From one tourist site to another, Antalya to Pamukkale

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Bryan Keith

Reminder: Jack’s slideshow (about our bicycle tour in Mexico) at REI in Boulder is coming up on June 13 at 6:30pm.

With visits to the old cities of Termessos, Olimpos, Sagalassos, Side, and Perge this spring, I feel like I’ve been quite the tourist.  This week I visited Pamukkale/Hierapolis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one of Turkey’s big tourist draws.  However, this time I biked.  The schedule was pre-determined — Ferda came by bus to meet me in Pamukkale for the weekend — but the pace was casual.  I took a week to get from Antalya to Pamukkale.  By bus it was only four hours!

This week reminded me not only of why I like bicycle touring but also why I like Turkey.  Antalya and Pamukkale are both huge tourists draws, literally getting millions of visitors from around the world every year.  Of course they’re connected by a fast comfortable highway, but they’re also connected by empty roads through welcoming villages.  Between the crowded tourist bus destinations I visited three deserted tourist sites — Salda Gölü, Kaklık Mağarası, and Laodikeia — each worthy destinations in their own right.

Outside of Turkey’s urban concrete jungles it’s easy to find roads like this:

DSCN5683 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Spring weekdays in Antalya, plus Perge

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Bryan Keith

If you’re in Boulder in June, mark your calendar: Jack is giving a slideshow about our bicycle travels in southern Mexico earlier this year. It’s at REI on June 13 at 6:30pm.

I completed another month of Turkish studies at TÖMER in Antalya.  This was the 5th month of their 12-month program.  This time the class was smaller.  There were only six of us — a couple from Ukraine (Vadim and Jenia), a young woman from Poland (Dorota), and Sofya and Nataly, both Russians married to Turkish men.  Our teacher, Gökhan, was from Eskişehir and also teaches English at TÖMER.  I can now talk about things that I wish had happened.  Oh, how exciting!

Vadim and Jenia by bryandkeith on flickr
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Spring weekend at Kızlar Sivrisi and Side

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Bryan Keith

Well, this might be the last of these “spring weekend” posts.  After all, summer is coming, and I actually might just get on my bike and do a little touring.  Seems like I did this last year as well — spend the wonderful spring weather in Antalya and then ride into the heat.  Whoa, I’m getting way ahead, I haven’t left Antalya yet.

Thanks to Çocuk Bayramı this weekend was extra long.  Tuesday was the holiday, and I ditched school on Monday.  Instead of two one-day excursions, I took two two-day excursions.

The first excursion was another fun snow climb.  Although I’ve climbed a couple mountains in Antalya (Alabelen, Tunç), Kızlar Sivrisi seemed more like a real mountaineering experience complete with a long drive, below-freezing night at camp, a 4am start, a rocky crux section, and a short fantastic summit ridge.  At 3070m it’s the highest summit in western Turkey.

DSCN5230 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Spring weekend at Tunç Dağı and Güver Uçurumu

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Bryan Keith

With Turkish class keeping me more than busy and a bit cooped up during the week, I’m starting to take advantage of the weekends to get out.  Climbing and biking seems like a good combination though I haven’t combined the two in one day here like I did in Colorado.

My second attempt at Tunç was with Cemalettin, Ahmet, and Mehmet (a.k.a. Komutan, due to his military service).  Ahmet and Mehmet are such ridiculously common names, it’s funny.  I’ve met countless Ahmets and Mehmets in Turkey so that if I don’t remember a guy’s name, one of those is a reasonable guess.  The Dick and Jane of Turkish are Ali and Ayşa, but I’m not sure if I’ve met a single Ali or Ayşa.  However, the same thing goes for Dick and Jane in the US, doesn’t it?

During my previous attempt on Tunç we were thwarted by ice on the road so that we couldn’t even get to the trailhead.  Also on this trip the driving part turned out to be the crux.  On the 2000m auto descent back to Antalya, the brakes failed.  The road is steep and curvy and has no guardrail.  I was certainly scared.  Cemalettin kept his cool and stopped the vehicle with the hand brake.  However, that wasn’t before bouncing along on the rocky shoulder for a bit which caused a flat tire.  I was impressed that Cemalettin had a spare tire (with air even!), but a working jack would have also come in handy.  A generous couple stopped, we borrowed their jack, and we were rolling again (the brakes had cooled by then, and Cemalettin mostly used second gear for the rest of the descent to keep us from going too fast).

But wait, the climb!  We started from the upper section of Fesliskan Yaylası and climbed the standard north face route on Tunç.  There are other more interesting routes, but as I’m learning, Ahmet likes to repeat routes that he’s already done.  Komutan had never used crampons or an ice axe before so the standard route was a good choice for him.  Cemalettin gave him some lessons as we slowly ascended.

DSCN5104 by bryandkeith on flickr
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A bit of hiking at Termessos and Sagalassos

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Bryan Keith

What funny names.  I asked a number of people what this “sos” suffix means, but I never could get a straight answer.  Even people who seemed to know something about the etymology of some of the names just made up an answer on the spot.  They’re both very strange sounding words in Turkish, and “Sagalassos” in particular is even difficult for Turks to say and has two different spellings (with rather different pronunciation) in literature about Turkey’s archaeological sites.

The area around Antalya is packed with archaeological sites.  Termessos and Sagalassos are both Pisidian cities, whatever that means.  I don’t really know anything about the archaeology here so I think I can get away with just calling this stuff “Roman”.  The collection of Roman statues and such at the main museum in Antalya (simply called Antalya Müzesi) is impressive.

Hatice by bryandkeith on flickr

I went to Termessos with Gül.  We took a Kortuteli-bound dolmuş to the turnoff from the main road and then an expensive taxi steeply up the last 10km to the site.  The setting of the ancient city is impressive.  We spent quite a few hours walking around the large site.  One could think of it as a National Park in the nature sense (it is in fact a National Park…) with the added bonus of a bunch of old buildings and walls.
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