Late July Happenings

So there’s been a bit that’s happened since my last posting – one of the biggest was that I met up with my friend from the Greece Study Abroad trip – Fred Denny – and toured a little of Turkey with him. Fred had gone off on his own exploratory way after the Greece trip, heading to parts northern Greek and Istanbulish. From there, he went on a 20-HOUR overloaded, closed-windowed minibus trip to Trabzon. Amazingly, he lived and even has fond memories of the experience… We met up in the southern Turkish coastal town of Antalya and explored the nearby area of Olympos. Something strange is a-brewin’ down thar in them parts people, and it goes by the name of the “Chimaera Rocks.” ACTUAL FIRE bursts forth from the ground in like 15 different spots, and the ACTUAL FIRE has been doing this since time immemorial – no kidding. I’m not sure if a similar natural phenomenon occurs elsewhere in the whole of our terrestrial sphere. I really think someone should tell Dean Cain, the host of TBS’s highly educational “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” about this place, so he can field a segment from the locale, which is heavily infested with Turkish hippies.
Fred and I took three busses/trolleys to get to the Olympos, then walked about 7 km to find out we had to walk up a mountain in order to see such geopyruptions. We dedicated the whole day to see the site, and we stayed probably 15 minutes – still, ‘twas worth it. Oh, also, the legend is that from these rocks the first Olympic torch was lit in 776 BC.

Afterwards, we headed back to Sarigerme and spent a few days relaxing and enjoying one of the finest, cleanest beaches in Turkey. Thence went we to Selcuk, a small town by the spectacular ancient site of Ephesus, or Efes. This, along with the Athenian Acropolis, is the finest ancient site I’ve yet visited. It is the best preserved Greco-Roman ancient site in the Eastern Mediterranean, and it is far from a tranquil, blessedly placid place. Hear this, people – word is that approximately 80% of all tourists who enter Turkey visit Efes, which I can hardly believe. But is BUSY (as my pictures attest). It is by far the busiest ancient site yet I’ve visited. We also visited the once-gigantic Temple of Artemis (nothing now but a column and some storks), and gawked at the size of its foundation. Counting this baby, along with the Colossos of Rhodes and the Temple of Olympian Zeus, I’ve now visited three of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World.
We visited the local beach, Pamucak. We were excited at first b/c we heard that it was totally free and open to the public, but if had known that this meant “totally trashy and open to horribly dirty water” then we would’ve thought twice about visiting it. We agreed the place to be the worst beach we’ve ever visited, as was evidenced by the countless number of Dorito bags and Orange Fanta bottles floating on the muddy, warm waves and lying on the beach. Plus, there were no benches upon which we could sit, as the all the benches belonged to the area resort hotels. Fred and I parted after nearly eight days together, and I’ll always be glad I was able to visit those places with a friend like him. It makes the time go by so much more pleasantly than going solo. It’s interesting – Fred was only an acquaintance to me before the Greece trip, yet I ended up spending the majority of my waking hours over 8 days with him. I’ve never spent that much time, in such a short span, with anybody else in my life! I probably won’t trump it till my wedding/honeymoon… But it worked out perfectly for both of us – he was in the area, I was in the area, he wanted to see these sites he may never have the chance to visit again, and I wanted to see the same sites. And voila! One of those joint adventures you remember for the rest of your days…