Well I guess now that we have confirmed that we are going to climb Kilimanjaro, we need to stay in shape! Or hopefully get in better shape!
We've been making an effort though... doing regular hiking and walking, and whenever possible involving some climbing. So yesterday we did a fairly short 1,200' climb to another ruins site. I know... you're probably getting tired of ruins sites.
We got ourselves settled into our new apartment for the week. It's okay, except that it has no WiFi, and the cooking supplies are not the best. Ruth showed me one of the fry pans, and I said "you wouldn't use that in your own house" so why are they supplying us with it? But, that's what you get for $20 a night!
And we realize that. But in looking at more expensive places, you really need to spend double that and even then you have to be selective. The problem is that many Airbnb rentals are used by people on holiday, and generally people on holiday eat in restaurants.
Tuesday was a travel day, so the blog post was a little late. If you missed it, you can read it here...
https://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2020/12/more-beautiful-turkish-scenery.html
We were only going from Kaş to Finike, a distance of about 75 kms (47 miles). Slow going on some curvy roads though, so we figured maybe an hour and a half drive.
Kind of surprised that we didn't get a little more audience participation on yesterday's post. We think we have made a decision, but we won't tell you about it until we actually book the flights.
Yesterday we were released from our weekend quarantine, and it sure felt good to get out for a hike. It was only two days, but when you have no backyard you do start to feel a little cooped up. We could not do 14 days of quarantine in an apartment... or a motorhome, for that matter.
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.
