A.B. Away: Orhaniye near Marmaris, Turkey

(Lesley) We stayed in Orhaniye (near Marmaris) for 4 nights and did two hikes with Terry Anthony, John's dad's cousin. Our first hike was a bit of a loop that took us to a mountain cabin owned by a Turkish friend of Terry's. It was a 3 hour round trip. It was nice to be out hiking in the mountains, even though we aren't nearly as fit as we used to be. Our second hike was up to what is left of an old temple and took a little longer. We enjoyed both hikes, gained spectacular views of the bays in the Mediterranean and saw tortoises, lizards, goats and wild flowers. Each day after our hike we were able to reward ourselves with a swim in the Med.

Our stay in Orhaniye coincided with a big regatta. There were lots of Turkish children in laser sailboats across the entire bay. This regatta was for children from all over Turkey. It was interesting to be so close to the action. Some of the kids were quite small but they handled their boats well. They went quite far too. Some days they were nowhere to be seen until later in the day when over 100 white sails could just be seen approaching and then they would come ashore and take over every available space with boats, sails, wet clothes, ropes etc.

We stayed in an apartment hotel just back from Terry at the Dogan Motel, east of the marina. Each evening we went over to the Dogan to borrow the WiFi to blog and to Skype. We also traded a lot of ours books with some from their book exchange shelf. We are carrying 19 books! That is probably a few too many for 4 people especially as we now tend to all read most of them. Books are cherished when occasionally English ones are hard to find.

(John) I know it sounds so nice, there must be a catch. Not really. When we weren't hiking or checking out tortoises we were wandering through perfect little fields where baby goats bleated and Turkish ladies worked joyfully cutting long dry grass with scythes. Or we strolled the 150 metres or so from our hotel to the Mediterranean where from a secluded beach we took long cool swims out to the yachts moored in the bay. Then we would lie out in the sun to dry, read and be charmed as the young goats came to check us out and taste our towels to see if they were edible. Terry's hotel was closer to the beach and relatively busy. Our 'ApartMotel was set further back and virtually empty. We had two bedrooms a bathroom and a galley kitchen. There was a fridge and one small propane burner. I did the cooking and managed with the pots provided to serve delicious healthy meals even if I do say so myself. We even bought a bottle of wine - the first taste of alcohol yet in Turkey. Booze must be quite heavily taxed here. It is much more expensive than in Europe but quite similar to Canada, so being the skinflints that we are we just stopped buying it. We also caught up on laundry as we had a great washing line on our patio and the weather was ideal. The apartment we rented was, at 100 TL a day, the most expensive accommodation we had found yet in Turkey, but being able to cook meals and not needing to pay entry fees to anything enabled us to stay in budget. Still, we could not stay there any longer as we had lots of great stuff yet to do in Turkey.