It was the month of June in the year 2024, and I was craving to escape from my 20-million small coffin. This was a grave robbery for the treasure of my soul. So I needed my body embark on a journey, to be on the road. Joy returned to me as soon as I put my thumb out and started hitchhiking my way down south of my beautiful homeland, Türkiye. My destination was the city of Antalya. Particularly the area called Likya. A reunion of my soul with my body, as it was already waiting for me next to the river of emotions I was heading towards.
Hours upon hours, in a daze and melancholy I traveled. As I watched the roads and thought about what I wanted to leave behind never to return to. As it stood, I was not looking to find anyone but myself on my journey. This was an off-season trip as I did not want to be bothered by anyone during my time there. A Russian man took me with his rental car. He himself was going there to see his friend, and it turned out I was going to be doing the same. Unplanned, Jay, my close friend whom I met back in Istanbul, was on holiday with his family, and he invited me to join them for a swim down at the beach. I accepted and took a detour towards Alanya.
First, I had to figure out where I would set up my camp. I looked around for some clues. Luckily, I found a camping spot randomly on the maps and took a ride there. This place was next to the Dim Creek. It was a small establishment with some tent spots and small rooms. There was a small camping docks right above the flowing water of the creek, so I immediately chose this amazing spot where I could see the fishes swim from where my tent stood so clearly that as if I was swimming with them in bliss without any trouble on earth. Each drop of water seemed hand-selected by nature’s pure soul and given to the beings inhabiting this little creek. I found myself immersed and immediately got into the water. I stood in the middle of the flowing water on a rock, legs crossed and heart’s eye open. I was myself. I found the spirits of the forest so unexpectedly. I meditated for hours, cleaned the man-made trash around, and listened to the sounds of the water and birds singing. Peace.
There was a small dirt road leading up to the camping area with couple cars passing by so I put my thumb out and waited for someone to stop. A motorcyclist stopped for me and offered me a ride. This was hell of a ride. The motorcycle was probably older than me and even more broken than me. I found myself on the back of it without hesitation. As we sped off the guy tried to talk with me in a broken accent through his missing teeth, which made it so difficult to understand what he was saying. He was not looking at the road at all, and I thought, this would be how it all ends. Going down the valley toward the city took twenty minutes on this duck tape & prayer-held motorcycle. The wind blew his speech into my face in the form of wet blobs. Finally, we arrived at the shores of Alanya. I got out, thanked him and took a bus to the beach I was heading. After all that, I was alive.
Jay and his little sister joined me at the beach. We spent the rest of the sunny summer day swimming in the sea, playing with an American football and laying down. When we had enough of swimming he invited me to his house where they were staying for the holiday. His mom prepared us dinner. Jay is Moldovan, and his mom is Gagauzian, so he could speak Turkish amazingly well. We ate, drank, sang songs, and watched the sunset together. That was a beautiful evening.
After dark, I decided to return to my camping area. I took a rental scooter. I rode for an hour before the batteries of the electric scooter got drained. Then, I disembarked and started walking on a scary, dark village road. In the pitch-black hilly roads sparsely populated with barns and one story houses. There were wild noises. I heard the screams of cows and the howls of dogs. It felt like I was starring in a horror movie, and I wondered what might happen next.. What actually happened, I would never have imagined.
I heard an engine behind me roaring, slowly approaching. The road grew brighter and brighter with the headlight as the noise got louder and louder. I turned back but the light blinded me. I started walking faster. Suddenly, it stopped. Right next to me. I turned, bracing for a confrontation. To my surprise, a motorcyclist was there, offering me a ride to my destination. He took me to my camping area on his motorcycle. It was a 15-minute ride, and he told me he was a forest engineer going home. His name escapes my memory, but I will always remember him as a lifesaver. The kindness of strangers and a second motorcycle ride in one day—what a perfect conclusion to my first day in Alanya. I still had six more days to go!
