Hoş Gelden: Pre-Guiding on the Carian Trail to Saturday Teas & Cakes. 🇹🇷
Two Guides Hiking
Turkiye is 7 time zones away from Maine, so it helps to have a few days on the ground before starting a trip. For the past couple of trips, we guides have spent this recovery time in Istanbul, touring the city, visiting the Turkish baths, and generally adjusting. This year I decided to spend some time on the Datca Peninsula, instead. It’s pretty close to our home port of Bozborun, where our SwimVacation trip starts, and some research revealed that it could be a pretty exciting place to visit. It certainly was.
As you can see in the map, it sticks way out into the sea, where the Aegean meets the Mediterranean. During my research, I got particularly interested in visiting Knidos, as well as a section of the Carian Trail on the remote, mountainous northern side of the peninsula. After 24 hours of travel, fellow guide John Stevens and I arrived at our pansiyon (think small, family-run guest house). We had 2 full days to explore. The first day (Thursday) we spent exploring the ruins of the ancient city of Knidos. 2000 years of history, Greek, Byzantine, and Persian history all strewn about, these are active archaeological digs you can just walk through. We loved it.
We had asked to have a local meal prepared for us at our pansiyon, a delicious tiny ravioli covered in a tomato sauce and a yogurt sauce. Truly one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time. We lingered, and the owners of the pansiyon as well as some other local people were enjoying drinks and invited us to join. It turns out that we were sitting with some of Turkiye’s elite artists, two sculptors, two painters, a famous film actor, and a writer. One of the painters was fluent in English and affable, he did the translating for us as we spent the night sharing stories. A memorable evening.
Friday was Carian trail hike day. We had spied a 6-mile remote section that looked perfect for an adventure. Our taxi driver picked us up at 8am, about 10 minutes after we woke up, so we missed breakfast. Instead, we grabbed simets (think bagel, but less dense and a bigger hole) and 4 liters of water at a local shop. We had pre-arranged the drop-off spot with our taxi driver, who warned us that he might not be able to drop us as close to the trailhead as we wanted due to the rough dirt roads. We bounced along for a while, but he started to get nervous on a particularly steep section of road, and let us out. Cell service was in and out, but it looked like we were about 2 miles from the trailhead. It turned out to be 5 miles with all the switchbacks. Once on the trail, we noticed it was a tad grown over, but still quite passable and well marked with red and white blazes. The forest was thick with deep green pines, the water turquoise, mountains soaring above us. Breathtaking scenery. Then a pebbly beach for a swim. An old fishing boat shipwrecked on shore. The rickety looking stairs at the end of the beach couldn’t lead to the next section of trail, could they? They did, but they were solid.
We got what we came for, with incredible scenery through the entire 5-mile section. Pretty steep climbs, lots of shuffling on the down slopes. A set of caves to check out. We had some decent cell service at one point, and got a message from our taxi driver that he would not pick us up at the end of this section of trail due to his concern about his car’s suspension. Fair enough. We reached out to some other drivers. No, no, and no. We figured this would add another 2 miles to our hike to reach a marina where we could get a taxi. It turned into 5 steep miles of climbing, where we finally saw some humans: beekeepers. One of them gave us a ride for the final 3 miles to the marina, and told us that the entire area we had just hiked through was closed for fire season. No wonder we didn’t see any other hikers. At the marina, we found some lemonade at a cafe, as well as a taxi.
Due to some communication errors, the driver thought we only needed a short ride into the city of Datca, not a 45-minute ride over the mountains to the other side to collect our bags and back. Whoops. He was a tad miffed but grateful for a big tip when we got back to Datca, which is a charming little city. John and I checked into another little pansiyon that had some very big cats roaming around, and ate a LOT of great Turkish food at a nearby restaurant. We sipped Raki, grateful for our adventures here. Tomorrow we'll get a ride to our home port of Bozborun to start our SwimVacation week.
Tea Time to Swim Time
I used to keep the same bar on every trip; bourbon, rum, tequila, vodka, and regular mixers. These days, I keep a bar specific to the region. The first thing John and I did when we hit Bozborun (where our yacht La Mia Stella is docked) was to provision a Mediterranean bar: gin, vodka, rum, raki, aperol, campari, sweet vermouth, tonic water. Last year the little grocery store happily delivered them. This year they said a resounding “hayir”, so we lugged the bottles back to La Mia Stella, dodging mopeds and cats. It’s a quaint little waterfront, very Med. Very laid back.
Guests! Kathy, Maria, Monica, and Peter. Maria is new to us, but being SV alum Kathy’s sister, not exactly. Peter is also new to us, but being SV alum Monica’s husband, not exactly new, either. John and I and the crew got them settled into their staterooms. We left the dock and it was immediately tea time. I’m not sure how or when this concept was introduced to the Turkish by the Brits, or if it’s something they figured out on their own, but they’ve mastered it. 3:00 rolls around and a table full of pastries and cookies appears. You have to be careful not to spoil your dinner, and in our case, your swim.
The first swim on and SwimVacation is a chance to shake things out, to get your goggles and cap to fit right, adjust the strap on your safety float, and to generally get used to being in a different body of water. We did a short out-and-back swim, but lingered in the water around our gulet (yacht) for a while.
I prepared some Bozburun Sparklers (Campari, Prosecco, lime) for cocktail hour, and we sipped them as the sun set and the mountains to our east turned purple. The crew set out a big seafood dinner of fish, shrimp, calamari, sea purslane, potatoes, and probably a few other things that I have forgotten. Sour cherry ice cream followed. Tiny waves splashed on our starboard side, stars twinkled above, off to bed. Heather and Kekau join us tomorrow, so we’ll be set with guides!
Hopper
Meanwhile, Guides in Transit….
Heather here….Kekau and I had a crazy Saturday, packing up the Greek Boat, saying goodbye to guests and fellow crew like family and moving about half of the gear and ourselves from Greece to Turkiye. Not far as the crow flies, but convoluted and crazy as we fly.
Our journey included three flights (Skiathos to Athens, Athens to Istanbul, Istanbul to Dalaman), a sweaty 1 mile sprint through the Istanbul airport where we dragged ourselves as last passengers onto the plane, a dead sleep overnight at the Alibaba hotel, a morning windy 2.5 hr drive from Dalaman to Bozburun, and a glorious peak experience zodiac ride, courtesy of Kerem, Captain Seyfi’s young son, to our majestic gulet home for the week.
Our next Mediterranean adventure begins. 🧜♀️🧜🏻♂️🧜🏻♂️🧜🏻♂️
XO HP