Keykubad Yolu walking: Güneycik to Çıplaklı

After last spring’s walk on the Zengibar Yolu, Ferda and I knew what we were getting into this time. This five-day tour was also organized by the Konya Büyükşehir Belediyesi though the route was entirely in Antalya İli (province). We started in Güneycik (Gündoğmuş); most of the route was in Alanya İlçe (district).

The best thing was that we went with a fun group of friends. This was the first time we’ve seen Emek and Görkem since Şavşat four years ago.

Likya Yolu apparently didn’t scare away Gülizar and Ali. They joined us again from İzmir.

Here’s Ebru with some students dressed up for the 23 Nisan festivities at the school in Mahmutseydi

and Ferda showing off our campsite in Bayırkozağacı.

We crossed (Beylik period) Ali Köprüsü over the Alara Çayı toward the beginning of our first day of walking.

We spent that night at the tiny village of Aydolin where only six houses are still inhabited. I said hello to one family in the morning, and they gave me some pişi which they called sakız. The campsite there was the best of the trip.

The scenery on this tour was hardly spectacular. It’s certainly not worth backpacking, and unfortunately the villages don’t have accommodation so the best way to walk through here could be a tour like this one where large bags are transported from camp to camp by truck.

We spent the second night at appropriately named Güzelbağ. I had been through here twice before, once by car and once by bicycle. For camping they stuffed us into a caged sports field near the school.

The only ruins we saw was not-very-exciting (Pamphylia) Colybrassos (aka Kolybrassos) Antik Kenti.

We spent that night in Bayırkozağacı which was the funnest village we visited, worth exploring a bit.

Mahmutseydi has a 13th century (Selçuk?) mosque with a wooden interior — thoroughly restored/rebuilt, I believe.

As is not unusual on trips like these, at the end they like to corner the only foreigner for a short TV interview. For highlights the best I could come up with was the terraced agriculture and old stone houses.

There were beautiful women too.

Till next time…