Lycian Way in winter

In January 2014, I went to Turkey for the first time in winter (there had been numerous spring and autumn hikes before) and was amazed at how pleasant the Lycian Way was at this time. Firstly, it’s warm here - during the day the temperature reached +20 degrees (at night it was from 0 to +5). Secondly, it is very green - lots of flowers, fresh grass, evergreen olives and Mediterranean prickly oaks. Of course, all this applies to the low, western part of the Lycian Way, which we go straight along the seashore at altitudes not exceeding 700 meters.

We flew to Antalya via Lviv - it’s two times cheaper than flying from Kyiv. And winter Lviv turned out to be the only place on the trip where I really missed a puffer jacket.

January 3. Fethiye, Oludeniz.

The journey from Antalya to Fethiye and further to the beginning of the route was so rapid that I did not have time to take a single photo. And now we are standing at the front arch marking the official beginning of the Lycian Trail. As you can see, T-shirts and shorts are available

The incredible azure sea and a lot of greenery around made me think about whether I had made a mistake in choosing heavy leather boots as my main footwear. We had to not believe the forecasts (which almost scared us of snowfalls) and take sneakers.

It's nice to learn something new. Today I learned that prickly Mediterranean oaks do not shed their leaves for the winter - they are evergreen.

It gets dark very quickly. I hide the camera and quickly run to the parking lot.

January 4. Valley of the Butterflies.

We got up while it was still dark, had a quick breakfast and were already on the trail at 7 am. We immediately set a good pace, because we wanted to warm up - it was still uncomfortable in shorts before sunrise.

We quickly ran to the village of Faraila, threw our backpacks and rushed off to the Valley of Butterflies.

Rope descent delighted extreme sports enthusiasts. People clearly did not expect that such a popular route would have such an interesting section :)

In the Valley of Butterflies, immersed in the morning shadow, palm trees and cacti were bored in complete solitude. There were no tourists, no butterflies.

Nikolai sang to us something about Vanka the tractor driver and ran to swim in the sea. He claimed that the water in the bay was about 19 degrees. But no one bothered to check - apparently they didn’t take swimsuits :)

As expected, the climb back to Farailah was lightning fast. This was largely facilitated by a thundercloud hanging over “yesterday’s” Mount Baba-Dag. By the way, the slopes are covered with snow.

As soon as we got to our backpacks, the sun came out and we decided to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity and have lunch.

Judging by the abundance of fresh, tender grass and various flowers, heavy rains had occurred shortly before our arrival. Typically, the reinforced concrete-dense Turkish soil is literally saturated with moisture; plants take full advantage of the rare abundance.

Meanwhile, the clouds continue to roll in. The sky is darkening and it looks like rain is brewing.

At full speed we fly past Kabak - this is the last settlement on this side of tomorrow's pass. Somewhere below, a muezzin is singing, his voice is repeatedly reflected from the rocks and it seems as if he is singing with a choir.

Already at dusk we arrive at the parking lot. This is a very gloomy clearing in a pine forest. On its edge there are two ancient graves. Well, let's hope we don't disturb each other :)

January 5th. Storm, Alinja, bath day

In the middle of the night I wake up to the sounds of a thunderstorm. Overboard, the rain and wind were pelting at full speed, and lightning was flashing. I wonder how Mitya is doing, who sleeps not in a tent, but under a tiny awning?

When the alarm rang, it was no longer raining. Mitya, slightly damp, dozed under his awning, additionally covering himself with an umbrella. We prepare breakfast and head out onto the trail at the first rays of sun.

The Kara-Gach gorge looks quite gloomy at this hour.

But immediately after the pass the sun and real spring began.

In the bay, against which we were all taking pictures, there was some turbidity in the waters. We admired this play of colors and walked away from the sea. Today we have a maneuver unprecedented for this trip - we are moving more than a kilometer away from the coast.

Meanwhile, the sky became dark again.

Therefore, we dined in winter style - in hats and jackets.

In the village of Bogazici there are a lot of old houses with interesting layouts. But we are not here for the sake of architectural fossils, hunger brought us here :) We buy bread and ice cream in a tiny village shop.

From the store it’s only a 20-minute climb to our parking lot. It turned out that we arrived quite early. People decide to heat water over a fire and organize a bath and laundry attraction with washing their hair.