I woke up with a chill above the creek on the terraces, frozen by the cold mountain water. The sun was about to hit the valley floor, through the tall trees, as I got out from my tent and went into the creek for a swim. I felt the icy needles poking all over my body as I jumped in. I was in a state of bliss. Then I took the path covered by ivy and undisturbed spider webs through the forest and reached that stone in the middle of the gushing creek. I sat down meditated for a while. Life was such a fleeting experience. Each moment we live we pass another one by, and all the memories we have are just reflections through the waters flowing in our mind. Blurry and turbulent. Deep blue state of existence. I do not remember how long I sat on that rock. Must have been some time. The sun was warm and welcoming me to the rest of my day. After all, I prepared breakfast, made coffee, and left to find a castle that held the sea on its arms.
This place was called the Red Tower. At least I would like to imagine it was. This castle was built during the reign of Alâeddin Keykûbad Sultan. This Selçuk-style castle and Shipyard was located on the little peninsula that jots out from the beach like a humpback whale rising from the ocean. The castle walls ran adjacent to the sea and there was a narrow strip of pebble-mixed sand beach, where many locals were spending their afternoon taking a swim. The Sun was shining from behind the castle walls and it generously gifted us some shade, just like in an octopus’s garden, people swam with joy. The day blended in with pleasure and peace, history and time. Rest of the day was spent in nearby beaches, exploring around the castle and having dinner with Jay and his sister.
Came the next day and I woke up early to set out on my way. Gathered my tend and said goodbye to the beautiful creek that gave me so much love. The winds were taking me west, I traveled for full day, took a swim at Konyaaltı Beach and then set my camp at the east side of Bey Mountain. The next day I continued hitchhiking. I was now in a peninsula named Teke in Turkish, but this place had a more ancient name. Named after the people who called it home for centuries before any Turks even left central Asia. Lycia. Straddling the western side of the Taurus Mountains and the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea this region was an amazing location for sea trade and cultural development.
Lycians built city-states, such as Xanthos, Patara, Myra, Pinara, Tlos, Olympos, and Phaselis. All now laid ruined and abandoned. My first destination was not one of these ancient wonderful cities. It was one that I stumbled upon accidentally. I was going South on the Kumluca-Kemer highway on a hitchhike, crammed in a small pickup truck with two seats that were already full before I squeezed in. This was always a fun part of hitchhiking as suddenly you’d find yourself in a car with random random strangers. It can go in any direction as they become close friends or awkward encounters. The road brought me to Kumluca and got out of the car. I decided to explore and saw that there was ruins nearby city. Without having any idea about this place and its history I hopped on an old shaky minibus that took me to where the mountain meets the farmlands. I got out of the minibus as soon as I saw it. Limyra. It was waiting for my arrival. As soon as I crossed the road I took off the path with a couple of step stones among flowing water and trees. There was massive bull and tied to a tree and cows grazing the patch of grass beneath the half-ruined city walls. This sight struck me, a surreal experience, as if I was a shepherd bringing my cows to the city to sacrifice them to the local gods and goddesses.
I entered the city through a collapsed part of the wall. The whole site was unexcavated. Everything was covered with lush green grass, some thorny bushes and a river flowing throughout the ancient city with many little branches interwoven. I climbed on the walls to take a better look at the whole city. This was indeed a quite dangerous move that made me think about Brandon Stark. What ancient secrets was this city was hiding in the fallen rubbles and buried tunnels? My eyes suddenly caught movement. Among the tall grass a turtle was walking. I went up to him and gave my condolences for the lost city. Maybe he was its conqueror. Who knew? I sent him on his way wishing he would find his home. Then I jumped the waterways, creeks and ponds. I walked balancing on colossal stone structures half sunken in the soil and mud. After some time I found myself in the back of the site walking towards its actual entrance and its biggest ruin.
