Monday, July 7, 2008


Friday June 20

Today was Nature Day. We went up from Egirdir to a national park where you can apparently see various woodland creatures and also leopards. We didn’t see much of either here, but did get some nice views of another lake.

After that, we headed up the mountain further to walk the King’s Highway. This road was an important trade route and way to transport soldiers during Roman times. After a hike up a very treacherous trail which I almost fell to my death twice, we walked over a very rickety iron bridge and onto the King’s Highway. The first thing we saw was some Roman graffiti on the side of the marble cliff and an altar-looking thing complete with what appeared to be a basin for water that trickled from the cliff. A much easier walk thanks to several millennia of use, I didn’t trip at all. All along the way, there was a beautiful river with the clearest water I have ever seen, and after a bit, we found our spot. David and I struck out to trailblaze the way to get to it (it was kind of difficult to get to from the road). We finally found a path amidst the rocks, pools, and cliffs which included a lot of climbing and a little falling, and the rest of the group followed.

This place was a secret grotto – it reminded me of the picture on the Fiji water bottles. A deep pool that we never touched the bottom of was surrounded by huge rocks, a 30-ft waterfall, and tons of oleanders. Our waterfall

And the water was the most beautiful turquoise blue – it looked like it could be in the Caribbean. Edward, true to form, found the highest things to jump off of, which included a 14-ft rock and a 30-ft one also. Most of our group jumped off of the 14-ft one (Amanda after some coaxing from David), but only Edward, me, Zoe, David, and Kevin jumped off of the 30-ft one. It was amazing, and although the water was absolutely frigid, we swam around, jumped, and lounged on sunbaked rocks jutting out from the pool for about 2 -1/2 hours.

Yekta and Edward jumping off the smaller rock - the bigger one is behind it.

all of us in our grotto

Then we headed up to where the profs were, bottled some natural spring water at the source, and had a discussion about Turkish tourism. Or the lack thereof in this area – like the lake, there was absolutely no one around. I literally did not see anyone else the entire day. Our group was torn between the revenue that a thriving tourism industry would bring Turkey and also the possibility of the sense of national identity that it could bring to Turkish tourists and the idea of thousands of people ruining this pristine place. We thought of Pamukkale, where the huge tourist industry had to be shut down and re-managed because of the damage that was done to the environment. Leaving the problem unsolved, we hiked back down the mountain and headed back to our pension.

an appropriate hiking outfit for Egirdir, complete with camera

We enjoyed a lovely dinner on the top floor of the pension overlooking the lake, and then we tried to find a place to watch Turkey play Croatia in the Euro Cup. Like Pamukkale, Egirdir is tiny – our waiter at lunch on Thursday told us that there was really no where to watch the game. Not believing him, we braved the weirdly strong winds all the way to the island, but alas, we did not find a suitable sports bar complete with a bunch of Turks. So we headed back to the pension to watch it at least with the three Turks that worked there. Like the match against the Czech Republic, the first half was very boring. Actually the first two halves were boring, with the game ending in a 0-0 tie. Then it was time for two 15-minute halves, which were also boring until the last minute of the extra time, when Croatia scored. We thought it was over, but the drama-loving Turks had other ideas. In the stoppage time of the extra time, Turkey scored, tying Croatia again and forcing the game into penalty kicks. Already pumped, we screamed for joy when Croatia missed their first PK, and then their third. Turkey then went on to score their first three, and when Turkey’s back-up goalie (their number one goalie was out due to a red card in the last match), blocked Croatia’s fourth PK, Turkey’s victory and our elation was secured. We pined for the craziness that we knew was going on in Taksim Square as we watched the pitiful rioting of about seven cars driving around the town and island, honking their horns. Go to http://euro08.sportsnet.tsn.ca/ and you’ll see that Turkey is the talk of the Euro Cup 2008 – it is extremely cool to be able to be in Turkey during their crazy run to the quarterfinals! They play Germany on Wednesday, and if its anything like the other games, it will be very interesting. Even if it is only the last few minutes that are exciting.

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