Day 3 of Turkey Vacation: Ölüdeniz, and Bus to Kaş on August 21st, 2016

Third day of sightseeing in Turkey, maybe this was the least active day so for.
The plan of the day was no more than paragliding down the mountains and over the beaches at Ölüdeniz, and then took the bus to Kaş.

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So we were picked up by our paragliding company from our hotel at around 0945, then it was a short drive to their company storefront on the beach of Ölüdeniz, where we agreed to the terms and conditions, watched how others paraglide above us, and have them drive us up the mountains.

About those boat tours, I personally preferred the tours offered at Kaş, which featured underground ruins of Kekova Islands, rather than just simple island tours at Ölüdeniz (or Fethiye). Another benefit of adding a stop in Kaş was that, we got to enjoy the Turkey's beautiful coastal route D400 on our way to Antalya. I know most buses from Fethiye to Antalya chose the inland thoroughfares over the winding coastal route.

It's hard to put the paragliding experience into words. Well, the views of the Ölüdeniz gulf was spectacular, the breeze on my face was invigorating, it's just so nice.
But I won't put any of my photos here, since my face was in every one of them.

Since we three didn't have much breakfast, we decided to finish lunch just on the Ölüdeniz beach. At around 75TL, it turned out to be the most expensive meal we three had in Turkey (the others were amazingly steadily around 50TL). I guess it must be due to the beach access.

After that, we took the local bus back to Fethiye (I guess it's 5TL/person, if I remembered correctly), fetched our bags at the hotel, and headed for the bus station. Luckily, we arrived at the bus station just in time for the 1430 bus to Kaş.

The majority of the leg from Fethiye to Kaş was through majestic mountains of inland Turkey, the coastal D400 route only constitute a small portion of that towards the end.

The town of Kinik was next to the ruins of Xanthos, a UNESCO world heritage site. It's only after I searched the Internet that I recalled the reconstruction of Nereid Monument I saw a few years ago in the British Museum.
Our bus made a stop in the Kinik Bus Station. Having visited the ruins of Ephesus, my parents didn't want to visit any more “similar” ruins, so we didn't plan a stop here.

Half an hour later, finally, Mediterranean Sea.

The majority of people on the bus seemed to be local residents doing commute, so I seemed to be the only one that couldn't stop running camera shutters.

It was only 6 o'clock when we put down our bags in the hotel, so my father and I decided to scout around this little town and booked us on tomorrow's boat trip to Kekova's islands.

Although the turmoil going on elsewhere in the country hadn't spread to this little tourist town, its repercussions certainly did, as basically every boat in the harbor was offering Kekova trip at 70TL per person, which was a lot cheaper than the rates I saw in online blogs. We finally managed to talk it down to 60 EUR for 3 persons.

I also saw on other blogs that there was also paragliding in Kaş. Well, the mountains next to Kaş harbor was nowhere as high as the ones near Oludeniz (although rising airflow could make a huge difference), and the landing spot in Kaş was frankly, a harbor driveway parked with cars. I was so glad I made the right choice about paragliding in Oludeniz.

I stayed in the harbor for a little bit longer, as I put myself at ease in the refreshing breeze from the sea.

Then, I witnessed a breathtaking sunset over the Kaş Peninsula.

END