I wrote this months ago.. it is old, very old, but it is already here so I will just post it (it is not like you would know where we really are anyway, unless we tell you, right?) ;)
The VISA renewal – ha! What a fuss. Tureky’s law is – let’s say- very flexible. It changes all the time and there seems to be a big confusion about what and when things change.
To make a long story short, we found out that the visa regulations had been changed just 5 days before we wanted to renew ours. According to the new law, it would not be possible for us to renew our visas unless we’d stay out of the country for 3 months, we were told. What other options did we have than trying anyway? So we tried.
We arrived to Kaş (“eyebrow”) and were going to take a ferry to a Greek island called Meis (“eye”). A FERRY -what were we thinking??? Considering that we have not been lucky with the last two ferries we wanted to take.. so there we were again: No ferry.
"...but maybe tomorrow, come back tomorrow! Visa renewal? Hmmm... Difficult! With the new law... but let’s see ,let's see, come back tomorrow!"
Next morning: "..wind is too strong... no ferry. Oh wait, maybe yes. We'll run the big ferry! But sorry, it will cost you 100 Euros each instead of 25."
Hahaha...!!!
We decided to call Selo instead. Who was Selo? A guy we read about in the internet. Supposedly, he would run a ferry every Friday, however the weather. No official web site. No inofficial one either. Just a tourist who wrote about his experiences with this guy called Selo. We couldn't speak to him when we called his cell phone but according to his nephew there would be "No problem! Visa? Ok!"
Promising? We didn't know. But we gave it a chance.
We didn’t want to hang around in Kaş just to wait for Friday to come around, epecially because we had heard so many good things about Olympos' which was supposed to be another highlight for us. A laid-back place by the beach with tree-house hostels, this kind of atmosphere. And rocks to climb!
The wind was against us on the 1000m uphill (that felt like 2000). I could barely hold my bike straight, even when I was pushing it up. The rewarding downhill did not come. It was a constant up, down, up, down, up, down until Demre. Demre, St Nicolaos' hometown -did you know??-a town full of tomato growing greenhouses!
A few days later we finally arrived to Olympos. Full of anticipation.
Mmmm? Olympos, the traveler’s paradise looked like an abandoned neo-hippie afterparty place with -admittedly- a few nice, creative looking tree houses but the rest were copies of copies of copies...and a whole lot of them. So we decided to go to the next town called Ciralı. What we didn’t know was that we had to cross some fenced ancient ruins and a creek in order to get to the beach, push the bikes through the sand and then cross another bigger river with a strong stream... but it was worth all that - Cirali was something like a little oasis: Astonishingly beautiful. A few long-term travellers had put their vans on the beach. They had been there for weeks already, understandably. We spent a few relaxing days, rock-climbing, reading, gazing into the endless sky and sitting around a fire every night.
A 20min hike up the hills led to Chimaera, one of the earth`s natural wonders: Flammable gas is escaping from some cracks between the rocks and burning - forever. A magical scenery.
IF YOU WANT TO GO TO CIRALI PLEASE READ THIS TOO
Actaully,
peaceful Cirali was not exactly that peaceful when we were there. The
beach is a nestling place for turtles and protected by Green Peace but
some investors are trying to built a bar and hotel there.. All the other
hostel owners by the beach respect this and have even moved their
houses away from the beach several years ago. When we stayed there,
electricity poles were put up on the beach and put down again by the
villagers at night several times.
The villagers were having demonstrations on several days. We were asked to give interviews in the hope of getting more publicity...
So whoever happens to go to Cirali PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be aware of the problems there - and if there is a bar on the beach by now, DO NOT GO THERE.
The VISA renewal – ha! What a fuss. Tureky’s law is – let’s say- very flexible. It changes all the time and there seems to be a big confusion about what and when things change.
To make a long story short, we found out that the visa regulations had been changed just 5 days before we wanted to renew ours. According to the new law, it would not be possible for us to renew our visas unless we’d stay out of the country for 3 months, we were told. What other options did we have than trying anyway? So we tried.
We arrived to Kaş (“eyebrow”) and were going to take a ferry to a Greek island called Meis (“eye”). A FERRY -what were we thinking??? Considering that we have not been lucky with the last two ferries we wanted to take.. so there we were again: No ferry.
"...but maybe tomorrow, come back tomorrow! Visa renewal? Hmmm... Difficult! With the new law... but let’s see ,let's see, come back tomorrow!"
Next morning: "..wind is too strong... no ferry. Oh wait, maybe yes. We'll run the big ferry! But sorry, it will cost you 100 Euros each instead of 25."
Hahaha...!!!
We decided to call Selo instead. Who was Selo? A guy we read about in the internet. Supposedly, he would run a ferry every Friday, however the weather. No official web site. No inofficial one either. Just a tourist who wrote about his experiences with this guy called Selo. We couldn't speak to him when we called his cell phone but according to his nephew there would be "No problem! Visa? Ok!"
Promising? We didn't know. But we gave it a chance.
We didn’t want to hang around in Kaş just to wait for Friday to come around, epecially because we had heard so many good things about Olympos' which was supposed to be another highlight for us. A laid-back place by the beach with tree-house hostels, this kind of atmosphere. And rocks to climb!
The wind was against us on the 1000m uphill (that felt like 2000). I could barely hold my bike straight, even when I was pushing it up. The rewarding downhill did not come. It was a constant up, down, up, down, up, down until Demre. Demre, St Nicolaos' hometown -did you know??-a town full of tomato growing greenhouses!
A few days later we finally arrived to Olympos. Full of anticipation.
Mmmm? Olympos, the traveler’s paradise looked like an abandoned neo-hippie afterparty place with -admittedly- a few nice, creative looking tree houses but the rest were copies of copies of copies...and a whole lot of them. So we decided to go to the next town called Ciralı. What we didn’t know was that we had to cross some fenced ancient ruins and a creek in order to get to the beach, push the bikes through the sand and then cross another bigger river with a strong stream... but it was worth all that - Cirali was something like a little oasis: Astonishingly beautiful. A few long-term travellers had put their vans on the beach. They had been there for weeks already, understandably. We spent a few relaxing days, rock-climbing, reading, gazing into the endless sky and sitting around a fire every night.
A 20min hike up the hills led to Chimaera, one of the earth`s natural wonders: Flammable gas is escaping from some cracks between the rocks and burning - forever. A magical scenery.
IF YOU WANT TO GO TO CIRALI PLEASE READ THIS TOO
Actaully,
peaceful Cirali was not exactly that peaceful when we were there. The
beach is a nestling place for turtles and protected by Green Peace but
some investors are trying to built a bar and hotel there.. All the other
hostel owners by the beach respect this and have even moved their
houses away from the beach several years ago. When we stayed there,
electricity poles were put up on the beach and put down again by the
villagers at night several times. The villagers were having demonstrations on several days. We were asked to give interviews in the hope of getting more publicity...
So whoever happens to go to Cirali PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be aware of the problems there - and if there is a bar on the beach by now, DO NOT GO THERE.
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