After experiencing the constant ups and downs of weather in Istanbul I was thrilled to get away to Southern Turkey for the weekend! My friends Kalyah, Max, Reuben, Rene and I headed to Antalya! We arrived to our hotel around midnight and we starving, so of course we went to the restaurant in our B&B and ordered börek and lots of wine. My friend Molly who had to stay behind in Istanbul was constantly checking the UNC site to see if Rene got in. Since we wouldn’t have access to computers all weekend we were thrilled to find out that SHE GOT IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG next year we’ll be in school together ahh I can’t wait :). Anyway we were all exhausted after that so we turned in early!
Day 2
We woke up lateeee all of us were exhausted but it was an absolutely gorgeous day! I have to say, getting to Antalya at midnight when the whole town was boarded up and it was pretty cold outside was scary, I was convinced that this was the wrong place to come…but during the day! Ah it was just amazing! The weather was perfect and the town completely came alive! We wandered around and found a beautiful waterfront restaurant. The food was eh but we were all so excited to be able to see the sea with mountains in the back ground and still be warm that we just didn’t care! Afterwards we went on a boat tour of the Aegean Sea. It’s funny when you walk around the harbor the boat owners can immediately sense that you’re a tourist and they literally jump off their boats and yell at you to get on! We walked around the whole harbor until we found one guy who chased us down. Originally he said 50 lira for all 5 of us but we used our Indian/African/Jewish bartering skills and got him down to 20 lira total for 5 people! What a steal! It was a beautiful hour boat cruise around the coast and they even had 4 lira beer and wine on board. Really what else could you ask for?
View from the boat
Waterfall
After the boat tour we hit up the local market and did some shopping. It was similar to a fusion of the Spice Bazaar and markets in all beach towns. Rene and Kalyah really enjoyed it (with the help of a lot of Efes!) We really wanted to go to Dürden Falls so we hopped on a bus and hoped it would take us there. OMG it was the longest bus ride every, well not really. It was an hour but we were not expecting it to be that long and the road was just so bumpy and dusty. It’s funny how quickly I forgot that we were in Asia, the main town looked so European that it completely slipped my mind but as soon as we drove out of town I was quickly reminded! The landscape other than the beautifully preserved waterfall area looked like rural India or Africa. It was very dusty, unpaved clay roads, and lots of run down or unfinished homes. Regardless the waterfall was gorgeous and I’m really happy that I got to see it.
Haman Café
Day three in Antalya and the weather sucked! When we woke up and had lunch it was cloudy and then we stopped in a café to smoke nargile and it started POURING! We huddled our table under outdoor umbrellas waiting for the rain until finally the waiter thought to tell us that there was an inside to the café. It was SO cool. The café used to be the town’s Hamam (bath house) so now it’s a very chill place for nargile and good food. It still looked exactly like a hamam inside, just there was no water everywhere. Instead there were beanbag chairs and tables! We sat there for about 3 hours just watching tv and sitting on beanbag chairs chillin! Overall an excellent day!
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