Our tourist visa to Turkey expires January 11th, so we are trying to sort through the options of where we want to go next. The plan is to arrive in Germany around March 22nd in order to pick up our new European motorhome. Of course that is still a ways off and we don't even know if that will be possible at the time. But that's the plan.
So we have between January 11th and March 22nd to go somewhere different. Almost two and a half months.
The last in a series of unpleasant events that finally makes you feel that you cannot continue to accept a bad situation.
And that is exactly the way we feel about Facebook.
A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post detailing the problems we were encountering. Since then, with no explanation or apology I was able to start accessing my account again, and the temporary block that was on Ruth's account was lifted.
The whole week they had been calling for rain. But fortunately their original forecast of steady daily rain has turned out to be wrong! Instead, we've had some rain overnight, and an occasional hour or so of late afternoon rain, but otherwise it has been a very pleasant week with high temperatures of between 18C to 20C (65F to 68F).
Turkey announced new lockdown measures earlier this week that include a full weekend curfew, among other things. This time, compared to previous announcements, it didn't specifically mention an exception for foreign tourists.
Once again, the weather turned out better than forecast. Yes, there has been rain every day but it's either in the evening/overnight, or maybe a shower in the afternoon. Otherwise, it's been really nice. And perfect temperatures for hiking.
So on Thursday, we drove inland a bit to the tiny village of Pınarbaşı to find where the Lycian Way hiking trail intersects the village.
We had to go up a steep road to get from Kas, and the views were spectacular!
It's a bit odd that all of the major islands in the Aegean Sea belong to Greece, when so many of them are so much closer to Turkey than Greece.
On Wednesday, we walked the Kaş peninsula... an area of land sticking out into the beautifully colored Agean Sea. It is home to many high end hotels and private villas. It also offers up close views of the Greek island of Kastellorizo.
Yesterday's weather turned out to be far better than what they had originally called for. So we decided to drive about 35 kms (22 miles) west of where we are staying to a castle and very different village and ruins site called Kaleköy.
The village of Kaleköy can only be reached by foot or by boat. The village has been continuously inhabited for over 1,600 years.
Our expense reports are always the least read blog post of the month. It seems that most people simply don't care how much or how little money we spend! But I publish them because they occasionally have a little bit of information in them that might help a fellow traveler.
And for anybody thinking of a visit to Turkey, this will be an informative post.
We arrived in Turkey mid month, and so October's expenses didn't give an accurate indication of what prices are like here. But November was a full month of exploration within the country so it tells you what it costs for a whole month if you do things the way we did.
Sunday morning, we drove about 40 kms (28 miles) west to Patara Beach. I hadn't done any research into the place, and knew nothing about it other than it was a wide long beach and there were some ruins nearby.
So we were a little surprised to find that you actually have to enter the ruins site in order to get to the beach. We bought the ticket that was 30 lira ($5 CAD, $3.85 USD) in order to explore the ruins, and visit the beach. Many people come just for the beach and pay a little less.
We had a note the other day from another traveling couple who are also here in Kaş. They invited us over to their balcony for tea, and we quickly agreed. Joe and Josee just finished doing a five year trip in their XP Camper Overland rig from Canada down to Ushuaia, Argentina so we knew that we would have a lot in common.
It was a beautiful morning, so we decided to walk the 4.5 kms (2.8 miles) over to their place.
On Friday, we went for a hike that leads up a trail to the top of a cliff high above the town of Kas, Turkey. It wasn't a long trail, but from the bottom you can see some flags that somebody put up there, and it sure did look a long way up.
My mapping program told me that it was a 1.7 km (1.1 mile) trail, but that it would take an hour and twenty minutes because it's pretty much straight up. It gains 350 meters (1,200') in that short distance.
Lots to talk about today!
First off, happy 59th birthday to the better half of this website... my beautiful wife and traveling partner Ruth! She figured out the other day that she has spent her birthday in 7 different countries since we set out 13 years ago.
Next up, we received some photos of our new European motorhome. Unfortunately they aren't the best quality and they are just low resolution iPhone photos, but I'll show you a few of them.
Just a lazy morning yesterday, although we should be saving those lazy periods for next week when there is a fair bit of rain in the forecast. They did say that rainy season is in December, but we didn't think it would begin so accurately! They say it's going to start Monday and rain every day, but it is yet to be seen if that means a steady rain all day, or just a thunderstorm for a couple of hours each day.
But, we have rain coats with us, and we won't let it stop us from getting out there and doing things.
We had a busy day yesterday and there is a lot to share with you. It was moving day, and we stopped at another interesting and quite different ruins site along the way, so we have quite a few photos of that. And, our fantastic little apartment where we are staying for the next two weeks.
Overall, it was a great day... but it was made even better when we got some exciting news... our new motorhome has arrived at the dealership in Germany!
The Lycian Way is a 540 km (335 mile) long hiking trail along the southern coast of Turkey between Fethiye and Antalya. It is internationally recognized as one of the world's top long distance trails.
It normally takes people about 30 days to hike the entire route. We had thought about it, but we don't have all the right gear and so we would have had to pay a company to bring our bags from one overnight stop to the next. Also, we have no ambition to be out hiking in bad weather, and rainy season (although apparently a bit late getting started this year) is just around the corner.
Yesterday was supposed to be a day of rest. And for the morning, it was. We sat around and did some computer research.
But we needed to pick up a few things and go to an ATM, so in the afternoon we went for a walk. Our day of rest turned into an 8.5 km (5.3 mile) walk. Oh well... we needed the exercise.
