It was the day of our hike so we woke up at 7am to get ready and have breakfast. It was pissing down with rain so we were a little worried about it being cancelled, but when we got to the tour office at 8.30am (very carefully so as not to slip on the pavement, but our shoes got pretty wet) the guys said it was still on as the rain was looking like it would pass by 9am. We met our guide Maho, did a short walk to grab our packed lunches, then hit the road to go to our starting point in Akbel.
The first part of the walk was pretty wet and spiky, as the path was barely 30cm wide. It was more like a narrow meander through the bushes and on each side there were spiky branches and shrubs scratching and tugging at you as you walked past. I was wearing a poncho and by the time the rain passed it was pretty much shredded on both sides.
As we walked our guide pointed out the Roman aqueduct and after about 4.5km we saw a huge stone wall which was part of the aqueduct piping. It used some kind of pressure system to pump the water through and also to prevent it from overflowing. Pretty amazing history attached to the aqueduct, its 40km long, took 100 years to build with 150,000 slaves.
Walking further towards Patara Beach, we saw a huge valley which once used to be a lagoon. Turns out the government drained the area by planting eucalyptus trees and now its filled with greenhouses growing tomatoes. According to Maho, they found several shipwrecks when it was drained.
We walked another 3-4km before stopping for lunch and we could see this valley, as well as sand dunes on the west side of Patara Beach which are naturally formed from the winds taking sand from the Sahara and dropping it there.
We also saw some cool wild plants like wild thyme which smelt amazing, a mulberry tree, pomegranate tree, fig tree, carob tree, loads of olive trees (not wild), even a prickly pear cactus!! Unfortunately we were a bit early so the fruits weren't ripe yet :( or else I'm sure we would have stuffed our faces.
Another 5km and we reached the Patara Ruins, which was a mix of Roman and Lycian ruins. It was a necropolis, so mainly sarcophagus ruins and then further on there was a Roman theatre and Parliament.
Final stop was Patara Beach. It was pretty cold and the sea was rough, with only a few brave people going into the waves and even then they were only willing to go waist deep. Ryan and I were pretty beat from the 14km walk, and did not want to battle the waves. So we just chilled out for 20 minutes on the beach loungers watching the waves crash, before jumping into the pick up car and heading back to Kas. On the way back we also took a quick look at Kaputas Beach which I'm sure would be lovely on any other day, but the waves were insanely scary, crashing onto this beach which was max 10 metres wide.
We got back to the hotel around 4pm, so Ryan had a swim and I just chilled out in the hotel until dinner time. We went to a kebab place and ordered way too much (beef kebab, chicken soup, pide, plus we got complimentary bread, dips and garlic pide), so we walked/waddled home with a takeaway box and a dog followed us for part of the way. Ryan and I are reading a book together so I read to Ryan til he was non responsive and I was yawning, and we passed out straight away.
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