More old stuff today, just down the road in Ephesus. Only this time, there were people EVERYWHERE. As great as the ruins were, they just weren’t a fun place to be with so many people. An unintended highlight was the gladiator show that ran for 5 minutes every quarter of an hour, it was incredibly funny. Unintentionally.
As full of people as it was, it was all still pretty impressive. We managed to get away from everyone for a while by heading down a path to some ruins further out, before heading back in to it all again.
We managed to take another break by finding a little house on one of the old side streets, stealing some shade from the 40 degree heat.
Everything thoroughly explored, we ate some leftover breakfast for lunch amongst trees and piles of stone. It’s somewhat strange to just be lounging about on blocks someone chipped together thousands of years ago. It was only a few kilometers back to town so we walked it, making for some pretty hot work without any shade along the side of country roads.
Then it was off to Kusadasi, which was a comparatively short mini bus ride away. A very snug ride too, as our driver wasn’t about to turn down a fare from any potential passengers along the way. Our hotel was pretty great, up a market street filled with people, and all of us were back in one room again for the first time since Istanbul. These were our pretty dirty feet when we arrived, with patterns by footwear.
We headed off in search of a beach, but really didn’t get anywhere. It’s an incredibly touristy city, far more than anywhere else we’ve seen, with several cruise ships and yachts always in port. This meant everything cost, and cost a lot.
After wandering about without any luck, we tried a bar hanging over the water that we could see people swimming from. But it turns out that would cost us, and more than just a drink – which were already terrifyingly overpriced. We instead stayed dry and lazed about in the sun there for a while, before feeling bad about not spending more money and running away.
Bex needed a towel, so that was the mission for the evening. We found success in a place at the top of the main street, where they priced towels by their weight. That was pretty novel.
Dinner was also more kick ass than we’d hoped, somehow picking somewhere quite great amongst everything else feeling so touristy. Mine was an amazing enchilada type thing, which also meant it was saucy. Success!
Our regular search for baklava and apple tea was hugely successful, with Bex falling madly in love with our dark and handsome Turkish host. So that was pretty great entertainment, especially her attempt at mean humor – ‘you probably smell bad’ doesn’t work well across languages. Just a note to the traveling romantics out there.
Hung about on our rooftop using the internets, then hit bed way too late. So beautiful up there!
From August 25, 2010.