This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 18, 2013: There I was -- ensconced under a thick blanket, rocking gently to and fro on the deck of a Turkish gulet and drifting off to sleep under a panoply of stars and the bright light of a full moon.
What could be more heavenly?
For the next few days, our Turkish gulet, a traditional two-masted wooden boat, would sail leisurely along a stretch of the Turquoise Coast from Marmaris to Fethiye in the eastern Mediterranean, moor in scenic coves and transport us to a state of sybaritic enjoyment.
For starters, the food never stopped: breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner. We ate and we ate -- sweet ripe melon, salty feta cheese, thick creamy yogurt, fresh grilled fish, smoky roasted eggplant and tomatoes that tasted like summer.
In between excursions, we lounged on big pillows on the deck, reading, chatting, playing word games and backgammon. In the late afternoons, I was hardly the only one who'd grab a styrofoam noodle and take a dip in the Mediterranean, which was indeed the color of turquoise. And, even in mid-September, it was positively refreshing without being cold.
As tempting as it might have been never to leave the boat, Ozgecan Simcek, our guide, would round us up in the morning and we'd head out on an adventure.
On our first morning, we went out in search of loggerhead sea turtles in a smaller, river-worthy craft. We entered the delta where the Dalyan River meets the Mediterranean and glided toward other boats nestled in a maze of golden reeds along the river.
The fishermen in these boats tossed scraps of food into the water to attract any sea turtles. At this time of year, not many turtles were left as the nesting period was coming to an end. But we were lucky enough to see one, and the fishermen plied it with enough food that it hung out around the boat for a while, coming up for a taste of crab and then diving deep to devour it.
Then it was our turn for blue crab. Most of us ordered a crab, the fishermen would cook it, and we'd pick ours up on our return journey from the archeological site of Caunos, one of many ancient sites dotting the coast.
Then we meandered up the river.
Caunos, which goes back to 900 B.C., had a rich history as a trade city. It was the home to Carians, Lycians, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines. Once a port, the harbor long ago silted in, and the sea is now quite distant.
We wound our way through the site, strolling through the ages. We saw the remnants of a first century B.C. Greek temple with a round sanctuary reminiscent of the one at Delphi in Greece; a Greco-Roman amphitheater; a Roman agora, with a promenade of columns; and even a 5th century A.D. Byzantine basilica. As we marched up to the basilica, we were rewarded with spectacular views.
But nothing quite matched the finale to this visit. We left the site from a different entrance and walked down to our boat, which was waiting for us. As we floated back down the river, toward the sea, we saw the site's piece de resistance -- Lycian-style rock tombs carved into the side of a cliff. Set high into the rock face, they appeared solitary and somber.
Well, solitary no more. Now dockside restaurants line the river banks, with all the terrace cafes offering jaw-dropping views of the tombs.
(Later in our journey, we visited the Lycian tombs at Myra, the tombs usually featured in the guidebook photographs, and they were remarkable. But I think I'll always treasure the unanticipated pleasure of coming round a river bend and having the ones at Caunos suddenly come into view.)
As we discovered over the next few days, it's impossible to travel along the Turkish coast without stumbling upon ruins, some major, some minor.
They're everywhere.
Like tucked into a protective bay surrounded by pine trees, as we discovered one morning after a strenuous three-hour hike -- it sure felt nice to get the legs moving -- that concluded at Cleopatra's bath. According to legend (and our guide), Mark Antony gave the baths to Cleopatra as a gift. Who knows if that's true or not? It was fun, however, to return in a dinghy later that afternoon, swim around the ruin's various chambers and imagine the queen of the Nile enjoying the sunny, balmy weather.
Or virtually littering a path to the top of Gemiler Island. Early another morning, before the arrival of the loud and raucous party boats from Fethiye, we hiked up the island, otherwise known as St. Nicholas Island, because it was allegedly the burial place of St. Nicholas. The small island has the ruins of several Byzantine churches, dating between the fourth and sixth centuries A.D. But it's the views from the top that dazzle.
