Day 3 - Kabak Beach to Alinca

We depart hippy beach at 9:15am.  The camp site owners provided a spectacular vegetarian dinner last night.  It would have been nice if they had put some of the effort into cleaning their linen.  The bedding that they provided smelt like a burial shroud for a goat.

We climb away from the beach on a gentle path beside a stream in a steeply walled wooded valley.  On either side of the path are various hand painted Turkish hippy environmental signs nailed to trees, or maybe they are just advertising.  After twenty minutes the gentle ends, and the path begins to climb steeply into the surrounding cliffs.  We alternate between climbing gullies, and sidling the shallower portions of the cliffs, for three hours.  Through the trees, naturally formed caves are visible in the cliffs opposite.  Periodically there are spectacular views back down to Kabak Beach.  It looks like a hidden paradise, however we've just come from it and know that it smells like goat.  In parts the path has been destroyed by rock falls, and we need to scramble across the debris, but it is quiet and peaceful.  Occasionally we hear other walkers on the path above or below us, and we meet four.  We say hello but do not stay to engage in discussion.  One of the reasons that we have chosen the Lycian Way is to try and avoid the crowds, and I assume that many of the other Lycian walkers have similar motivations.  There are few birds and little animal life.  On the lower portions of the track we see frequent signs of wild pigs digging up the forest floor.  In the previous two days walking we had seen nine tortoises, it is easy to come to regard them as a metaphor for our progress, but presumably today's terrain is too steep for them.  

I stop frequently to take photos, and Fiona stops frequently to do stretches.  My knees and achillles, and Fiona's back, are a bit twingy; but not significantly worse than when we started.  No sign of blisters yet.  My immediately regretted impulse buy Phuket Mall boots are starting to seem like they may actually be OK.  We  climb 750m.  Fortunately we are on the shaded side of the valley, so it isn't too hot.  In the upper portions of the climb we are sometimes in the mist which surround the peaks, and this is pleasantly cooling. 

Towards the top, where the climb begins to level out, we encounter the ruins of long abandoned shepherd's huts.  Now just knee high rectangles of piled stone.  At the top is the cluster of houses that comprise the village of Alinca, looking steeply down into the Mediterranean far below.  We find a tiny shack to stay in, then join half a dozen other walkers at what passes for the local cafe.  Most will push on further after a late lunch, but our priorities are preserving our bodies to have a genuine chance at completing the full 30 days. 

A small victory to end the day.  We have arrived somewhere that Google and our GPS can't identify.  They are just reporting our location as "Middle East".