Blue Skies and Bluer Waters

In the truest of Turkish style, we followed our first week of class with a nine day holiday.  And when in a country with a Mediterranean coast is there a viable option other then heading to these fabled waters?  As I could think of no other possibilities a fabulous Canadian by the name of Kendra and I hopped onto a bus and headed to Fethiye, a beach community supposedly 12 hours from Istanbul.  However, because this is Turkey and efficiency and punctuality are not points of national strength, our bus left over an hour after it was scheduled and made many stops through out the night.  Needless to say after more than 14 hours when we finally emerged into the sunlight and warmth of the coastal town we were quite ready to hit the beach.  

As we made our way down to the beach we were greeted not by the carmel skinned Mediterranean people that one would hope to find in such a place, but rather by bus loads of pasty, middled aged, over weight Brits.  Because they too were on holiday and had left all cares behind them in whatever grey and depressing place from which they hailed, men scampered in speedos that had not looked good on them in decades and women worshipped the sun topless with an utter disregard for gravity or reality.  It is beyond me as to why people would travel to the opposite end of a conitnet to sorround themselves with the people and the food (fish and chips donned every menu in every restaurant) that they had left behind.  

After the initial disappointment waned, the anglification of the holiday posed more of a challenge than a threat.  It simply meant that we had to work to maintain status as travelers and not tip the balance too far into the realm of tourist.  And I can say with some confidence that we did succeed as travelers, other than the 12 island boat tour that I insisted that we go on. Although it had all of the components of perfection, a day on the water in the sunshine, it really epitomized the darker side of leisure, lethargy, and consumption.  However, I can overlook all of that because by spending a day on that boat I can say that I saw water that so exemplifies what it means to be blue that I lack the vocabulary to convey its essence.  I sat staring at that water going over ever shade and hue and tint of blue that I have ever seen and nothing I could come up with could do it any justice.

The following day Kendra and I opted for a more physical adventure.  The guidebooks described a trail from Kaya Koy, a village left abandoned after the 1923 population exchange between the Greek and Turkish governments, to Oludeniz, the beach featured in nearly every picture of Mediterranean Turkey.  We caught a shuttle to the village and spent some time wandering through the crumbling structures that are haunted by an eerie absents of being.  Initially the red paint splotch markers were just as they were described in the books.  However,  these markers that were supposed to lead the way on the two hour trail to the beach quickly disappeared as we made the ascent out of the village.  As we were determined to see this beach that looked so wonderful in the pictures, we continued without a trail or a compass.  We quite literally mountain climbed.  And after 5 hours without seeing another living soul, we reached a clearing from which it was possible to see the ever publicized Blue Lagoon.  The gratification felt after plunging into the water was utterly complete. 

The following day we left Fethiye for the Butterfly Valley.  Although there was the option to rent tents from the hippie commune that lives on the beach, we chose to stay in this magnificent hostel that clings to the cliffs above.  And with George House as our base, we did some epic rock climbing down to valley floor where we scaled a waterfall and spent the afternoon sated by the sunshine.  I have never felt more deliciously satisfied with my youth or my disbelief in my own mortality than I did while climbing down into that valley.  And I have never felt more capable of falling off of the edge of society than I did while sitting on that fairly secluded beach.  Living there, in that beautiful valley were people that had done just that. And I can't help but think that being perpetually surrounding by the most perfect examples of natural beauty somehow become etched on your soul and you to become more beautiful at the most essential level.