the march of time

Side is a wonderful old Roman city with a Turkish fishing village built on top of some of it.  Sticking out into the sea over a small peninsula we are amazed to find large sprawling ruins and quite shocked to find a significant part of the site overwhelmed these days with shops, hotels, cafes and restaurants.  But at the same time not too shocked to stay in one of those invading guesthouses. 

The weather is mostly foul and nasty and we have a good 180 degree view from our room of the black clouds and storms racing towards us over the Mediterranean Sea.  It doesn’t stop us from exploring – we dash out in a dry spell to wander the ruined old streets and monuments that have been uncovered.  There aren’t many people about and it feels like we have the place to ourselves.  The scale is impressive and so is the price of admission to the amphitheatre.  With raised eyebrows we retreat from the ticket office.  

this is as good a view as you get without paying!

For a while there is some decent weather and we walk the coastal promenade and remark upon the large numbers of tourists out and about.  They are either German or Russian.  And then we discover a series of large hotels along the shore – two of which have stayed open to provide these northern Europeans with some sun and warmth in the run up to Christmas.  Except it’s not so sunny.  From here we should be able to see the mountains across the bay west of Antalya but there is only cloud on the horizon.

We delay continuing on to Antalya.  It’s only one more day along the main highway.  Stuck in our hotel room we develop a siege mentality.  We cook our evening meals on the little balcony, the noise of the stove disguised by the rain hammering the roofs.

We’ve already worked it out.  We’ve spent so long hiding out of the bad weather that we’ll have to take the bus to reach Pam’s before Christmas.  So when we ride into Antalya we know it’s virtually the end of the road for this year.  Gayle does an unbelievable navigating job through the city.  We’ve booked an apartment behind the long beach to the west of the city centre and the main highway enters from the east.  There are never good road signs at junctions but Gayle’s instincts are good – Straight on! Left at the next junction!  Jump the lights! Jump the lights! – and we reach the apartment building just as it begins to rain. Around it there are some empty plots and out front a patch of grass and trees.  A short old woman with an umbrella is herding a group of goats as they graze in the downpour.

looking west along the shore from the old town

Ironically as we’re not cycling and camping the weather now turns sunny and dry.  We explore the old town nestled in a tight band around the original old harbour.  It’s a touristy area but we’re amazed to find still a lot of the old Ottoman-era houses looking dilapidated and unkempt – in Europe all this prime property would have been bought up and renovated into boutique hotels.  The streets are peaceful, little traffic, in contrast to the modern city hemming it in.  

crocheted by a cycle tourist waiting for good weather

 

The best thing about our location is the beach park that connects our neighbourhood with the city centre – a big green park with trees and walkways and the ubiquitous cafes and tea houses and, critically, no traffic. It makes for a good walk or bike ride. 

The other highlight for us is the archaeological museum.  We’ve been to the city before but we don’t remember visiting the museum, but that says more about us than it does about the museum.  We enjoy looking through all the exhibits and it drives home how the coastal region of Anatolia was integral to all the classical civilisations in this part of the world.

Miss, the Emperor's got no clothes

on the run

We’ve taken refuge.  We’re hiding underneath the eaves of a tin roof of a dusty and unused building.  The door is locked – we tried it as soon as we reached it.  No dice.  No, the best shelter we can get is leaning back against the wall and just watching the rain pour down in front of our noses.

“Now, in this little scenario I’m Butch Cassidy and you’re the Sundance Kid, okay?” 

Gayle nods, humouring me, as only someone who loves me could.

“Don’t forget we’re dashing from pillar to post and there seems to be no escape, no evasion, no rest.”

Gayle nods again, almost imperceptibly.

It feels like every day for the past week it’s been raining.  We are running out of time.

“We’re running out of time.”

Gayle looks resigned to her fate.

“Kid, the next time I say ‘How about Turkey for Christmas?’ let’s have turkey for Christmas!”

The Sundance Kid rolls her eyes…….

black hotels

We spend three nights in Alanya. This allows us to soak up some much-needed sunshine and explore the old walled city and fortress on the large hill on a promontory jutting out into the sea.  It is a naturally defensive position and down below in the shelter of the promontory there was a shipyard for the first Ottoman emperors.  There are still a few old homes built on the steep slopes and within the walls, but the city has now grown all around the foot of the hill and along the beach.  We're happy to rest up and get some proper sleep after three fitful nights in the tent.  The weather forecast is not so great, and as Gayle is still feeling rough we decide to delay departing.  It's a flattish ride up to Antalya from here so it shouldn't be too strenuous.
   

