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After about a 3-4 hour bus ride from Pamukkale we arrived in Fethiye. We had worked out which hostel we wanted to stay at thanks to the Lonely Planet, however we were once again intercepted by a local at the bus station and we persuaded to stay at their pension, Duygu, it had cheap room rates, they could drop us off for free, and what really sold it to us was it had a pool. The pension was pretty quiet,except for a few retired Kiwi couples on their OE's. Ahh well at least we had the pool to ourselves. We spent the first day relaxing by the pool and then the next day we walked up a steep climb to the Tomb of Amyntas - as you can see from our photos it was a great view over the city.
That night Turkey played Cech Republic in Euro 2008 football.They seem to really love their football over here, all of the restaurants have seating outside with huge television screens. It's really nice to sit outside eat your dinner, have a few beers and watch the footy. Turkey were down 2-0 and we decided to go home as we thought the Cech's had it in the bag. As soon as we got back to our pension we could hear cheering and yelling from everywhere,but as soon as we started hearing boats in the harbour sounding their horns and cars driving past honking we kinda figured Turkey had won. Apparently in places like Istanbul people are known to come out into the street firing their guns into the air with all the excitement of winning. However, people tend to get injured from the bullets as they come down - what goes up must come down.
The next morning we joined a boat cruise organised through our pension. As we had only encountered retired couples we were a wee bit worried as to who we would be spending the next 4 days and 3 nights at sea with. It ended up being a really good mix of people - a couple of Turkish, a Canadian family, a couple of Australians, an American girl and a crazy Japanese guy. The crew was made up of the Captain, the chef and his son who was about 17-18 years old and ran around looking after everyone. A typical day consisted of getting up to a Turkish breakfast, going for a swim, maybe even a bit of snorkelling, then after all of that excertion a much needed sleep, then it's time to be woken for lunch, another swim to cool off, a bit of sunbathing and then it's time for dinner. The evening would then be rounded off with a few games of cards (poo head was the game of the trip) and backgammon. It was a pretty relaxing few days. We did stop off each day at different islands - such as Kas which is a charming fishing village, the sunken city of Kekova, Simena a traditional Turkish fishing village which has no car access, only accessible by boat. The last night was spent in Gokkaya Bay and after dinner a few of us caught a water taxi to the Smugglers Inn which is a bar/disco spot in a little cove. Great little spot where people from all of the boats come along for a drink and a boogie. We were told that the night we went was the busiest night of the week,but I think there ended up being more staff than punters. Hmmm wonder what a quiet night would be like?? We managed to get Falcon (the deck hand, not sure of his Turkish name but means Falcon in English who had been itching to dance all day) and the crazy Japanese guy (we'll call him Raki as not sure how to spell his name and his love of the local drink) up on the dance floor - there sure were some crazy moves, some fast footwork by Falcon,perhaps even a Turkish Riverdance and some Kung foo moves by Raki - it was all going on. Good cheesey times!! We were just about to leave when the staff came out with free shots I think in order to try and get us to stay. But one shot of their local moonshine (still to this day we have no idea what it was suppose to be,only know it burned all the way down) and it was time for us to leave on the local water taxi back to our boat. The next day (the last day of the trip) we swam into Pirates Cave and then it was time for lunch, pack up and time to say our goodbyes and catch our waiting bus - next stop was Olympos. We just want to say thanks to everyone on the boat trip we had such a great time. Special thanks to Japanese Raki and his unusual antics of non-stop showering, marathon swimming, Raki drinking and sleeping through most of the trip. And to 10 year old Nathan who was like a breath of fresh air, with his funny Canadian accent, his never ending questions and endless amounts of energy- oh to be a child again. We hope you had a great time, it was great to have met you and your Mum and Dad who have proven you can still travel the world with children. Hope you manage to keep up the diving- remember lean forward and relax, you make it look so easy!!
Thanks also to Aussie Sam and Allira was great to have met you guys. Shame we won't be back in London again anytime soon to check out that Kiwi gastro-pub you were telling us about in Hammersmith. Good luck with the house and hope you're not too down about going back to work - start planning your next holiday now!! See you on Facebook.
After a 1 1/2 hour bus ride we arrive in Olympos, home of the tree houses and the eternal flames. We plan to stay here about 4 nights to simply chill out and relax.
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