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| Happiness! |
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| Three mountaineers on the beach |
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| Volkan Balik, highly recommended |
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| Our first beers hold a special place in our hearts |
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| Our breakfast spot at Akseki |
Last day of the tour was going to be spent with bus and
plane rides, but we made sure to leave some room in between for the end of journey
celebrations. Going first to Akseki, and taking another bus from there to
Antalya, there was an unspoken aggreement about what we were going to do once
we set foot in Antalya. We took a seat at the very first bar we came across and
ordered cold beers. We had been fasting from alcohol for the last 8 days, both
because of the difficulty of finding it along the way, and also to let our
bodies recuperate, but after those 8 long days we had deserved every sip of
that nice cold beer. We had a toast honoring the beautiful look of the
Mediterranean, and found the sea inviting us in. We couldn’t possible turn that
invitation down, therefore went straight down to the beach. When we went into a
private beach run by a hotel with our huge backpacks and mountain outfits
looking quite shabby, all the heads of tourists laying in their swimsuits on
beach chairs turned toward us naturally. Much like Superman, we went into
changing cabinets with our mountain outfits and came out with swimsuits. We
were overjoyed from both concluding a journey filled with beautiful memories,
and swimming in the sea. We had completed the sea and beer session but not yet
the celebration. Because throughout the hardest moments of the journey when we
thought we couldn’t go any further, thinking that it all was a big mistake
coming there, and was feeling like screaming out to the mountains in protest
there was one thing that kept us strong, the tought of which alone kept us
going: Raki & Fish! (a combination with an immense cultural background in
Turkish society). There was a casual but pleasant raki&fish place I
remembered from my days living in Antalya a few years ago. I led the way to the
restaurant, but found it closed since it was still quite early in the day for
such serious drinking. But finding it closed was actually a favor the universe
was doing us, as it took us to another restaurant just down the street that
turned out to be even better. In the heavenly garden of a restaurant named
Volkan Balik we had the freshest fish and the tastiest mezes (Turkish tapas),
while filling our lungs with the anise seed smell of raki. Now the mission was
complete, we could return to our homes happy and content…
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