Breakfast was served, another traditional turkish breakfast. Can't complain, it's very good. Especially the bananas they cooked.
The captain took us to another spot where we enjoyed another swim in shallower waters. The temperature was interesting because there were a lot of hot and cold pockets and you'd often find yourself comfortably warm and then moving a couple of meters you'd be freezing.
Sadly, no sea turtles here either.
Unfortunately it was time to go and we travelled a short distance to a new dock where we were picked up and driven 3 hours to Dalyan with a brief stop for a kebab at a roadside restaurant that was oddly expensive compared to other places.
We arrived at Dalyan at 3pm and checked into our hotel. This hotel is pretty nice, also good to have air con as it is another hot day today. We met with the group at 5 and explored the small village.
Dalyan is a pretty popular place with a fair few tourists, a lot of those british. It reminds me of Thailand in the sense that there are a lot of bars and sports pubs with multiple TVs advertising the soccer or cricket. But it is nice.
There is a river that runs beside it, nice and full, which apparently is full of crabs. On the other side of that river is a mountain with designs carved into them. They kind of look like the entrance to the Treasury at Petra. These are apparently tombs.
Dalyan is small, and it doesn't take long to walk around it. There are a few dive places too, which is enticing us to come back next year and do a couple of dives. The sites seem pretty nice but unfortunately we don't have time to do it while we are here.
After the walking tour we stopped at a few places where the others wanted to have some drinks and then had dinner at a self-service restaurant. It was quite nice and pretty cheap for a touristy area. We returned to our hotel after that and had a much deserved shower and hit the hay.
The next day we awoke and had the usual Turkish breakfast and headed to the market to get some food for the days events.
We walked to our boat and boarded. The first thing we saw was the tombs in the mountains I mentioned before. The story that goes with this is that King Miletos had a son, Cuanos, was in love with his twin sister, Bybles. He is exiled by the King and the sister cried and her tears created the river we were floating on.
Sounds legit.
Anyway, the tombs are supposed to house old kings who are buried upright so it is easier to get to heaven along with their treasures but they have long since been looted, thus foiling my plans for the evening.
The incest tombs
We meandered down the various canals of the river, separated by reeds, before stopping by a boat who have dead crabs on a string and use it to entice the river/sea turtles to surface. I found it slightly cruel to do such a thing, and I am pretty sure one of the sea turtles was missing a front limb but they did also managed to catch the crabs so it wasn't a complete loss for them.
Also I do love turtles so it was cool getting to see them surface, though it was difficult to get a good picture with everyone crowding around and the reflection of the sun off the water.
This boat also captured live crabs and you could order them to eat, so we put in our order and would have it delivered to us later in the day but in the mean time we continued down river and docked at the mouth where it runs into the ocean.
This beach was atypical of any other beach I've seen in Turkey in that it had sand. Yes sand on a beach, sounds crazy but it's true!
We went for a nice swim, caught sight of some more turtles but failed to capture any on my GoPro as they were once again too far away and I couldn't catch up.
At least I got a halfway decent photo of one
Beginning to know how the Coyote felt.
After an hour and a half at the beach we returned to the boat and received our crabs. Danni had a grilled crab and I have a boiled one (while also sharing).
Fresh crab is the bomb. They are still a massive pain in the ass to get the meat out of, but it is worth it. For $5 it is most definitely worth the hassle.
Delicious.
The next stop was a 40 minute boat ride to a free mud bath and natural sulphur spring. I did not partake in slopping mud all over me as I had enough of that at the Dead Sea and really don't want to take another 3 days getting it all out again but I did hop in the spring.
It was nice. The water ran from little holes in the mountain and formed a natural bath. It stunk like yesterdays eggs but it was nice to relax in, and it is apparently good for you.
When everyone had had their fun playing in the mud we returned to the boat and headed to the lake. So yes, the river is joined at one end by a lake and another end by the ocean. Quite interesting.
And the turtles swim up the river to the lake as well.
Quite fascinating.
Returning to our original starting point we bade farewell to the captain (oh, which for about 2 minutes, it was me since I got to drive the boat).
Feeling a bit exhausted and sun drenched we returned to our room and relaxed a little before having a bite to eat and calling it a night.
el Capitano
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