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For the past 6 days Brett and I have been walking along the Lycian Way. It’s a 509km long hiking path that stretches between Fethiye (or technically a small town outside it called Ovacik) to Antalya. We started walking from Fethiye, passing a village called Kaya Koy before starting on the trail proper around Hisaronu. Over six hiking days we covered around 80km and finally stopped walking in Pydnai earlier this morning.

Kaya Koy was our first stop outside Fethiye. The main attraction is the 2000 or so empty stone houses that cover the hillside of what was once a bustling Ottoman-Greek town. As part the population exchanges that took place after the Turkish War of Independence the Christian inhabitants were moved to the outskirts of Athens and only a handful of Muslim Turks were left. As there were less Turks in Greece nobody replaced the inhabitants who had been moved away and the town has stood abandoned since the 1920s. These days it’s apparently a popular daytrip from the bustle that is Fethiye in the summer months though at this time of year we had the place almost to ourselves. We wandered between roofless and crumbling houses, following cobblestone paths overgrown with weeds. A few of the old churches were still standing, with black and white pebble mosaics and the remains of frescoes. In one we saw the remains of icons painted on the wall, albeit with eyes gouged out and covered with whitewash to the average reach of a Turkish man. It turns out the Muslims have done to the Christians what we’ve seen evidence of the Christians doing to the Greek/Roman gods before them.

Our first night was spent near Hisaronu, a bizarre town that seems to be built to let (mostly British) tourists think that nothing has changed on their holiday except that the beer is cheaper. There was hardly a single word in Turkish on the entire main street, which seemed to be under construction as we walked through. It was as if some developer had got cheap land and decided to build a town. The people in this town seemed to need only restaurants, bars, jewellery shops, beauty parlours and the occasional small supermarket. Nearby was an area of new development where legoland villas jostled for space and multi storey apartment blocks looked across into the living rooms of other multi story apartment blocks. According to our pension owner people prefer to live uphill of the beach at Olu Deniz, the nearest sandy spot of choice. In the hot summer months which, ironically, seem to be the busiest season, the cool breeze of the highlands is a welcome respite. There are also less mosquitoes, all the better if you’re sipping two for one mojitos in a skimpy frock on the terrace of the Lion Pub.

Thankfully the rest of the hike was through much more rural and local areas. Unfortunately we didn’t have any decent information on the hike. According to the bookshops we asked the official guidebook is only sold in summer and all we could find was a 1:250,000 fold out map that was basic at best. Certainly nothing like the detailed topographical maps that I’m used to trekking with. It seems the restriction is a military thing and the occasional lost hiker is a small price to pay for the safety and security of the motherland. It’s just as well there wasn’t a young army conscript telling me that as we accidentally walked three quarters of the way up Mt Baba (1969m). The trail up the mountain was extremely well marked but, as we finally realised, not the one we were meant to be following. We turned around, walked all the way back down, found our trail and made it to Faralya before dark.

Below Faralya’s clifftops is the Butterfly Valley. Though the valley floor is connected to the village by a steep path it seems most of the traffic in and out of the valley is via boat. There’s very little development and the rustic structures exude the laid back beach vibe that you get all over the world. Hippy sayings covered the red, green and yellow paint on the bar and we could imagine the haven it would be on a hot summer day. As it was we were greeted only by two horse-sized dogs and an empty beach. Later two men who lived there arrived by boat and we sat and chatted over a few cups of tea. We didn’t see any of the eponymous butterflies though apparently people who count these things have found around 35 butterfly and 40 moth species in the valley. Something to do with the humidity created by the waterfalls flowing over the cliffs.

After climbing back out of the valley we picked up our bags and hiked for a few hours to Kabak. I don’t really have anything much interesting to say about Kabak except that we watched a tractor scrape away at the foundations of the pension we were staying in. Overnight a gale force wind whipped up and it stayed windy all day and through the following night. At one stage the next day it sounded like the cliffs above us were about to come crashing down on us as the wind buffeted around the rocks and through the pine trees. Out on the exposed road even Brett got bounced around and I spent a bit of time clinging on to trees and rocks. Eventually we made it to Gey, a small village where we stayed in a local house. The wind came down the flue and blew the smoke into the room before putting out the fire altogether.

Our next day (day 5) took us to Gavuragili and by this stage of the hike we’d almost walked through the aches and pains that unfit people get when they do things like decide to walk for 6 days straight. My calves were almost back to normal, quads stretchable and, most excitingly, I had holes in two of my socks! I’ve been trying to wear out those things for the past year. While I did get them at a discount (thank you Erica), I made the mistake of buying white socks for travelling. It’s a colour they haven’t maintained though true to Erica’s word they have lasted me well, 3 out of four pairs  outliving my Columbia shoes which will be replaced as soon as I can find their equivalent. The complete lack of tread is starting to be a problem. It’s at this stage, almost a year into our trip that our gear seems to finally be breaking. Last week we made a tailor in Fethiye very happy with all our mending needs.

This morning we left our luxurious pension in Gavuragili and walked to Pydnai where we saw the remains of a Lycian fortress. The port it used to protect has silted up and is now a marshy, mosquito infested swamp. Further inland a sea of greenhouses grow truckloads of tomatoes. Exploring the ruins we found a snake, a partially decomposed wild pig, some porcupine quills and I was hissed at by a turtle. Scared the hell out of me! instead of walking to Letoon we went for the lazy option and took a dolmus, a minivan, to make sure that we had enough time at the ruins.

Letoon was one of the most important religious centres in Lycia. The temples were originally built in the 6th century BC and are dedicated to the Greek goddess Leto and her twin children Artemis and Apollo. They were fathered by Zeus, something his wife Hera was a little unhappy about. In revenge Hera decreed that Leto should wander indefinitely from country to country. It’s said that she spent much of this time in Lycia. Today there’s not much left of the temples to Leto and her children but the nearby ruins of Xanthos were a little more extensive (and not quite so covered in water). It was the administrative centre of the Lycian League, a democratic coalition of city states established in 168BC. Before this it suffered a couple of catastrophes, most notably when the city was besieged in 545BC by the Persians. When it became apparent that they couldn’t win the people of Xanthos decided to kill all their women and children before razing the city and fighting to the death. Today some of the structures of the rebuilt city have been excavated including a basilica built during the Byzantine Empire. The city lost its importance in the 7th century and lay pretty much undisturbed until a British archaeologist arrived in 1838 and shipped off some of the most important relics to the British Museum.

Tonight we’re back in Fethiye, reunited with all our stuff. We’re off back down the coast tomorrow though we haven’t quite decided where we’re going to go. Brett has finally got some work lined up for late April/early May and we’re weighing up whether we should spend the full 90 days allowed on our visa in Turkey or try to get to Syria/Jordan before he heads off. We still have so much we want to see in Turkey that the first option is as tempting as the second. For now I’m going to head to bed, it’s way past our hiking bedtime. Last night we thought we were night owls at 10pm, it’s funny how your body clock changes.