Secret garden camping

Kabak is close to the famous Butterfly Valley and Oludeniz. “You have to go to Kabak”, Debbie said during our stay near Izmir. Both her and Iain spoke so highly of the place that we didn’t even do much research about it. We simply looked for a camping on the map and got going.

Kabak feels like a final frontier, a hippie safe heaven, outside the hustle and bustle of the cities. The paved road ends very soon when beginning the descend to the valley. It’s so rough that we thought we wouldn’t make it.

They had warned us about this man who sits at a crossroad. To the left is the camping he gets a commission from. To the right is the very bumpy road that looks like it’s ending there, it actually just takes a very sharp left. “Don’t listen to him, go on..” I remembered them saying.

And so we arrived at this crossroads. It felt like being in a story, where a mythological creature blocks the road. Three times he asked, three times we said no:
-Where are you going my friends?
-To the beach.
-Tent?
-No, beach.
He points at our tent.
-Tent?
-No, the beach.
-Ok, go that way.

We passed. And moved on. A few minutes later the road really ended - there was road block that scooters went past, but it looked like only small authorized cars were allowed further. I went to look for the camping on foot, using the beach as the guide, as I remembered from the map. My phone battery had died. I returned to the place to find Razvan had gone. I started looking left and right, a man came from a car parked nearby with google translate showing up on his phone.
“I sent your friend to Secret Garden”.
The way I found was only reachable on foot.
“With the motorbike?”
“Yes, go left.”

I thanked him and went on to find Razvan coming to get me. He had found the camping, parked the bike and came back to get me.

The camping is a beautiful place, set in a pine forest, 10 minutes from the beach. The tents are set in small areas, nicely spaced, there’s a common area with access to wifi and electricity, clean showers and toilets (cold water only) and a kitchen that serves food if you want it.

We decided to spend at least a day here and enjoy a break from traveling in the heat.Read more