Of course the locals are not supposed to be out and about, so they pulled up alongside us and stopped. None of them spoke English, but they understood when we pointed at ourselves and told them "Canada" "English" and "Tourists".

Then, as I expected, they asked for our passports. And we do carry them with us, so I handed them over. We were a little nervous about this because of course our visas expired last week. But we also had the doctor's letter which is written in Turkish, so hopefully that would explain our situation if they questioned it.

But, they flipped through the pages and didn't question anything.

They asked if we thought Turkey was beautiful, and we agreed. They all laughed and handed us back our passports and headed on up the road. We were pretty sure we would see them again, because the road only goes as far as the ruins site.

Look at this great boondocking campsite!

It even has a fire ring.

GPS 36.724082, 29.247861

We arrived at the entrance to the ruins at 3:40pm so we had done that 5 km (3 mile) climb in an hour and ten minutes (including our stop with the police) which was a pretty good pace.

Sure enough, the police guys were there, sitting in a little hut having a chat with the guy who runs the ruins site. We were actually surprised there was anybody there. 

He came out and spoke to us, and he held up four fingers. I thought he was saying there was a 4 lira charge, and I pulled out some money to pay, but it turned out he was saying that it closes at 4:00pm, and he was being pretty firm that we had to make sure we were back at the entrance at that time!

So we had 20 minutes! And it was a 1.4 km circular route through the ruins, with some pretty steep sections.

Man, that was a workout! We never stopped to admire anything, but I did snap some photos along the way...

Heading uphill... some more!

What a gorgeous spot. 

Shame we didn't have more time.

Ruins covered in pine needles.

A small stadium.

A small theater.

Ruth, at the city wall.

We never stopped, and I made it back to the guard booth at 3:58p, with Ruth a minute behind me!

I think they were impressed. I'm pretty sure they had bets going that we would NOT be back by 4:00pm!

And then we made our way back down. We did the 5 kms (3 miles) back down in 42 minutes. Not that it was a race, but it was quarter to five at this point and our host in Fethiye was probably starting wonder where we were.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we have no more cellular access on our Turkish SIM card. Turkey has some really strict rules about cellular access for visitors. We had read that it was 120 days, but received a message a week ago saying that our 90 day tourist visa was up, and unless we registered the phone (which can be done, but it's very expensive) and submitted the registration number, our access would be cut off. And that's exactly what happened.

So our only internet access is through WiFi when we are in an apartment, plus I have a Keepgo MiFi device for emergency. The data on the keepgo is pricey, so I don't turn it on unless I really need to.

Anyhow, I couldn't easily contact our host, so we were in a bit of a rush.

Made it to the apartment and he was there waiting with the key. No problem, because he lives in the same building.

Our last day in Turkey, and it's probably the worst weather we've had the entire time. High of only 9C (48F) today here in Fethiye, and overcast. Fortunately, they've lowered the chance of rain so while it's dreary, it won't be wet.

Yesterday's drive.

Tomorrow is a big travel day! We will try and get a blog posted from one of the airports along the way!

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