Wednesday:
With limited mobility in my arm, I managed to still shove all my gear in my bag, including my still wet clothes, albeit not in the desired configuration. At breakfast we discovered the only times we could continue on were at 10:00am and 10:00pm and as it was 9:30am, we decided our only option was to run for it and say an unexpectedly early goodbye to Patara. Once at Fetiyeh, Danny and I went our seperate ways after I convinced him I wasn’t going to die of rabies. He had nearly a week longer to make it Istanbul and I was still aiming to make it to Infected Mushroom, even though I had been unable to procure tickets due to an error in the online form. From Fetiyeh, I took a bus to Hydin, then transferred to a bus to Selçuk, the whole journey took about 6 hours. I was adopted by a woman on the bus who made sure to point out food and restrooms at every stop and also showed me photos of her children and late husband. The scenery on the drive was pretty incredible, likely the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, I tried to lock every image into memory knowing it would be impossible but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. Once in Selçuk, I followed the directions in the pamphlet from the dude at the bus station in Fetiyeh (it had been one of the places on my list from Danny’s LP anyway) and shortly afterwards, I was on my way to Atilla’s Guesthouse with Carlos. Atilla’s was fantastic, as were Atilla and Carlos, it was easy to tell they lived for this place and had worked really hard to make it what it is. After settling into the Harem as the only occupant, I was still freezing so I wandered next door to the Diesel factory where I found a few items to suit the cooler clime that I was later to discover, were not actually made in Turkey. I hung out with a Brit named Caroline who was part of a large group that had been touring since Syria who was kind enough to help me change my big gross bandage and chat while I accidentally got drunk off of Atilla’s Very Scary Cherry drinks. This time when I say I staggered back to my room, I’m not exaggerating. It was good though, I’d had some issues sleeping of late and I slept like the dead that night, something my body was in need of.

Thursday:
Woke up at a decent time, had some breakie then caught a ride with Carlos to Ephessus. At this point, I’ve seen lots of ruins and doorways and theatres and whatnot so it was a little same ‘ol, same ‘ol. Then I turned a corner and was confronted with the Library of Celsus. Wow. That’s all I can say. After making my way through the rest of the site, I saw a sign for the cave of the 7 sleepers so I figured I’d go explore. The instincts of the 15 year old girl who walked from Whyte to the west end of Edmonton at 3 in the morning kicked in but I made the mistake of rejecting them and thought I was lost and tried to cut through an orchard and accidentally woke up a guard dog and ran like hell, long past the distance of his chain that I had instantly mentally calculated, then went back the way I came, later to discover my original path was correct. Now in Selçuk, I went to the tourist office for a map and realized I had apparently walked right past one of the seven wonders of the world. Feet tired and sore, I trudged back and walked around the Basilica of St. John before heading down to the Temple of Artemis. Apparently it was one of the seven wonders of the *ancient* world because all that was left of the temple and it’s 127 columns were two pillars in a swamp. Now it’s been about 15km of walking so I went back to the bus station where Carlos picked me up again. Back at Atilla’s, Caroline helped me with the bandage again, now I have more mobility but still a lot of pain. I chilled and finished my book, drinking rum and anticipating the BBQ the crew at Atilla’s were preparing for us. The food was fantastic, as was the company. I was talking to this kid about music and I was listening to his favorite band, I noted the similarity to The Tea Party and was answered with a blank stare and then felt really old when I realized he was a toddler when I had started listening to them in high school. After dinner, I hung out with Atilla and found a kindred spirit and promised if the unlikely opportunity arose, I would return and work there for a summer and at the least, drag Max there for a week. Shortly afterwards it was back to the bus station for the 12 hour overnight trip to Istanbul. The bad part about the bus was that somehow I was wide awake AND my neighbour pretty much sucked. He sang to himself, snored and whimpered (reminiscent of the sound Johnny made while being dragged drunk and unconscious into the kitchen at the Altadore house because he was snoring too loud) he also kept shifting into my space which made getting comfortable impossible. The good parts were Turkish twinkies which are filled with chocolate stuff instead of white stuff, meeting another burner (Turkish San Franciscan) and the fairytale scenery out the window as the dawn arrived, psy pumping from the iPod.

Friday:
Arrived exhausted and got on a minibus to what I thought was my destination, turns out it was going to a further neighbourhood as the staff I talked to didn’t pass the info to the driver to make the detour for me. The driver did give in and take me where I needed to though after seeing my wounded arm and confused expression, one of those times where being cute is useful. While making the short walk from the dropoff point to Omer’s, I was surrounded by flags of all sizes everywhere, ginormous ones strung between buildings and off bridges and in windows as today was a national holiday. We celebrated with pomegranite/apple/eucalyptus tea I brought from Antalya, newly christened as candy tea. Then Omer went out and I slept for what would turn out to be much longer than I thought. To be continued…