- ODO 3961
- Location Oludeniz
- Weather 21-34 Humid by the coast
My final campsite for this leg was the most stunning so far. A small forest track 1100m high overlooked a wide valley. The sun slipped in shafts through broken cloud picking out the blue crystal of a mosques minarets in a town laying in trees on the far far side of the valley. As the sun set, car headlamps wound their way up to the town.
I woke up to the vista in the glow of the new morning sun. Warm still tucked below my mountain ridge and packed up quickly. Today I had 100km left to Oludeniz. The beach. The house. Rest.
The route started with a consistent 300m climb and I settled in. After the next peak the map showed mostly flat and down hill. As with a lot of Turkey, this turned out to be false. Hill after hill my legs tired and screaming for rest from the long day of climbs before. I stopped to feel for a pain in my foot. It was getting worse. Tightening my shoes I continued up and up.
Finally around lunchtime I reached the full 1400m pass. The highest point on this leg. I felt no euphoria today. I sat and ate bread and cheese in a rest stop. Tired to the point of annoyance at all of the friendly car beeps you get as a traveller in Turkey.
Back on the road I wheeled down. A joyless freewheel with my right foot in thudding pain to Fetiye. An hour of solid freewheeling. The meters dropped all the way down to sea level.
As the sun faded I started my final climb to Oludeniz. The coastal road was packed solid with cars, trucks and open topped jeeps full of sunburned tourists. The hill was the steepest of the day and I stopped to dry sweat from my eyes every few hundred meters. The oppressive heat, humidity and traffic bore down. I focused in and freewheeled through the brits abroad scheme to my temporary hotel. Past Delboys Cafe and rEVOLution club. I had made it. Time to get my foot up.
As I sat on the beach, hundreds of paraglider pilots landed all along the beach and the boardwalk. Here I was home. The rowdy holiday resorts and bars were I shock but I knew I can find solace in the sky.