Travelpalooza - Part III

27th January; Antalya. After breakfast full day excursion to Perge- Aspendos , before leaving visit the Old Harbour of Antalya and then continue to the Acropolis of Perge, drive to the City of Aspendos to visit the Agora, The Basilica Fountains, and the Theatre. Afternoon return back trip to the hotel. Dinner and overnight.

And this...is not what we did at all, really. After breakfast, we did hit Perge, and then Aspendos; drove back to the city of Antalya (in the state of Antalya) and toured the city, had dinner and overnight. We did see the Agora and the theater, but I'm not sure what "Basilica Fountains" are. The long-suffering guide occasionally got a little confused.

So day three started out all nice and normal-like.

Tinkerbell was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on the bus:


There were stunning pullover spots so we could gawk at the sea:




And then, abruptly, there were camel rides!


So apparently this guy and his camels (plural!) just chill in the parking lot of the scenic pull-out and ambush passing tourists with the opportunity to fulfill their latent sandal-epic fantasies?

Oookay.




No, I am not posting pictures of myself on the camel. This is because I looked stupid.

Having eventually gotten that out of our systems, and much to the relief of the long-suffering guide, who kept checking her watch - apparently she is opposed to have her tours derailed by camels - we hit the road again, and, many hours later, found the Acropolis of Perge. Or, rather, the remains of it.


And columns. Lots of columns.


And more columns!



My feet. This is kind of like a self-portrait. Also, the carving was very pretty.


How is this still standing? Gravity must not pull very hard there.


I want to say that this next photo is of the basilica of Zeus. Don't hold me to that. Our long-suffering guide's English occasionally (often) left a bit to be desired, so for a lot of the trip, we weren't really sure what we were looking at.


Standing under the arch of the maybe-basilica, shooting outwards:


I am not sure what you think you are doing here, guys...


Now: baths! Or the remains of baths. No longer suitable for bathing, sadly. Although if you look closely, this picture is actually another buffalo shot of me.


This next one...not so buffalo. Man, I look like I'm having fun! (And I was, really. It's just a bad picture. Blame Maeghan. She took it)


The really hot pools were heated by fires in underground chambers, tended by slaves. The floor of the pool is gone, and you can see the furnaces underneath here...


...And also Garet, who was apparently dead-set on giving the long-suffering guide a migraine.



And then I had to climb in, too. Of course.


From the parking lot: hobbit holes? You decide.


Once the guide had herded us back onto the bus, we drove an hour or two to the remains of the theater at Aspendos. It was huge - I think the guide said that it sat 40,000 - and, although you can't see it in my pictures, surrounded entirely by orange groves. Antalya is famous for its oranges.





And we put on a play! Maeghan and I organized: we gave our conscripted actors a brief storyline, and told them to improvise the rest. You'll probably have to bump the volume waaaay up to get any dialogue. Maeghan directed and gives the title. Julianna (Brazil) plays the princess. Maeghan (Ohio) plays her mother. Hannah (Maine) plays Julianna's turbaned lover. Amanda plays the Sorceress. I'm the stage manager and stand in for a dead body. Can the Rotex Chaperone was our cameraman. I'll upload the video when I get home from school and have a faster connection.

There was supposed to be a Chorus as well, but they were all distracted by the guy dressed up a gladiator. O well.



We managed to gather a small crowd of Korean tourists. They applauded appreciatively. And having succesfully completed our mission of staging a play in an ancient theater, we piled back on the bus and drove back to the hotel in Antalya. We had a tour of the town, which was quite picturesque, especially the harbor.






I took these pictures from the balcony (!) of the hotel, with the 15-second exposure (which entailed crawling around the balcony in my pajamas at two in the morning, with my camera and mini-tripod...I'm pretty sure Maeghan was laughing at me).



On the left-hand side of the last photo, you can see the minaret of the mosque just outside? Turns out that there were two other mosques within a block of the hotel. And when the azan (call to prayers) started at 6:15 the next morning...it was like the world's loudest alarm clock in stereo.

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[Added later: Blogger, for some reason, isn't letting me upload the video at the moment. I'll try again later]