In the meantime, I'm building myself a new hut. Mitya’s feat yesterday (sleeping in a thunderstorm under a tiny tent) inspired me to move out of a 4-person tent under a group tent, which had been hanging around in my backpack for two days without any use.

This tent is much larger than Mitino's - almost 3 by 3 meters. There is a lot of space inside, you can safely hide yourself and hide your things, so the approaching rain did not scare me. You also don’t have to be afraid of mosquitoes and scorpions in winter.

However, after thinking a little (and looking at the clouds again), I decided that I needed to be on the safe side in case the wet soil stopped absorbing and removing moisture and puddles began to form on the ground.

Without dismantling the tent, I dragged a bunch of stones under it (there are countless of them on the Lycian Trail) and laid some kind of foundation for my rookery. The photo below shows what this structure looked like the next morning, after removing the awning. A large stone platform is designed to raise a backpack with things above the ground. At the same time, my pillow lay on it. A long stone wall is needed so that the rug resting on it turns from flat into a “boat” with raised sides.

Around 8 pm it finally began to rain - heavily, but quite calmly, without the wind from yesterday. I made sure that my shelter was in perfect order, wished the others good night and went to the village, to the store :)

During the evening recount, a shortage of cereal was identified and it was necessary to urgently buy at least something in addition (the assortment there is very modest). In the afternoon, when we passed the store, it was initially closed. But we found the owner and he opened his shop. Now, walking in the rain, I was slightly worried whether this center of civilization was already closed.

My worries were in vain - the store was in full swing. Gray-bearded old men from neighboring houses gathered there. About 5-6 people, probably. They actively played backgammon with the store owner and drank Turkish tea from beakers.

I bought some rice, replaced the batteries in the flashlight and went back. I must say that I had GPS and a walkie-talkie turned on. Even on a familiar road, in the rain and in complete darkness, it is easy to lose your way.

January 6. Ruins of Sidima, return to the sea.

In the morning the weather was excellent. In literally half an hour we reached the ruins of the Lycian city of Sidima, threw our backpacks and began examining the ancient buildings. The best preserved stone sarcophagi are in the necropolis. Most other buildings are just vague outlines of foundations on the ground.

You experience a special thrill when you find half-erased letters on stones chipped by centuries. The Lycian alphabet borrowed a lot from Greek and most of the letters are quite understandable to us. You can simply walk along the lawn around the graves and read messages from two thousand years ago. Well, or pretend that you are reading :)

The lawn, by the way, turned out to be a surprise. Heavy rains turned it into a shallow swamp. Streams flowed in the drainage ditches connecting puddles into the common water area :)

Among the ancient tombs there were also a couple of later buildings. Firstly, there are the remains of a Byzantine basilica. A three-nave structure can be discerned; two windows and an altar area have been preserved.

And a little further rises an awkward cubic structure (probably a barn), clearly built from recycled materials - stone blocks left over from destroyed ancient houses.

In one of the tombs, the ceiling is decorated with faces like these.

The greenery growing among the stones reminded me very much of some house plants. Ivy, wild ficus?

Take a closer look at this stone. It is cut by a horizontal seam with jagged edges. Very similar to the connection of the skull bones.

The neighboring village, by the way, is also half built from antique bricks and fragments of columns.

On the outskirts of the village there was this bath with water infused with bark. Tannery?

It's just wonderful in the sun. But as soon as you step into the shadows, you remember the calendar realities. However, this does not stop me from walking in shorts.

Beyond the pass is the sea again! It's not that we didn't realize it... But it's still nice.

We have to drop about 700 meters. Today we will spend the night on the shore.

Far ahead you can see the huge sandy beach of Patara. We'll be there tomorrow morning.

It turned out to be very windy in the bay where we planned to spend the night. We move with our tents a little deeper into the forest.

Before dinner I have time to run to the shore and take a photo of the sun before it hides in the clouds.

January 6. A little wind and a shop in Kas.

It blew with terrible force all night. A couple of times the wind tore out the peg of my awning. In a good way, the peg should have been duplicated with a large stone, but I didn’t want to get out of the sleeping bag at all. And I barely repaired the damage and fell asleep again.

