I just finished fixing what was a seriously broken web site. I wanted to add another domain including web site to my hosting service and it got hosed no thanks to what ever tech support for my hosting service did to help me. If you find any broken links and such, please let me know.
I am not even sure that I like or have edited all these pictures but they do give one a general impression of what I saw in Istanbul, Turkey, this past June/July.
What a great cat!
I adopted a shelter cat today. A friend works at an animal hospital in Fairfax, knew I was looking for a cat, and hooked me up. She’s a gray tabby, the cat that is, and was injured in a house fire. The house was totally destroyed and sadly the family could not afford to pay for the cat’s care. The folks in the animal hospital took care of her and she stayed at one of the vet’s house while they looked for a permanent home for her.
So, barring unforeseen circumstances, Pookie, who I think I am renaming Spooky, has found a permanent home at my place. She certainly seems easy going. She has been exploring my apartment extensively for that last hour or so and is now dozing on my couch. What a sweeties! Here she is….
It is a beautiful day!
Foliage in the Foreground
20120705
I recall now that this was seafood dinner night at the hotel because it was also the late afternoon tour of the Lycian ruins at Kaunos led by Rami who is the hotel general manager. I was puzzled that he would lead the tour, which left at 1600 and returned at about 1830, on a big dinner night. I guess he trusts his staff and, from what I saw, he should. As it was, dinner at the hotel, served poolside, usually did not start until 1930 or 2000 when the sun had dipped enough behind the mountains to provide for a cooler dining experience. By “cooler” dining experience, I don’t mean anything related to prison food….
By Thursday, I was tired of walking from my days in Istanbul and trips back and forth to town in Dalyan. My daily routine turned into getting up for breakfast by the pool, hanging out by the pool reading and listening to music, drinking at the pool bar, eating lunch and, when on the schedule, dinner, by the pool, and swimming in the pool. After 8 days of being on the go, I was ready to chill and enjoying it…by the pool.
My second to last real adventure of the trip was going to the ruins. We boarded the hotel boat at about 1600 to head to town and beyond where we docked and walked to the ruins. The days seemed to be getting hotter as they went by and this day was no different. The walk was quite warm but interesting because we were out in the country surrounded by pomegranate trees and watermelon plants. As in other very hot countries I have visited, like Thailand, you just get in the habit of walking slowly to try to keep the sweat factor to a minimum.
The ruins were quite interesting as were the views from them. To the south were the remnants of a good sized fortress way up on the top of a hill. To the southwest on a smaller hill were the remnants of another fortress. Far off to the west was Iztuzu beach and the river delta spreading out before it. The ruins consisted of Roman baths, a temple, a market square, a church, and an amphitheater. It was apparent that there was still much work to do to unearth more of the ruins and try to reconstruct them.
There was not that much walking involved but what with me being so out of shape, my knee acting up, and the heat, after the tour, I was ready to get back down to the boat, on the river, and headed back to the hotel. I was looking forward to a shower and dinner.
I was not disappointed with the seafood dinner which included Blue crab, shrimp, calamari, and whole fish such as Sea Bream. Sadly, after all that food, it was all I could do to drag myself to the bar to join some of the family in an after dinner raki, the anisette flavored national drink. But I managed. One has to keep up the routine….
20120704
Getting up in the AM has not been as easy as it was in Istanbul for some reason. There I was out on my balcony nearly every morning at 0600 working on pictures and/or my travel log. It is nice to sit out here in the morning by the river watching the falcons and the blue spinners gallivanting about on the air currents on the cliffs on the other side of the river. Uncle Cliff was out here every morning and I intended to join him every day but did not meet that goal.
Today we went down to the beach, Iztuzu Beach. The hotel boat takes you down and back for free. The boat is designed and decorated like a traditional Ottoman boat and seems to be the only one like it on the river here. As we motored down the river to the beach, we got our picture taken more times than I care to think about. En route we passed through Dalyan, had another great view of the tombs, saw some incredible scenery, and stopped to watch a guy feed blue crabs to a loggerhead turtle.
We had heard conflicting reports from people about the beach which is famous for not only being the longest beach in Turkey but also being protected habitat for the loggerhead turtles that lay their eggs on the beach. People were saying that the sand was black, volcanic sand and extremely hot. The hotel staff and my parents, who have been there before, did not depict it as such. When we got down there we could see that it was not standard tan or white beach sand and it was damned hot. You could barely walk on it.
The water however was a most refreshing temperature and very clear. It is a shame there was no vegetation or fish because the water was crystal clear. The folks were going pay for beach chairs and umbrellas and hang out there until the boat went back to the hotel but Cliff and I were going to walk down to the end of the beach where the buses came over the mountains to drop people off.
We had a great walk of about an hour along the beach and stopped at the Loggerhead turtle rehabilitation facility to see the good work they were doing there. Cliff was a bit depressed seeing the turtles that had had their shells hacked up by boat propellers so we did not stay long. It was a short walk from there to the bus departure area where we paid up and waited for the next bus back to Dalyan. The ride back was very cool with some nice views of the beach, the river delta, and a quaint town tucked on the side of the mountain with quite a nice mosque in the center of town. I had intended to take the bus back up that way, get some lunch at one of the places near the top, and take some pictures but never did so.
Once back at the hotel, we got into the usual routine. Uncle Cliff did much exercising of his bad shoulder and practicing on his guitar. I did much lounging by the pool and, as usual, started happy hour earlier than everyone else. Normally, for at least part of happy hour, we had drinks on the patio outside of one of our hotel rooms. Since it was not generally kosher to bring our own booze into the hotel and we had beer and gin, we tried to keep it low key out back rather than flaunting it poolside.
I have lost track of where we ate when. I know we had seafood night and another BBQ with mezes night at the hotel and ate out in town two more nights so I think that we must have eaten at the hotel off the menu one night. Everywhere we ate, the food was plentiful, good and reasonably priced but I think that the food at the hotel might have been a better overall than any of the places we ate in Dalyan.
20120703
Tuesday was a day to familiarize ourselves with Dalyan town. We had to find ATM’s and a store where we could get a decent price on sundry goods like water, beer, snacks, etc. Uncle Cliff had to find the post office from which he could buy a phone card and then figure out how to use it. That took a couple of days and attempts to contact his wife Ruth since the instructions on both the phones and cards were in Turkish only. He eventually got through but had to leave messages for two days before he finally reached her on day 3.
After a fair amount of walking around town and a delicious lunch of Turkish pancakes, we walked back to the hotel to hit the pool, cool off, and freshen up. After that it was nearly time for happy hour. We have been doing that partly at the pool bar and partly behind our rooms enjoying some gin that that the folks brought in en route from Wales. The hotel frowns on bringing in your own booze and food so we try to keep it low key and not party down from our own supply at the pool. That is kind of a downer but what can you do?
We walked back into town for dinner at a place that had riverside seating and a view of the Lycian tombs carved into the mountain across the river. The setting was great and the food very good as it has been for the whole trip thus far. I have to admit that my legs are bothering me from being out of shape, nerve or hip damage, and water retention. The last walk home of the day from Daylan is usually not too fun and still pretty warm.
Fortunately the AC works fine in the room I am sharing with Cliff. He has the downstairs room with a double and I have a single upstairs. It is nice to be able to retreat to the AC after a trip to town or sweatfest around the pool. I have to admit to not spending much time in the room other than for sleeping. The days have been busy and, the heat notwithstanding, it is nicer to be by the pool, the river, or the bar. Fortunately, despite the time change (7 hours), I have slept pretty well. I usually get a power four or five hours and then toss and turn a bit before getting up.
