A Week on the Turquoise Coast

Last week Erin and I packed up Buddha, our 1998 Nissan Terrano, and headed down to the pine forest and blue bays of Turkey's famous Turquoise Coast.

We spent six days traveling West to East, settling in at campgrounds along the way. We started our trip with the amazing calcified cliffs of Pamukkale, a phenomenon of hot water pools and deposits that continue to stream down a mountainside. From there we moved on to the ruins of Aphrodisas, where more than a few of the placards in the ruins made reference to "the rituals of lovemaking" that went on in this aptly named Roman town. I think that's probably putting it mildly, the town sure sounds like an orgy-fest to me.

Taking a day and a half to make it to the coast, we finally coasted all the way out into the middle of the sea (two, actually) with the Mediterranean on one side of the Datca Peninsula, and the Aegean on the other. We found some great, beach side camping at the Ilica Campground; complete with hot water, beach chairs, umbrellas, a fridge, and a TV with which we were able to witness USA's devastating loss to Ghana.

After two nights in Datca, we hit the road to the lagoon of Oludeniz. Here we found Sugar Beach camping, full of topless pasty-white Brit's who apparently were unaware of a thing called sunscreen. I guess you don't really need it in the UK. At any rate, Sugar Beach had a nice collection of human lobsters, as well as more great camping, hot showers, bar, bacon burgers, pina coladas, etc. etc. Pretty nice, but also pretty touristy.

We only spent one night amongst the Lobster Brits, I was scared their screams of sunburned nightmares would wake me. Continuing to the East we found the amazing Ptara Beach, with 18KM of white sand dunes, and a complete reversal in beach culture from the private lagoon--here we saw the Burqa-inis that the new Sex and The City movie made famous. Mmmmm, sexy head-to-toe bathing suits. Yeah baby!!!!

Our last two nights were spent in Kas, a town that straddles the line between being too touristy, and truly local. The camping was splendid, just two tiers of sunchairs separated our tent from the water. In town the walking alleys were full of boutiques, bars, and restored Ottoman homes, where we finally gave in and had a meal that wasn't cooked over our campstove. Perhaps the most amazing site in Kas was in the harbor, where we found the Bristolian super yacht, discreetly docked at the end of the bay. Click the link to check out the boat, it is an engineering marvel.

Thanks for checking in, I posted the best of our pics from each leg of the trip below. If your going to the Turquoise Coast, drop me a line and I can point you in some good directions.

-Tim