Day 6 - Bel to Pydnai

We head along the dirt roads that run through the hills from Bel. The guide book states that we need to turn right at the big juniper tree, but we don't know what a juniper tree looks like. Eventually we find our way off the road and along a forest path; before descending, past clusters of grazing goats, on another stony path back to the Mediterranean. There was a major thunder storm last night, and the weather is cool and misty. A stone rolls under Fiona's boot, slightly injuring her foot. We slow our pace, but still manage to reach the day's destination before lunch.



The owners of the guest house at Bel

Cool weather in the hills




After lunch, and feeling impressed by our obvious athleticism, we decide to push onto the next town. This leg turns out to be a classic example of the Lycian Way's course. The designers seem to have had one principle in mind - "never use a road where you can use a good track, and never use a good track where you could use a bad one". There is an easy road heading directly to our next destination, which would have us there in an hour. Instead we are taken on circuitous meanderings over the hills, seemingly for the sole purpose of avoiding the roads. Four hours later, and thoroughly knackered, we emerge at our next stop, Pydnai. Pydnai is not a town or a village; it is a restaurant, with some accommodation attached, located on the beach. The accommodation is pagodas with canvas walls. It is late and we are both so tired that we need to sort out a place to stay with a minimum of fuss, so we opt for one of the pagodas. It's a great choice. We should have canvas walled pagodas in NZ. We go to sleep to the sound of the sea. About midnight the mosquitoes find their way inside en-mass, and at 1am the boy racers arrive. Canvas walled pagodas are a terrible idea and should be banned world wide. To add insult to injury the restaurant / campsite owners have a policy of charging extravagantly for everything that we use. Our awful canvas pagoda stay ends up costing us nearly twice what we have paid anywhere else. Fortunately we manage to get out before the owner has time to count the sheets of loo paper that we have used.



View from the hill above Pydnai


Due to a supply miscalculation we are currently on one third toothpaste rations. I feel that our situation is now similar to that of Scott's 1912 Antarctic expedition. "I am just going out for a floss and may be sometime."


Today's tortoise count : 1