Fethiye seems to be awakening from a long winter slumber. The morning I arrived at my hotel, the pool was empty, the deck was empty, and, more importantly, I couldn't find anyone who worked there. I walked through the reception, the common areas which had all the deck furniture stacked inside, and even into the kitchen, calling "Merhaba, hello?." No response. I wandered through the halls, I desperately used the office phone to call the office, not my brightest idea ever, but I wasn't very sharp at the time, having spent the last 13 hours on a bus. Eventually, I just settled on the deck and read my kindle. After an hour, sleepy employees came down from the very top level - the only one I hadn't searched - and got me settled in. I took a 3 hour nap, and upon awakening, the hotel had been transformed. The deck was decked out, all was fresh, though the pool was only filled yesterday. Wandering through Fethiye, a good number of shops, restaurants, and bars still aren't open, and many are undergoing renovations and revamping. It really is the start of the season, but you wouldn't know it from the weather, which has been glorious.
Fethiye is the "hub" town in the region, but there are loads of little towns nearby. Yesterday, I took an excursion to Oludeniz Beach, one end of which is a park reserve called the Blue Lagoon. Minibuses ply the route, and trying to find the minibus station helped me to come to a conclusion about being lost. I've decided you're not lost just because you haven't yet found what you're looking for. You're only lost when you don't know where you are. And I knew where I was the whole time, or at least I knew how to get back to other places I knew. Anyway, the minibus took me the 20km or so to Oludeniz, I paid my fee to enter the national park where the lagoon is, I took up semi-permanent residence on a lounge chair, and I proceeded to soak up the sun's rays in one of "Europe's Best Beaches" (but it's technically in Asia) for five delightfully lazy hours. People, it was one of the best days of the trip so far. This beach is on all the postcards, and they show wall-to-wall lounge chairs and turquoise water full of folk. If there were thirty people there yesterday, I'll eat my sock. I don't have a pair to spare either, so you know I really mean it.
My excursion today was to the ghost town. That was all I knew about it, but I wasn't expecting what I found. Kayakoy is a Turkish name, meaning Stone Village, but the village had been called Levessi by its last inhabitants. Originally settled no later than 700 AD by Greeks, they had built the town on the mountainside so that no building obscured the view of another building, very neighborly. After WWI and Kemal Ataturk's victory for Turkish independence, Greece and Turkey agreed to a population swap. In 1923 over one million ethnic Greco-Christians who had lived their whole lives in Turkey were transported to Greece, and over 400,000 ethnic Turkish Muslims who had lived their whole lives in Greece were transported to Turkey. Certainly, they're not the only people to be forcibly uprooted by a government, but walking through the ruins of a village that was, presumably, a beloved home to its inhabited less than 100 years ago is pretty melancholy. Now, it belongs to the wildflowers, butterflies, birds, bees, and at least one cow. And to the spiders, but I'll save you from looking at my photos of spider webs.
I was a little sad walking down the hill, but Ana's fantastic spinach and cheese pancake, what I would call I a crepe, cheered me up substantially. The freshly made ayran with little chunks of feta-like cheese sprinkled on top was also a mood lifter. Ana is concerned about the tourist season, so she gave me some business cards to share, but I thought I'd plug her here. When you find yourself peckish in the ghost town of Kaya Koyu - pick your spelling - go to Sac Boregi Pancake. Say I sent you.
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