Hanging out in Tree Houses then cruising to Fethiye

Erin giving the thumbs down to our tree house/ oven.
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We arrived in Olympos with much anticipation to stay in the famed tree houses. I, Michael, was still recovering from a running belly, and we were tired of traveling on buses for the previous 2 nights. It saved us money on hotels, but was somewhat uncomfortable, especially with diarrhea! We got a room in a tree house in the morning, pooh poohing the suggestion that we get a cabin with AC. We wanted a tree house, up in the sky. The tree houses turned out to be spider infested shacks on stilts, about 4 feet above the ground. It served as a pretty good oven as I lay in it recovering during a midday nap. Erin came in and told me it was hotter inside than out, but I was too tired and sick to move. So she measured the temperature and told me it was 107 F inside. We decided that might be too hot to be healthy, and exchanged the "tree house" for a cabin with AC.

Beside one of the fires of the Chimera
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Olympos was a great set of ruins to visit. We felt like Indiana Jones. You hike through the forest and just by stepping off the path and into the trees you find some ruins. If you walk into a stream, and then walk along it, you find a Roman theatre and the remains of a port. In the jungle, overgrown and sometimes in another stream you find more archeological ruins: Roman buildings with tile floors, half a staircase, looted sarcophagi. Once you re-crossed some water you could access the stone beach. A peculiar and good looking beach, the river stones or multi-coloured marble are quite uncomfortable for walking, sitting, or lying on. But that did not stop us from sun baking and swimming there.

Beside one of the fires of the Chimera
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We went one night to see the mythical fire breathing Chimera, high on a neighboring hillside. He turned out to be just some naturally occurring gas escaping and spontaneously igniting in 15 – 20 fires along the path. This has been going on for thousands of years. It was spectacular even though it was not a real monster.

We booked passage on one of the infamous "Blue Cruises", with a company called V-Go, that would take us to Fethiye, taking 4 days and 3 nights. This turned out pretty good for us. I got a good fix to compliment my enjoyment of Moby Dick, and Erin got to scuba dive and sun bath. We shared the boat with 2 French Canadians (who abandoned ship after a day out of boredom), an Australian couple (who abandoned ship after enduring 2 days of sea sickness with no sign of improvement), 4 Australian party chicks, 3 Spanish women, and a Kiwi and Aussie couple. Our Captain asked to be called Cap'n Crazy, which was about all the English he spoke. First mate was called Sheriff, and the other crew member who was the only one that did any work (cooking, cleaning, swimming to tie up the boat or untie it, purging the sewage lines…) went by Ice Cream since no one could pronounce his name right anyway. Things got off to a rocky start: I overheard the French Canadians telling the Spaniards to watch out for me since I went below decks alone to our cabin and they thought I might steal from the other cabins. Then Cap'n Crazy would not pull into the Pirates Cove to give the Aussie Party Girls a night on the town. So they made us all join in drinking games, keeping the captain up all night until we passed out on the deck. Cap'n Crazy got his revenge though when he dropped them off in a harbor to go paragliding. Once they were off the ship, he moved to another harbor and dropped anchor for the night. The girls had to hire another boat to take them along the coast and find our boat that evening.

Erin by one of the fires of the Chimera
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It turns out that in the Mediterranean summers, and with these tight quarters of a Gullet, the best sleeping option is to sleep on deck. Most of us would do that each night, and it was really lovely to sleep under the stars with the ropes slapping and the mast waving to and fro in the night sky.

One morning was spent in the beautiful Butterfly Valley, then the afternoon in St. Nicholas island, scrambling across more ruins. Here there were 4 churches and one great long tunnel. The tunnel was allegedly built at the request of a fiercely protective king who wanted to have a safe and secret passage for his daughters to reach from the palace to the beach. Once the tunnel was complete, he killed all the workers involved in the construction to ensure the secret was kept. Then he let his girls go down to enjoy the beach at the end of the tunnel. They never came back…

Walking in the stream, looking for a roman amphitheatre
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The cruise was good for us and the Armin 1 was a steady boat, but many of the other passengers were not pleased with various aspects of the trip. I must add that I did not steal anything from anyone despite the allegations against my character by certain French Canadians. We then took an afternoon bus up to Selcuk, to spend the night near the ruins of Ephesus.