Leg 2, Day 4; Morcombe and Wise?

No this was not Morecambe Bay but Cayagiz (Cha-ay-iz).

After an interesting night's sleep I awoke and enjoyed a HOT shower before breakfast. A very open-air affair, all fresh ingredients and the sun warm on my back. The old lady who had served us supper had a shy young helper to deliver the food and top up Chay.

One of the young Turks from last night, Omar, had not surfaced until after I had finished breakfast, packed, and broken down and packed the tent on top of my rucksack. In fact I had said my goodbyes, but turned back to ask for a photo. The helper lad took one of me with Osman and then old lady, then Osman appeared bleary-eyed, so I got one with him too. He's a smart guy with very good English, a software analyst who would like to escape national service and also get work experience in the UK so I was pleased to give him my e-mail in case I can be useful to him.

So I set off, first crossing a bridge over the big stream and walking to the end of the slightly tilted beach, and a little way up beside the little stream I met the Eel man. I had heard about him back in Ucagiz. Apparently he built a shack and lives in it for a few months every years catching eels and selling them to local restaurants. He looked remarkably well dressed, healthy and bright eyed. Perhaps there is something to be said for a diet of eels..

A little farther on I arrived at the Pirate Bridge (my name). It is a masterpiece of ad-hocism or possibly alcoholism some portions of it were recognise able sections of wrecked boats, other portions just a cats cradle of recycled timber.
Crossing this I quickly found the trail, and also met Rolf and Renate, a German couple last seen in Ucagiz. I was slightly relieved that they were heading back towards Ucagiz having come by dolmus just for a days outing.

I carried on sidling up a rocky hillside with low scrub. The views back towards Cayagiz and out over Sura Bay were stunning. The path was quite distinct and fair going despite the quite rocky terrain. Perhaps it has been more continually used than others. The vegetation increased in height as I approached the summit, encountering many crickets and the odd locust on the way. On the summit many rocks featured interesting erosion features, bowls and grooves where presumably water has run out from them.

The path now led down through shady trees to an open stony field with a large tree in the middle. I had not seen too many way-marks before entering the field but the guide book referred to the field and "a massive carob tree". I could not find the "exit" from this field for a long time. Also the tree was actually a species of Oak! At times like this I would like to have a hot-line to Kate Clow, the author. (Apparently she IS very approachable, but I'm afraid I now have too much "baggage" for a calm conversation to be possible). In eventually found the continuation of the path, which does not actually enter but skirts the field and continued climbing up out of the shallow valley and up towards a selltement.

The next obstacle was a slid stone wall about 15ft high! Glasshouses have been built here as part of the drive to industrialise farming throughout Turkey. These developments have little respect for the traditional footpaths, so the Lycian Way has an obstacle here. It was not too difficult to find a gap where I could scale the walls between two areas of glass houses and this afforded me a glimpse of the rudimentary technology employed. It often seems with some of the large projects in Turkey that there are large resources for the main effort but the finer detail is a bit of a lash-up.

I walked between the glasshouses and toward the highway, blasted along the hillsides running parallel to the coast. The
Plan was to follow this for one and a half kilometres and then take a path off to the left,into the hills. The hill side route was another 13km and I realised I had very little water with me. The alternative route was to follow the highway and , though the noise of traffic was unwelcome I felt that this was safer. It was only a few kilometres to Sura where I asked at a roadside farm house for some water and they filled my bottle. I followed the highway to Demure, which appeared first as a distant agglomeration of apartment blocks and as I got closer it looked more like.. A close up agglomeration of apartment blocks. Heard the centre of town things shrank down to a more human scale. The streets and who
a had a very festive feel partly because this is the town where it is Christmas every day! Well as far as the abundance of images of Santa is concerned, for this is the home of Noel Baba, more properly known as Saint Nicholas. He was the bishop here in the 4th century and became renowned for his generosity to those in need, to children and to mariners. His fame spread through his seafaring benfactees at a time when trade by sea was paramount.

I made my way to the northern side of the town and found the partly exhumed (Demre was inundated and buried to several metres depth following an earthquake) and  partly restored church of St. Nicholas and earmarked it for a proper visit the following day. I made my way towards the site of ancient Myra and found the Kent Hotel, my lodgings for the night.