Kaş to Antalya and Ankara

The next morning, I got up reasonably early to try and capture the sunrise over the amphitheatre a couple of hundred metres from the pansiyon. It was not spectacular, but I did get to see it. The amphitheatre itself is very well preserved, but not as impressive as the ones in Fethiye or Patara. Then I wandered around looking for the Doric grave. Then I walked across to the other side of the valley to check out the Lycian rock tombs. From the map they gave me at the tourist office, it looked like they would be accessible from a street intersecting Likya Caddesi. So I walked up a bunch of switchbacks all the way to the main road, where I found the intersection with the Lycian Way, but not the tombs. So I walked all the way back down and started to walk along Likya Caddesi. I could see one rock tomb in the cliff above the street behind the houses on that side. Just as I was about to give up and head back, I saw a sign for the tombs pointing to a staircase. So up I went. There are two tombs up that way. A little further down the street, opposite the primary school, there’s another one, also accessible from the street by stairs.

As I was heading across the square on my way back to the hotel, I passed a fresh orange juice place, which was just what I needed. Indeed, I woke up with a craving for precisely that, but made do with a carton of apple raspberry juice. At least it was cold.

Anyway, I caught the 11:00 bus to Antalya, arriving just in time to grab the last seat on the KamilKoç bus to Ankara, arriving just before midnight. I should have just got a taxi from AŞTİ, the Ankara bus terminal, as I knew there was no way the buses would still be running by the time I got to Kızılay, but I ended up taking the Metro, anyway. It turned out to be a silly idea as there was a long wait for the train to arrive and an even longer wait before it left.

So, having set off with the intention of walking over 500km and coming back 15kg lighter, I ended up walking about 75km, about 20 of them not part of those 500, and 1kg heavier. A couple of days after I got back, my feet and lower legs swelled up like I’ve never seen before. Gave me quite a scare. They’re just about back to normal. I assume this must have been a reaction to some plant or something that scratched me.

On the whole, the walk was kind of disappointing. This is largely because I was disappointed with myself – both my physical performance and my apparent inability to follow the trail. I found it tiring and ultimately decided to stop when it was just slog much of the time. Another important factor was loneliness. I’d have much preferred to do it with a companion. It was also starting to get expensive, which was also my own fault for not wanting to camp. Another result of not wanting to camp is that I may have missed more interesting sections. A lot of my walking was actually on road, which I find particularly boring and draining.