In general, short daylight hours in winter force us to optimize our daily routine. We wake up very early, still dark. We prepare breakfast and assemble the tents in the dark (flashlights!), and at the first rays of the sun we set out on the route.

We walk past completely idyllic clearings. It seems that the Easter bunny or another bee-bee-bear will jump out from behind a bush. Then, however, it began to seem that something was screaming in the forest. Someone caught our rabbit, no less.

The endless sands of Patara are already very close.

While I was taking pictures of the beaches, the guys rushed forward and almost missed the Pydney fortress. I call them on the radio, let's go wander through the ruins.

The fortress guards a huge plain now filled from edge to edge with greenhouses.

On the horizon you can see a mountain plateau (height from 2 to 3 km) completely covered with snow. The clouds rush over it with such speed that I would not be at all surprised to see snow flags...

Despite the bright sun, we are not hot at all. The wind is piercingly cold, it’s strange how the puddles didn’t freeze.

In the first village we hire a truck to drive to the ruins of ancient Xanthus.

Xanthus (or Xanthos) was the largest city (one might say the capital) of the Lycian union. And today its ruins, which have never given up their commanding height, command hectares of greenhouses.

In Xanth there is a ticket office and other delights of cultural attractions. Of course we came in and took advantage of everything immediately :)

After walking around, we caught a minibus and went to the resort. The wonderful town of Kas acted as a resort.

As expected, of the attractions in Kas, we spent the most time on the supermarket.

There were absolutely no people on the streets. You can see the locals are having a siesta - they are waiting out the heat.

We've had enough of civilization - we're cheerfully heading to the other side of the Gulf of Kas. We need to quickly get to the parking lot and taste the purchased delicacies.

The tasting had to be postponed - we couldn’t resist the opportunity to look at yet another Lycian tomb. This time they are carved into the rock above the sea.

All this time the wind continued to rage. Trying to find the most protected place for the fire, we climbed into some stone jungle and pretended that it was damn cozy there.

January 7. On the beach.

Behind the blue sea, just ten kilometers from us, a piece of Greece lurks - this island. On the hill above the village there are mobile phone towers that joyfully greeted us with a text message “Welcome to Greece”.

Nikolai and Inna kayaked along the coast of Scotland last summer. It looks like their next swim will be in Turkey. These coves and numerous islands look very attractive.

How can you tell from this photo that it is winter? It’s very simple - in summer and even in spring you can’t sit in the sun, everyone instantly hides in the shade.

We have a long and delicious lunch on the stone beach. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what we talked about then.

From lunch to overnight stay it's just an hour's walk. Everyone relaxed.

Upon arriving at the parking lot, we took our time setting up tents, collecting firewood, and moving mountains. Lazy hour announced.

Having been lazy for about 30 minutes, I crawl under a nearby tree to take a photo of Mitya’s hut. In full accordance with the traditions of easy walking, Mitya sewed this awning himself.

I like Turkish winter more and more.

January 8. In the ice.

You won’t believe it, but the puddles did freeze that night. But I don’t :) Long live down sleeping bags - warm, light and compact!

We move away from the sea again to visit the ruins of the Lycian city of Apollonius. The ancients stubbornly settled on the hills, apparently for defensive purposes. But the modern village has slipped into the valley, closer to the asphalt.

Take a closer look, there is not water in the lid of the tomb, but solid ice.

We wander among the ruins. It's nice that there are still places where history is not surrounded by a fence.

The last kilometers of the hike, ahead we can already see the bay from which the boat will pick us up.

Wait, where are we in such a hurry? It seems to me that until we eat all the sausage, it’s pointless to go further.

And here is the boat. We go to Uchayz and land right at the parking lot. The coastline here is simply beautiful (due to its chaos).

January 9. Myra Lycian.

Just 30 minutes by minibus and we are already in Demre. The guys go to explore the colossal amphitheater of Mira, and I climb the next hill in search of new angles.

By the way, here they are (ours, that is). They sit on the upper steps of the amphitheater, listen to the audio guide, and are imbued with the spirit of antiquity. And while I was wandering along the hill, I found the marking of the trail and something was so drawn to the mountains, as if the eight days of hiking had never happened))

In the evening we move to Antalya. Let's go celebrate the end of the hike at a local restaurant with live music.

And the mountains beyond Antalya beckon, radishes :)