Turkey: Day #6 – Aspendos & Antalya

Wow, so I am writing this a few days late because both of these awesome adventures, Aspendos and Antalya happened on the day I left for Istanbul and my luggage (including my camera charger and computer charger) got checked the whole way through to Conakry.  Go figure.  Anyway, I am really excited to blog about the whole experience, especially now that that leg of it is over.  There will be more thoughts later but for now, here’s how the day went!

It started out super early and all of us (like 550 of us) meeting in the front lobby for our trip to Aspendos.  Aspendos is the location of one of the best preserved greco-roman theatres in the world.  It is built into the side of a hill and using natural acoustics has a seating capacity of something like 8,000!  You can stand on the stage and the people way up at the top (think top of 2nd level at Scotiabank Place) can hear you perfectly.  Intense huh?!  We spent some time there, just walking around and enjoying the experience, getting photos and videos of everything, talking it up with a bunch of peeps.  Then we went and saw the leftovers of the aqueduct that fed the city of Aspendos.  Apparently at one point it was 26 miles long and carried water from the Taurus Mountains the whole way down to Aspendos.  I think that’s just ridiculous.  Like honestly, the amount of engineering prowess that existed back in the day was phenomenal.  I’m sure that’s what they’ll say about our stuff in 2000 years but I’m sure the roman stuff will still be there too.

So, we finished up that tour, Brandon, one of the Healey boys managed to sneak his way into one of the orange tree fields and filled his backpack with oranges.  He did pay for them eventually but enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, nonetheless.  And it was great to be able to enjoy fresh from the source oranges as we made our way into Antalya that afternoon.

I wanted to go into Antalya all week but this was really the first chance I had to do it with other people.  I’m sure you know what it’s like when you’re sort of with a group, you kind of bend your will to whatever the general consensus of the group is and go with it.  Well, that’s what happened to me, so I spent a lot of time in the Mediterranean and not a lot of time off the resort compound.  So, I was super stoked to go to Antalya and check it out.  Some guys wanted to go get a Turkish bath and so I sort of said I’d think about it and then, some other people wanted to go on a boat ride through the harbour.  I ended up choosing the harbour boat tour and I am so glad I did!  We got to walk through the old town, all the windy, hilly, narrow, European streets with their shops and people yelling at you to buy everything.  It was awesome!  And then being on the boat was just so nice, we ended up chartering a private boat, this like 40 footer with just four of us, for an hour.  A good price too, Chris Judge is a wicked negotiator!  I am so impressed.  It was exactly what I needed to cap off a wonderful week in Turkey, just sitting out there, on the Mediterranean, looking back on the harbour.

What an awesome day.  It ended with us busing back to the resort, for me to pick up my luggage to head back to Antalya.  I managed to squeeze 15 minutes in for a quick supper and then it was off to Istanbul.  The flight was alright, but just that and when I got to Istanbul, they wouldn’t let me pick up my luggage so I had to leave it there overnight, that meant no change of clothes for James.  I ended up meeting some people I knew and we all jumped in a shuttle and headed for the Airport Hotel.  Now, there’s a story to this, that’s a little frustrating but here goes.

When I booked my tickets and everything, my travel agent told me she booked me in a hotel by the airport.  She didn’t tell me the name, just that it was the airport hotel.  When I got my itinerary, it wasn’t on there but I assumed the booking still existed.  So, I got out, and in Istanbul, you have to go through a security check (metal detectors) before entering any hotel so as I’m going through security, the people I am with tell me that this isn’t their hotel and that they need to leave.  So I am stuck there, confident that this is my hotel.  They leave, I get to the counter, and guess what?  Not my hotel.

So I hum and haw, and they say they can give me a hotel for like 175 Euros, that’s like $375 for one night, but it included breakfast.  Needless to say, I would rather sleep in the airport than pay that amount of money.  Anyway, I found my itinerary with the hotel in it, figured out where I was going, they called me a cab and then I left.  Except that the cab driver had no idea what the hotel was so I had to find it for him on my iPhone and give him the address, ugh.  We got there, I gave them my reference and confirmation number and they couldn’t find it.  So, the rate I had booked at got upped by 10 Euros and then they converted it to Turkish Lira and added their ridiculous exchange rate to it.  MAN!!!  That bugged me a lot, so really it was like 100 Euros to stay there, well, maybe not that much but it felt like it.  The room though, the room, was fantastic.  This gorgeous king sized bed with incredible egyptian cotton sheets, for the 6.5 hours I would be sleeping there, it was going to be awesome.

It was.

So, that was my day visiting Aspendos & Antalya and then flying off to Istanbul.  I bought some cool stuff in the bazaar, some ‘Tommy Hilfiger” shirts (genuine fakes) and a ‘Tag Heuer’ watch.  Priceless.  The haggling was my favorite part.  Thinking I am getting a deal is well worth it.