Pumukkale and Olympos

Roger “went to Pumukkale twenty years ago” but I didn’t, so that’s where we’re headed next.
It’s nice to see that storks are indiscriminate about the kind of religious structures they nest on.

I’m initially a little underwhelmed by Pummakale. The whole town is geared around what looks, from a distance, like a small, slightly discoloured ski slop. The next day, when we get into our togs, pay our admission, and start the gentle ascent up the slopes, it’s much better than I expected. While the natural travertines and terraces are off-limits, natural pools have been built and we sample all of these on the way up. Compared to the scorching temperatures of the day, the water feels cool and refreshing, even though it is a natural 34 degrees.

There is a similar tourist phenomenon here, where everybody starts at the top and makes their way down. Subsequently, we start alone at the bottom and end up mid-way completely surrounded by people. There is some very strange provocative posing going on and many people have dressed especially for the day.

As we near the top, there is the constant blowing of whistles as the staff reprimand people for keeping their shoes on.

Pummukale, meaning Cotton Castle, is also the site of the ancient Greco-Roman and Byzantine city of Hierapolis, which sits at the top of the hill.

At the top, we leave the crowds behind and wander through the nearly-deserted ruins of the city and baths. There is something very beautiful about ruins that have been left to fall where they once stood. The whole place is overgrown and we spend a couple of hours wandering freely around the necropolis and a whole other area of terraces that are exquisite.

After two nights in Pumukkale, we drive several hours South East to the ancient settlement of Olympos in Antalya.

We are staying in a rural guest-house which, for some reason, I think is in a remote settlement where we will wander peacefully through the ancient ruins to the sea. It turns out that a 500 metre stretch from the ruins back towards our guest-house is dedicated to tree house accommodation and bars for wandering hippies and a lot of people are carrying drums in their bikinis which is always a bad sign.

Luckily we have sidelined the tree houses and their lack of air-conditioning and are staying in a very local Turkish guest-house that seems to be the choice of accommodation for several Turkish families at the beginning of their summer holidays.

On arrival, we are immediately befriended by Kennan and his 14 year old daughter Tomris. He already has several hours of Raki drinking behind him and after displacing a large amount of water, doing a bomb in to the pool, he joins in a happy game of piggy in the middle with the boys and Roger who he seems to have taken a particular shine to.

With Tomris acting as his partial interpreter, we have a very interesting conversation about chakras, old souls, indigo children, astrology, politics and Raki which is quite a surprise.

He invites us to come out on a boat trip the next day.

Our boat is a bit of a drinking party and tanning boat which is a bit of a thing in Turkey in the summer. We stop at some amazing bays and it is our first real taste of the outrageous azure blue of the sea in the Aegean.

Sometime in the afternoon, the sky fills with smoke and the whole light of the day changes as smoke covers the sun. It’s obvious that there’s a fairly big fire happening somewhere which isn’t surprising as it’s so dry and hot.

One thing really strikes me about the difference between us folk from Aotearoa and people from other places in the world is the physical freedom we give our kids. Louie spends about half an hour clambering up a rock and jumping off. People on the boat are freaking out at our relaxed nature; I am shouting encouragement from the boat and taking photos. There are goats clambering around on the rocks too which is encouraging.

A couple of days later, we have a plan to head to Cirali Beach and the mysterious flames of Chimera which come out of Mount Olympos.

Kennan has especially requested that we come along, mostly so that Roger can drive the van home after Kennan has drunk a bottle of Raki.

Soon after breakfast we see smoke coming from the hills near Adrasan, from where we caught the boat. We all hop in the van, including Ibrahim who owns the guest-house and we drive down the road to check it out.

Because of the language barrier in the car, it is hard to work out exactly what is going on but as we get closer to the smoke it is obvious that the fire is really big and Roger starts to freak out.

In retrospect, it was fair enough as fire can travel very fast and it seemed as if there was a lack of concern for how dangerous the situation was. Everyone kept saying “no worries, not dangerous”.

We agree to stay at the guest-house for a while rather than head off to the beach, even though the fire is still some distance away and the wind seems to be carrying it in the other direction.

Until……. the wind which is quite strong, suddenly swings around and within five minutes we can see flames from the guest-house. At this point, everyone is saying there is no problem but we start to feel quite nervous and we run upstairs to pack our bags. By this stage, everybody else has left the guest-house, partly because there have been all-day power cuts since the previous fire two days ago near Antalya and it is unbearably hot without air-conditioning.

When the Ibrahim and his son start to clear the debris from the dry river bed that separates the hill from the guest-house, we know it’s time to go. We’ve seen most of the neighbours load suitcases into their cars already, so while I feel stink leaving them to work on their own I also know that if there was a police presence here in the valley, we would be forced to evacuate. For Roger, there is no question: we’ve got to go.

The other slight concern is that we’re in a valley with fire encroaching from both sides. We make a plan to follow Kennan to Cirali beach which is the same beach as Olympos but separated by a rocky outcrop and therefore on a completely different road.

Just before we head off, we see the Turkish doppelgänger of Chris the Ranger from Mimiwhangata walking down the road.

As we head out of the valley, we pass the fire crew and police who are coming to evacuate the valley. It is a weird feeling to evacuate a place you’ve just been staying. There is the extreme relief of having all of your things inside the boot of the car and all your family safe, but also the sinking feeling that the people you have just met may lose their business and their home.

We reach Cirali beach and decide to spend the rest of the day based at the beachfront restaurant of Kennan’s friend where we can wait for news of the guest-house.

There are four helicopters with monsoon buckets working constantly to pick up water from the beach and carry it though the valley to Olympos.

After Louie and Kennan (a former Backgammon champion) have had a few games and drunk quite a bit of Raki (not Louie), we have a swim and head down the beach towards Olympos where we explore the ruins and have a beautiful freshwater swim in the spring, which was a former baths in the ancient city of Olympos.

To add to the strange events of the day, we meet a man in a banana suit who is preparing to put the fire out with a couple of water guns. He also invites us a to a dance party at his tree house later in the evening.

At about 8.30pm we hear from the guest-house. The fire has come very close and is still burning on the hill above, but the fire crews are on standby during the night and it is safe to come back.

It’s hard to know whether or not it is safe, particularly as there is still a fairly substantial fire burning on the hill, but we have no other place to stay and the wind has died down considerably. By the time we go to bed, there are just a series of small fires burning all over the hillside.

The biggest problem is that there is no power and the heat radiating off the hill makes for an extremely hot and smokey night.

The next morning we head happily to our next destination. The smoke is pretty overpowering and our lungs are suffering.