Or clinging to the side of a hill. On another excursion, we visited a ruin that was much more recent. The Greek "ghost town" of Kayakoy is preserved as a kind of museum. Kayakoy, which once had about 2,000 people, now consists of hundreds of empty, abandoned homes. On some you can still see patches of the original paint. This haunting village remains a poignant reminder of the 1923 compulsory population exchange between Turkey and Greece and the upheaval following World War I, the end of the Ottoman empire and the beginnings of the Republic of Turkey.
On our final night on the gulet, we docked at a marina just outside the seaport of Fethiye. As we made our beds on the deck, we could see that the full moon was waning. For once, the lights of a nearby town flickered in the distance. And at 5 a.m., we were awakened by the muezzin's hypnotic call to prayer.
Up, up and away
At 6:30 a.m., it was still dark and a little chilly. Our little group piled into a van and headed toward the lift-off site for our hot-air balloon ride over Cappadocia, a region in central Anatolia, and its bizarre rock formations. As we got closer, we saw the sunrise -- and what seemed like hundreds of balloons hovering on the horizon.
Soon we would be among them.
After a quick instruction in the proper formation for landing -- face the opposite direction the balloon is going, crouch with knees bended and then just hold on -- we took off. Our pilot took it easy at first, staying relatively low, following for a few minutes the course of what he called the white valley (but what our guide Oz insisted later was a fake name).
Slowly we ascended.
There was the aptly named "Love Valley," where we had hiked the day before among the phallic "fairy chimneys." Then the Rose and then the Red valley was below us. Over to the left was Uchisar's natural rock "castle," the highest point in Cappadocia, which we would scale later that day.
I was so captivated by the views from above that I forgot my fear of heights -- until our captain noted that we were at 6,000 feet. (I think he said feet.) We had ascended so gradually, so gracefully, that I hadn't noticed. The rock formations, sculpted by the wind from soft volcanic rock, were so otherworldly that I couldn't stop staring. Some have described them as a lunar landscape, but they could just as well have been conjured up by sorcery.
After a little more than an hour, we descended -- with regret but without incident -- and toasted our successful flight with cherry juice spiked with champagne.
Still, as wondrous as it was to see Cappadocia from above, we really learned to appreciate it best on foot.
From ground level, it's easy to see -- and be amazed at -- the way houses and other buildings seem to tumble out of the rocks themselves. (Our hotel, like many in the area, was a cave hotel so we got to experience it first hand.) The towns of Goreme and Cavusin, in particular, are an astonishing, magical blend of the power of Mother Nature and human hands to shape the environment.
Invisible from above are the underground cities throughout Cappadocia that were used by early Christians. We visited one, Kaymakli, which descends seven stories although the first three were the only ones open for touring.
That proved more than enough, though. There's nothing like low ceilings and dark, narrow passageways crowded with visitors to spark a little claustrophobia. While we were all duly impressed with the underground city's innovative ventilation system, which really did keep the air from getting stale, I couldn't imagine being confined down there for months at a time, which Christians apparently were when they came under attack in the Arab invasions.
On foot, we also visited some of the area's remarkable Byzantine cave churches, especially those preserved in the Goreme Open Air Museum, which was once a monastic center. The frescoes in some of the cave churches are unforgettable -- attempts to recreate in paint what was created in mosaics in the Aya Sofya in Istanbul.
Among the most elaborate frescoes are those in the Tokalı Kilise, which dates to roughly the 10th century A.D. A series of panels portray the lives of Christ and St. Basil, who was the bishop of a nearby town. The crucifixion of Christ on the dome of the central apse may be among the most vibrant of the frescoes, its colors, especially the blue, blazing and vivid.
The colors -- intense and true -- may indeed be among the things I'll remember most about Turkey: the shimmering turquoise of the Mediterranean; the gleaming white marble of Ephesus; the fading dirty pink exterior of the Aya Sofya in Istanbul; the golden browns, dusty roses and weathered greys of Cappadocia.
Oh, that and the knowledge that for thousands of years, people have stepped where I was stepping now.
If you go: We traveled with Overseas Adventure Travel on its 16-day tour "Turkey's Magical Hideaways." OAT specializes in small group travel, and our group consisted of nine people. The itinerary was quite active, including a overnight stay in a family home. Click here for more information.