The bottom row in of turkish words translates to: meatballs, fish, chicken, tea and coke. It looks like some how they forgot them m in the translation, although I suspect a foreigner may have ripped it off.
Kadir's Tree Houses are the place to stay in Olympos if you are a climber. It has one of the valley's two discotheques and has a rock climbing face behind it (seen here). I stayed in dormitory style arrangements which 25 lyra a night (20 if you are a climber). That price includes breakfast and dinner.
This is the hangar bar at Kadir's tree houses. During the day it is a popular hangout for guests that are too lazy to walk down to the beach. People eat, drink and play games here throughout the day.
In the valley, is the ancient Lycian city of Olympos. The path to the beach from the valley's pensiyons goes right through this city which dates from the 2nd century BC. It was quite an extensive city and lots of ruins can be found in the surrounding woods and going up the hills.
More ruins of Olympos. A lot of the city has been over grown with trees and vines.
More ruins.
There were many such sarcophagi around the city.
Although the original riveris dried up, water flows from somwhere, swamping some partsof the city. On the left is a building, and the plant in the middle is being reflected off the water's surface.
Some Ruins
More ruins. Notice the 2000 year old tile mosaic floor that is still somewhat intact.
Another sarcophogus
There seemed to be a lot of these pink flowers all along the southern coast of Turkey. This one is in Olympos but I really like the picture and how it came out.
This is the dried up riverbed through the valley. Since there is no growth in it, I am assuming that during the winter when it rains, the bed fills with water again.
An interesting tree in one of the canyons off shooting from the valley. The color of the tree is read which you can't really see, but again, I like how the picture looks so I posted it here.
A rock wall.
The view from in one of the canyons. It was completely empty and dead quiet. A sharp contrast to the beach party atmosphere of Olympos.
A cool spiderin Olympos
Me!
The last remnants of a building well hidden amongst the trees. This building would have been impossible to had I not gone off the past through the trees exploring.
Poking it's head above the trees is a tower or a high building. There were a few tall buildings of 20 feet like this one. Mostwere however not much higher than me.
A view of one of the more exposed and well kept areas of the city. The path you see in the picture leads down to the beach.
This is what the places to stay look like. They are all small rickety wooden structures.
More ruins. Another sarcophogus on the right there.
more ruins...
Me in the ruins
Hiking up the mountain I came across this area where there must have been a land slide at some point.
A view from one of the hiking trails.
This is the view of the vallye. It's quite narrow and heavily populated with make shift hostels. They are all pretty cool, but Kadir's, the first one built in the valley, is the best. It is not in site in this picture.
Gozleme, a type of savory pancake made in Turkey is a speciality of Olympos. There is nothing like a potato and cheese gozleme with the valley's other speciality, fresh orange juice.
Many of the places to stay use solar energy to heat their water. That means if you wait until just before dinner to take a shower, you are not going to have any hot water left.
Laundry hanging up at Kadir's. It was 7.50 lyra to have them do a load of laundry for you.
a row of small buildings. Houses I am guessing, with entrances on the other side. Many parts of the city are still buried.
more ruins
Another sarcophogus. You can still see the relief on the outside.
What's left of the ampitheatre. That's David, a german guy that I met and traveled with.
There were lots of turtles crawling around.
This is what's left of the Roman baths.
Another shot of the baths.
more mountains.
me at the Roman baths.
more of the baths.
me again, at the baths still. They were pretty big.
A huge freaking spider!
The area called paradise by the rock climbers. This area is pretty great.
The view from Alinca. Since we arrived after dark we didn't have a chance to see this spectacular view until the morning.
So we made our way along the cost to hike from Alinca to Kabak. Along the way we got lost and ran into a goat herder who set us back on track.
A view from the Lycian Way trail. This is before descending down into Kabak, a little beach side community along the trail.
another view from Alinca before heading to Kabak.
Rock slide.
looks good for climbing doesn't it? It was a bit too remote though unfortuneately.
David and the little burro we found when we first entered Kabak.
The beach at Kabak.
Kabak
Me in Kabak. It was hot so as soon as we saw the beach we jumped in and sorted out accomadations later.
Beach at Kabak.
View from Kabak.
The view down on Kabak from the other side of the valley.
This was the place we stayed in Kabak. 35 lyra per night with breakfast and dinner. 20 lyra per night if you sleep in your own tent.
Notice that they have wild boar on the menu. Mmmmm it was good.
If at first you don't suceed, try try again. It lookslike after the seventh nail they finally made contact with the second piece of wood.
The local library in Kabak.
It was even more comfortable than it looked.
The place we stayed at in Kabak.
So this is the map we should have bought before hiking the Lycian way. Since we didn't I took a picture of someone else's copy of the map. If you look close you can see Kabak and you cansee Faralya. That was our second day's hike.
The local advertising.
Another view overlooking Kabak. This was the Pensiyon on top of the hill with amazing views over the valley but too far from the beach.
Probably the best positioned hammock I have ever seen.
David found it to be a bit too hot for his tastes.
Me, replenishing my self with a bottle of powerade on top of one of the ridges.
Yeah it's not. We thought it was though but it's not. This plant grows everywhere around there though.
A semi finsihed construction site over grownwith purple wild flowers.
A fountain by the side of the road.
There were wild mulberry, apricot and plum trees here and there. This one is a mulberry tree.
A turkish graveyard along the route.
Helping a turtle cross the road.
Baby sheep. David wanted to eat them but i stopped him.
The famous butterfly valley. With only one place to stay (tents on the beach) and a small hippy community, this place is virtually uninhabited. Over the winter five people lived here. The valley is famous for it's butterflies as you can guess. It is also extremely difficult to climb down to the valley floor and should only be attempted but people in a good physical condition.
Me witht he butterfly valley in the background.
David
No only did we both have 40 pound (20 kg) packs to carry with us on this extremely treacherous hike, but David also brough his guitar the whole way.
Me making my way down.
In my opinion this could be classified as a IV- climbing route it was so steep. If you are wondering, yes you needed that rope to get down. There were several bits on the trail like this.
Half way!
The walls surrounding the butterfly valley were nearly completely vertical.
The valley is also very popular for paragliders.
The red arrow is almost taunting us. It's saying, 'yeah, it's that way. Have fun.'
Nearly at the bottom of the valley now.
They only run the generator for a few hours per day, so after they shut it off at midnight, David played guitar and sang by candle light for everyone in the valley.
Napping in the butterfly valley.
Just a nice shot. Notice the two parrots?
Besides dogs cats chickens and ducks, there were two extremely loud parrots hanging out on the beach in the butterfly valley. The cat seemed to hunt them all day, but with no success.
Some guys house. He had a small library and would bake a fruit cake once a day and sell the pieces. When I was there it was white chocolate and apricot cake.
Sitting with some other travelers we met.
same as before. I really liked the look of this place. It was so cool.
I found this book in the library. The J is for Joseph, as in Joseph Stalin. It was short so I read the whole thing. Pretty boring though.
Beach from the butterfly valley.
Butterfly valley pensiyon. 30 lyra to camp in a tent (they provided them) or 40 lyra for a bungalow.
