Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts

We left our quiet overnight spot at the Men of Rock parking area and drove back down to the main coastal highway heading east towards the big city of Mersin (pop 1 million). 

Not many cars on the road, and we think that might have something to do with the price of fuel. When we arrived in Turkiye January 22, we paid 13.5 lira per liter. Today, it is now 23 lira per liter. Yes, I know that is happening all over the world, but fuel was already expensive for the Turkish people at 13.5 lira per liter.

Well, that was an adventure!

What a day we had! Keep reading to the bottom for the best part!

We had a totally silent night parked at the ruins of the ancient city of Olba. But it was chilly... -1C (30F) when we woke up. A good reminder of why we've been staying on the coast! Fortunately, things are starting to warm up and the next month will make a big difference. They are calling for sunny highs around 20C (68F) by the end of next week.

We left Max in his spot and went out exploring. Nobody around but us and some goats and sheep!

Fantastic Gilindire Cave, and up into the mountains

First thing we did was to go for a short walk around the park at the beach where we had overnighted. It's a really pretty bay, and I'm sure the place is packed with tent campers and picnickers on a summer weekend. 

But yesterday morning, there was just us, one couple in a tent, and a guy picking up trash.

We have decided we are not going to Cyprus on this trip

We are now only 60 kms (37 miles) from the ferry port that would have taken us to North Cyprus. So we needed to make a decision.

We weighed the pros and cons. If we went to North Cyprus, the only real benefit would be that we would be able to extend the spring season so that our remaining time in Turkiye would be warmer.

The fantastic mosaics at the ancient city of Anamurium, Turkiye

The ancient city of Anamurium dates to between the 1st and the 7th centuries. I always have to think about that a little bit. Of course in Canada, anything old is maybe 300 or 400 years, at most. So when you come across structures that are still standing after 1,500 or 2,000 years, it's difficult to comprehend.

We had no plans to visit Anamurium until Ruth did a little bit of research to find out what there was to see along our route. And it turns out there is a lot to see! In fact, it was one of the better ruins sites.

Summer plans... booked another flight!

Sunday was a rain day. They had called for showers on and off, but it rained pretty steady most of the day. We didn't get out of the motorhome for a walk until around 5:00pm!

So we played some backgammon and yahtzee, and did some computer time. We want to get back to Canada this summer, so I did some searching looking at flight possibilities.

Another busy day, and a feast for lunch!

Lots of exploring to do in this area, and it was another nice day. Plus, it's an easy bike riding area with a good network of bike paths. 

So I got the bikes off and we went for a ride. First destination was the ancient fortress of Selinus.

Yep, this will do for a couple of nights!

We got up at 7:00am and hit the road right away Friday morning. Two reasons for this... first, it's a good way to warm up Max's interior without using propane, and second, we wanted to get out of the big city of Alanya before the traffic got heavy.

And we did... there was hardly any traffic on the road. 

That was a busy day!

And a much better one than the last few, because the sun was shining and we were able to get out do stuff! 

We needed to find a laundry. There were a few listings in the big touristy city of Alanya (pop 300,000), so we packed up early and drove the half hour or so into the city.

Life goes on

We are fine, thanks. We've received a few messages of concern because we are geographically fairly close to the action, so to speak. And yes, we are following the headlines and are aware of what's going on in the world. 

But we don't worry so much about "what if", so we continue with our plans, for now. 

Not much point in moving on

Another wet overcast day on Tuesday, but at least we managed to find a two hour window where we got out for decent walk.

Today is supposed to be worse, with pretty much non stop rain, and a total accumulation of more than two inches. We were going to move on just for the sake of moving on, but I think we've decided to just wait it out. We have electricity and a good strong cellular internet connection.

Train trip and Cyprus update

Yesterday evening, we published our February expense report. If you missed it, you can read it here. 

A few weeks ago, we told you about an overnight scenic train ride that we wanted to do between Ankara and Kars, or the reverse. Tickets are really hard to get, but we put in our request hoping that we might get some around the end of February when we were in Antalya area and we could have flown from Antalya to either Ankara or Kars to meet the train.

February Expenses

Had we not done those medical checkups and bought me a new pair of hiking boots, February would have been an all time record low month. Of course keeping in mind that February only has 28 days, but still!

We spent a total of $1,884 CAD ($1,487 USD, €1,322), but our actual living expenses were less than half of that!

Staying at our first official Turkish campground!

We got on the road around 8:00am so that we could take advantage of the early Sunday morning lack of traffic in order to get ourselves out of the city. We took the coastal route, which is a little slower going but we had done the faster route in the car when we were here in December 2020 and it was not a scenic drive through a lot of industrial areas.

The coastal route in this area between Antalya and Alanya is loaded with big resort hotels... one after the other. 

Another Senior Nomads lunch, and my new hiking boots arrived!

We drove over to Vera and Bob's apartment and found a parking spot really close by. They offered to let us use their washing machine and so we did some laundry and had nice hot showers!

Then when we the laundry was hung up to dry, we walked over to the same restaurant where we had lunch with the other Senior Nomads group last Tuesday.