This was one of the most magical moment in my life. I was standing there in awe. An ancient city road with people swimming through it! The sandstone paved road was flanked on both sides with collapsed columns and was fully flooded by crystal clear groundwater bursting out from the base of the ruined building standing at the opposite end of the road. All those creeks were feeding this river and it had a length of 40 straight meters stretching from north to south. I immediately jumped in. The water was so freezing, so cold and yet so refreshing in the summer noon of Antalya. Swimming in a 2600-year-old street was quite a unique experience. Magic. There were some local kids swimming near the ruins here who took interest in me after seeing my tattoo-covered body as for them it was strange. I spent a couple of hours swimming, meeting the locals, and meditating on top of a half-collapsed column in the middle of the river. At that moment I was reminded of the ruins of this civilization a very famous poem by Percy Sheley called Ozymandias. It went like this…
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
I left the city at around late noon and started walking along the road trying to find a ride. Within five minutes a motorcycle stopped and offered me a ride. A very generous man on his Vespa took me and my huge backpack down to the port city of Fenike. From there I caught more rides towards west. On the way, I had a couple of interesting stops and car rides. My goal was to reach the city of Kaş. So I did not stay anywhere for too long. I remember it took me 5 to 6 hours with at least 4 different rides to reach Kaş, the beautiful place that I wanted to visit since I decided to leave Istanbul. Finally I was there.
I entered Kaş on the late afternoon. Walking through the city with all my camping gear was exhausting. As I was trying to find a place to camp, I was wondering about the thousands of years of history these lands held. Where Thales, Galen, Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Anaximander, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Diogenes, Strabo, and Epictetus roamed and made their philosophy in Anatolia (Anadolu in Turkish) which derives from the Greek Anatole meaning “the East” and designating (from a Greek point of view) eastern regions in general. This Greek word refers to the direction where the sun rises, coming from anatello ‘rise up’, comparable to terms in other languages such as “levant” from Latin levo ‘to rise’, “orient” from Latin orior ‘to arise, to originate’. Everything was a perspective in life. We always have a direction and an understanding from a certain perspective. We all need a center. We all search for it or we spin out.
My mind ran with thoughts of history, many lives, cultures, wars, and legends as I lived a thousand lifetimes before arriving back to where I was standing, with my heavy backpack, looking downwards at a nearby small beach. Büyük Çakıl beach, where I was only going to stay for a single day. I found a spot to hitch my tent and I decided to take a swim immediately joining nature just as the sun was setting. I ran up to the beach and put my towel down to, after carrying my gear around walking and hitchhiking for kilometers, going into the water was a treat. The sea was chilly and the sun was already hiding its gaze behind the steep rocky cliffs in the valley, taking away the light with itself. As I swam slowly the light touched my face one last time. I got out and sat down on the beach to watch and listen to the calming waves caressing the pebbled beach.
There were only a couple more people swimming in that little valley beach. Two girls came out the sea and sat down right next to where I was sitting. A moment later I realized my hairband was lost at sea. So I asked one of the girls if they had an extra hairband because mine got lost in the sea, my hair was long and all over my face all the time. She said, “I don’t think I have any.” Her sister was quick to say “I got one!” and handed me a hair tie from her bag. I thanked them both and asked where they were from. “From Spain.” We had a lovely chat and I told them about my trip so they offered me a ride with their rental car on the way to their next destination. We agreed to meet tomorrow at İnceboğaz beach.
The road took us further west around the Lycian peninsula. When we saw the sign on the side of the road my heart became brighter. City of Patara. We meandered our way down the valley while my excitement grew. I did not know much about this area or its history at that moment when I was in the car entering the ancient city, but the time I spent in this magnificent location captured a deep imagination in me. We parked the car between all the others and I was surprised that there were so many cars around. As I got out I asked someone else who was getting out their car, I learned that they were teachers of a local high school that was having their graduation ceremony in the nearby building called Bulleterion. I asked if we could join in and they welcomed us. Standing in a building with such a history with pop music playing as the parents of the students stumbling in to sit on the marble seats and the gowned high schoolers standing in front of the gate of this historical structure waiting to make their entrance. What a moment in time. This building that represented democracy and thousands of years of history of the concept of republic was still housing people who lived in a democratic concept and creating memories. One can imagine, maybe two thousand years ago the ancient high school students were celebrating their graduations here as well.
