Akbel to Patara

In the morning, we learned to our dismay that there actually was no dolmuş to Akbel, so we started hitching and got a ride to the turnoff. We stopped at the çay bahçesi there for a glass of tea and set off for Patara. The book says to keep the mosque on your right and take a ‘G3’ trail on the left. In fact, it’s about two km from the mosque, after taking a number of right forks in the road that you ultimately come to that trail. There is a great deal of roadwork and construction going on around there. I happened to notice that a lot of the trees have metal number plates nailed to them. This is something I’ve seen before and I surmise that they mark out house blocks. So I think it might be reasonable to anticipate more dramatic changes to the trail in this area over the coming period.

For the first couple of hours, you are never out of earshot of bulldozers and traffic and never out of sight of the hothouses that carpet the valley. It is mainly on dirt road, although fairly shady much of the way. Eventually, however, you come to Delikkemel. (Note that there are two ‘k’s – ‘belt with holes’, not delikemel ‘crazy belt’!) That is worth seeing. I don’t know how it actually works. They call it a siphon. Anyway, somehow, by constructing this pipe, the Roman engineers got water to flow uphill. The pipe comprises scores of stone blocks each with a large hole in the centre that fit together. There were some mechanisms for clearing blockages and even removing individual blocks for repair or replacement. They say each block weighs 800kg. I didn’t try to lift them to check.

After that, the route is mainly on dirt road, sometimes on trail, until you get to the three arched gate of Patara, where you turn right to get to the village of Gelemiş, left for the ruins and the beach. We wanted to find accommodation and shed our packs, so we turned right, after checking with a schoolgirl who was passing by. Several of the hotels and pansiyons we passed were closed, but we stopped at the first one that was open, St Nicholas Pansiyon, and we got the same deal – YTL50 for two rooms, with breakfast.

This time, I stayed behind and rested while Nicole and Marleen went off to explore the ruins and check out the beach. According to the Lonely Planet guidebook, it costs €6.25 or something for a week’s pass to the ruins and beach. It now costs YTL2 for a pass of unspecified duration. Coming from the trail, however, you do not go through the entrance gate on the way to the beach – it’s between there and the village. So if you’re brimming with energy after the 16km from Akbel, you can explore the ruins and have a dip for free.

Although there are a number of restaurants and bars and stuff in Patara, we decided to eat at the hotel. The meal was fine and not too expensive.