looking down on the harbour

Departing the city leads us along a bizarre stretch of coast littered, I use the word precisely, with large hotels.  As on the approach to Alanya, the sea is on one side of the highway whilst the majority of hotels are on the other. They are lined up side by side on what would have been rather lovely farmland once upon a time.  There is nothing else around apart from these hotels, no villages or towns.  They are quite isolated.   A lot of the hotels look forlorn and abandoned.  Some look brand new.  All look rather large and ugly.  There are pedestrian underpasses to reach the beach - a thin strip of sand.  The underpasses are clogged with sand and debris.  None of it looks used.  It's only later, whilst reading a not-so-thrilling thriller about Russian money-laundering that I come across a description of 'black hotels'.  Big fancy hotels built with 'dirty' money and the hotels are then 'fully-booked' for the next five or six years.  The hotel takings add up in the hotel bank account and are thus laundered.  The Turkish government has been pushing construction because it employs a lot of people.  Recently it lowered the financial qualifications to allow foreigners to gain residency because foreigners are driving construction.  Thus Turkey is despoiling its natural beauty, concreting and building structures that then stand abandoned and disused.

After finally escaping this horror we meet an old friend.  The black rain clouds we could see ahead are finally upon us.  Stopping at a petrol station for a picnic lunch under a shelter (and availing ourselves of the obligatory free tea which the establishment offers to passing, ahem, motorists followed by use of the facilities as demanded by the intake of said tea), we meet a Basque couple and their dog, on bikes.  Well, their dog has a trailer but prefers to run.  They have cycled (and run) across to Tajikistan and back.  We huddle up out of the rain to chat and eat before setting off again.  The couple were asking to camp behind petrol stations and were often then invited into spare rooms to sleep.  It's something we haven't tried yet.  We pass them after their dog stops for a swim in a flooded ditch and we don't see them again.  This is because we're heading to Side, a minor detour.

Sorry I can't remeber your names - but you seemed to have an indomitable spirit

roller-coasting

sun and a wide shoulder

 It only takes a flash of sunshine to fill us with optimism.  At last, we're off again, heading westwards, the sea to our left and the mountains to our right.  When we reach a headland the coastal road invariably cuts inland to climb a pass and we start to realise that this stretch of coast is a bit of a roller-coaster ride.  Thankfully the road has a decent shoulder in most places.  And there are tunnels.  Not long. Brand new, well-lit.  We sprint through each one and as luck would have it, they always seem like they're gently downhill.  It's probably an illusion.

invited to take tea by Şener, who has a friend cycle-touring through Africa

lunch in the gutter, looking back down a hill

In some places we find ourselves descending to a wide bay and this is where there are villages or towns and lots of poly-tunnel farming going on. And these are usually followed by a long climb up and out again.  Two days in a row we find ourselves leaving towns at the end of the afternoon, mistiming because the sun is setting early and there never seems to be any decent camping spots out of sight of the road.  But when the sun does set and night falls it's easy to be hidden.  
 

after the rain, sun

The daytime weather stays kind to us but the nightimes are different.  Rainy storms pass through with thunder and lightning which keep us awake.  Gayle has a chest infection and is developing a hearty cough and every long climb we come to is a slow but steady plod.  On our third day we decide at lunchtime to call it a day once we spot a place to camp.  We've been climbing solidly all morning and we're tired.  Happily a long traverse follows, we bump into another cycle-tourist, David from Lithuania heading to Cyprus, and then a descent into pine forest where we find a dirt track leading off into the trees.  

It's too early to put the tent up and we're just sitting on the carpet of pine needles and chatting when three men appear.  We exchange hellos.  Unsure who is more surprised.  One man takes out his phone - to translate.  He kicks some of the pine needles away to show us a mushroom.  "No good." On his phone he shows us a photo of the type of mushroom they are looking for.  It's the season.  After the rain the mushrooms pop up, and we soon get used to seeing people wandering through woods with a bucket and knife searching for mushrooms.

sometimes the wide shoulder just disappears......

The dramatic coastal scenery of pine-clad mountains tumbling precipitously into the sea gradually gives way to wider, flatter bays full of poly-tunnel farms and larger settlements.  There are quite literally hundreds of plastic-sheeted warehouses full of banana trees covering the valleys.  It's not pretty.  It's the usual cycling quandary - in general the harder the road the greater the scenery. Or conversely, the easier the road, the less-appealing the scenery.

when it's good, it's really good

We reach Alanya in a hail storm.  There's a long run into the city with the beach on one side and an eternity of hotels and holiday appartments on the other.  The highway sits incongruously in between.  When we reach the town centre I get that familiar sense of satisfaction and achievement from arriving by bike after some tough days.  But this feeling contrasts with the eerie sense of culture-shock as we sit on a bench and watch the hundreds of tourists, up to now unseen on our Turkish ride, coming and going around us.  We are of them but they are not of us.