All three of us were stunned and impressed by all this history. Alas the time was running low as the sun was going down. We moved on and climbed to the top of the amphitheater nearby, staring at the beautiful sights that the city of Patara offered us. I could never expect such amazing wonders to exist right under our noses, and I wondered how many people even knew about it. Andrea stated that we could try to make it to the sand dunes on the hills to watch the sunset. Carla agreed and we checked that it was just 40 minutes to the sunset. After giving each other smiles we ran down. We chased the sunset as we ran to the car, drove recklessly through the forests, and climbed the hills We ran barefoot in the sands to catch a glimpse… we were just 2 minutes too late. The sight of the people already walking down from the top gave it away to me before I even climbed to the top. Nonetheless, a vast ocean was stretching out towards the horizon as the endless dune covered the land. Waves of the Mediterranean sea crashed violently as if it was trying to communicate with us. So much strength and life it harbored. No matter the situation, standing on top of this dune changed my understanding of life.
Time was so vast. No direction or perspective could truly understand it. I imagined a man walking on a road. This road was on a moving planet that orbit around a moving star that revolved around an arm of a moving galaxy that moved exponentially faster away from everything else within and through it. Ever expending space and time. Was that man still moving at all? Was he going straight at all? Was he going forward? Perspective and our existence would be irrelevant to the universe. Of that fact aside I would also think that the universe through eyes was trying to understand itself. Through us. I felt indifferent and understood that only living the time that was experienced by me, to live even more than I was living, to be at that moment but existing in all. I felt the change. A new life was breathed into me.
I camped alone at a field nearby. After waking up, I packed everything and went back to the top of that dune. I was baking under the sun as I was exploring between the sand filled valley, trying to go down to the sea through the desert. On the way, I struggled and stretched my survival skills to its limits. I found my way after two hours of hiking and met those crushing waves. Immediately I threw away my bags to jump into the sea and feel the oceans embrace. I was completely alone at this beach. Nobody was around and I felt like this world existed as I did. Only for me. After a couple of hours of swimming started walking. I explored around and saw some ruins. It was the lighthouse. It was hundreds of meters away in hinterland. This was strange as I would imagine it being next to the waves. My mind wondered… the sands. Then I imagined myself as Charlton Heston looking up the the statue of liberty. There was a change in mood as I saw the lighthouse was going through some modern restorations. So my mind went on imagining how it might have looked like on the day it was finished. What a wonderful sight it might have been.
It was slowly getting back up to its past glory, this was the oldest known lighthouse in existence built by the Roman emperor Nero in 64 A.D., and it is believed to have been a project to boost Nero’s prestige. The archeologists found an inscription near the fallen structure by the Council of Patara and the town’s residents to the time’s governor Sextus Marcius:
“We thank you for governing the people of Lycia rightfully, without taking bribes, and for adorning our city with beautiful monuments for eight years.”
Also, the lighthouse was inscribed with Nero’s words: “ ’I built this for the welfare of sailors.’ We too, work for the day that we will present this lighthouse to our country and our hero sailors.”
Some archaeologist believe that the god of oracles, healing, archery, music and arts, light, knowledge, herds and flocks, and protection of the young Apollo was supposedly born amongst a grove of date trees here in Patara. Though Homer reports that Apollo was born on the island of Delos, there is indeed a date tree grove in the middle of the ancient city of Patara, but not in the island of Delos. The legend has it Patarus, a son of Apollo founded this city and it was named after him. No matter its mythical beginnings Patara, was doomed to be abandoned by nature and through the years forgotten. The land where Santa Claus is from, where the USA takes its parliamentary system. This land where the oracles have given guidance to kings, the empires rose, and fell. As time passed and the sands brought by the winds settled slowly through hundreds of years covering everything, filling the harbor of this prosperous city. Now only the ruins remained telling its story to us.
Ozymandias would be proud. Many years passed and things did not change much in these lands. History repeats itself without hesitation. I walked along the beach for hours upon hours thinking and feeling. Then it was time to go. I found a public beach area at one corner of the beach. I took a shower and left the beach to embark on my return journey, catching a ride towards İzmir and then back home to İstanbul. After 2000 Km of hitchhiking, a changed soul returned.
Any suggestions for me to visit within Türkiye?
Leave a comment!
Leave a comment