Didim

Just before sunrise, I woke up by the muezin singing. I don't know why, usually I don't like the religious practices too much, but it was actually really beautiful due to the peaceful atmosphere at the lake. I couldn't really go back to sleep after but also didn't want to open my tent to enjoy the view onto the castle due to the many mosquitoes around. 😅 Around 9pm, we slowly started packing up our stuff (Karim and his wife are travelling by motorbike), and together we drove/cycled to a little guest house in the village to have some chai there and enjoyed the authentic atmoshphere of the place. Since it was not far to Didim, the place I was staying for the night, I had some time to explore this area with the two couchsurfers. 😊 After getting some snacks in a tiny little supermarket (one tiny room), we walked around the village a little. Thanks to Karim and his ability to speak Turkish, it was a whole different experience for me!! E.g. we went into some private backyard where some thousand year old pillars were laying around, surrounded by chicken and goats. 😅 Kamil was constantly talking to locals getting useful information (and pomegranates) from them! 😁👌

After exploring Kapıkırı, we went up the hills behind the village to discover some old Roman ruins. We wandered around there for at least two hours, sometimes not even following a path but climbing. It was a lot of fun! :) In a really nice spot on top of a hill with an amazing view onto the lake, we had a break and ate the pomegranates. :)
Around 1pm we slowly made our way back done, which involved proper climbing and helping each other down. I'm glad I explored the village and ruins with them, but my achilles tendon wasn't too happy about it actually. 🙈
Almost back down, we ended up on a field with cows, who didn't bother about us at all. But when we wanted to cross the field on the other side of the stone wall, a very aggressive donkey almost attacked us!😅 It was bizarre, funny, and a bit scary at the same time. I've never seen a donkey behave this way, he was making weird sounds and was aggressively running towards us, so that Kamil had to jump the wall back to the cows. 😅 We eventually found a way around the donkey and back in the village , were we then split ways. The two were heading towards Antalya, whereas I was going towards Didim. Before leaving the village, I bought some bracelets off the local ladies there sinceI didn't really spend any money in the village camping was from free and I wanted to support the locals a little. :)

The 45km to Didim were mostly flat with nice lake views along the way. :) I took some breaks and arrived at my couchsurfer's place (Aleyna from England) around 6pm. After a shower which was deperately craving, I cooked us a Persian dinner and we were chatted about very spiritual topics. I couldn't really relate but was interested to get to know her way of thinking. 😅At some point she was talking conspiracy theory stuff and showed me youtube videos, which was a little odd but I didn't felt like arguing about it. Also she was so convinced, it wouldn't have made a difference I think but ruined the couchsurfing experience, so I decided to move back to topics we can both enjoy. :D She also showed me her singing bowls (I found myself having one placed on my head at some point 😂), which was actually a nice experience. 😅 All in all, it was an interesting couchsurfing experience and I had a good time, even though me and my host are very different and did not agree on fundamental things! I think it was a good life lesson for practicing tolerance, one can still have a great time with people when focusing on common things I think. 😊Read more