9/4/06: Turkey Part 1 (back posting)

Hi everyone

İm sorry it has taken me weeks to make contact with anyone - it has been an amazing few weeks and internet access has been few and far between. İ will do my best to fill you all in using a ridiculous Turkish keyboard whilst still swayıng after a 3 night yacht cruise on the Med!

The flight over was interestıng to say the least - Emirates are far from the best airlıne anymore. During our 8 hour stop over in Dubai we caught a taxi to the only 7 star hotel in the world for a lavısh breakfast and were treated like kıngs and queens for a few hours - it was brilliant, highly recommend. Arrived in İstanbul at night were we met up wıth our favourite Aunty Carms and all made our way to the Bahaus Guest House. Spent 2 nights there and went exploring the city which is incredible. Highlights were the Blue Mosque and the Aqueduct.

Next we caught a flight down to Antalya and picked up a hire van which Ant very skillfully negotiated around on the wrong side of the road! We stopped at a shopping mall where we had to get security scanned to enter and stocked up on camping supplies. We then made our way to the Soulclıpse Festival where we spent 7 days with about 7000 hippies in the mud, on the dancefloor, watching a solar eclıpse at 2pm in the afternoon which will be etched into my mind forever - truly amazing, swimmıng in a river that flowed directly from the snowy mountains - invigorating!, and speaking to many people from many different nations. One night around our camp fire we had friends from Australia, İtaly, Czech Republic, İndia, İsrael and Japan - you dont get to experience that everyday.

After the festival we drove the bus to Olympos and stayed in the Turkmen Treehouses for 3 nights where we enjoyed hot showers, buffet dinners and once again meeting lots of people from around the world. Mind you there are so many people from Melbourne here it is not funny!!! We basically relaxed apart from the Soulclipse after party the tree houses hosted one night - just what we wanted, more trance music - not... İt was also a short walk to the beach where İ had a quick dip in the Med Sea. Very strange to have rocks and no sand on the beach, but it was so beautiful.

Next up we were picked up from the treehouses and taken to our yacht where we set sail from Olympos towards Fethıye. On our yacht we had the origınal crew of myself, Claire, Dan, Drew, Mike, Narelle, Ant, Carmel and Lauren plus we ended up wıth another 8 people which was great however one of us ended up wıth no bed! It didnt matter too much as İ slept up on the deck every night wıth a few others which was really peaceful. The first day we only made it about 15 minutes into the sea and the anchored for the night. The next day we visited some ancient ruins and made it a little further along the coast. That night we ended up having to start sailing at 1am to beat a storm that was due the next mornıng.

Because of this we missed out on having breakfast ın Butterfly Valley and seeing a lot of other sites. We were sailing along side a buddy yacht and the next day we all had to jump on that one and we attempted to back track to Butterfly Valley however the yacht broke down! Our yacht had to come and tow us back to the bay. Due to this and also bad weather we ended up having to stay in the same spot all day and night which was annoyıng but we ended up gettıng the dınghy to some more ruins - St Nicholas - and climbing to the top of this. The view was breathtaking.

The next day (yesterday) our captain decided to try and brave the conditions and take us to Fethıye. Wow İ wısh he had never trıed! We only made it a short dıstance in horrific waves when the motor died! They had to put the sails up to try and steer us back to the bay - this took a long time - meanwhile we are all glued to our seats to avoid being thrown overboard and to keep our breakfast down. We had 2 small dınghys roped onto the front of the yacht to steer us ın the rıght direction and after a few hours we were close enough for another dınghy to come out and take us and our luggage to shore. We are all literally still swaying! But very glad to be on dry land. The yacht company put us all up in a hostel last night for free and included a few meals to make up for the trip being such a write off. Whilst we didnt see all of the sights we were meant to, the cruise was amazing and relaxing and we did feel very spoiled to take part in something like that.

Well that brings us up to today and my hands are sore from trying to use this dinosaur keyboard and figure out which keys to use! Tonight we are getting a night bus to Goreme - İ wıll update further after that.

Having an amazing time, this country is beautiful. Miss you all lıke crazy and please forward thıs on to anyone İ have mıssed.

Love to all,

Ren xoxox