When you travel it’s nice to arrive to a friend or relatives house; a clean bed, a warm inviting house and somewhere that you can truly relax and unwind (and not have to wear jandels in the shower). Driving from the kayaking in Kekova, we arrived in Antalya (on the southern coast of Turkey) at Alison and Hassan’s house, good friends of my parents from many decades back.
Familiar faces greeted us at the door to their apartment; slightly surreal having seen both of them 2 months earlier in New Zealand at my father’s birthday.
We headed out to their local favourite restaurant, this time we didn’t have to worry about what to order as we got to sample many of the dishes we had only heard about on our travels. Long turkish pizza, fresh salad and yoghurt – all very tasty.

The next day started in fantastic fashion with brunch over the cliffs of Antalya. Antalya is located in a large cove, the eastern coast leading to it is covered with 20m high cliffs which drop down to turquoise waters. Hassan and Alison to see some of the main central area of Antalya in the old town, before heading out west to see the massive Las Vegas-style hotels which cater for the 8 million tourists a year. Only 30% of tourists actually leave the hotels during the week package stay. In town we saw first hand evidence of the protests that have rocked turkey for the last week. Admittedly we haven’t seen much evidence in small towns of the protests apart from occasional graffiti, but in large centres its clearly evident. A tent city had grown in town, music blaring, yoga classes taking place and fiery political speeches being given. At night as 9pm rolls by, the town erupts in honking of horns, flag waving cars and groups of people on their balconies with pots and pans. It seems unlikely people will give in any time soon – their momentum spurred on by constant arrogant remarks from the prime minister. He constantly uses his 50% winning majority as a claim that he has a mandate, but as Hassan explained just like MMP in New zealand, this doesn’t equate to 50% of people voting for you. Although he may win at home eventually, the damage seems to be done in the relationship with the EU and for their 2020 expo bid.

The following day was car return time. As much as I had loved our white 1.5L Renault beast it was time to say good bye to random Turkish roads, frequent animal encounters at 120km on the highway, generally unpredictable roundabouts. Thankfully instead of dropping it off at the airport, Hassan’s nephew managed to arrange for it to be dropped off in town. Easy as !

It was then off to spend some Euros. Walking into the leather shop was a surreal experience. After first crossing security and getting assigned named tags, we headed down stairs to a brightly lit underground room, filled with every style and colour imaginable of leather jacket. Ushered by a Turkish lady toward a sofa, a sales attendant addressed us in Russian, attempting to ascertain what we wanted. After Alison explained in Turkish that we were from New Zealand and only spoke English, a new sales man turned up. Dressed in our finest ‘Mr Vintage – anchor milk t shirt’ we must have looked vastly different from the hordes of Russian tour buses that streamed through during the time we were there. After Emily picked out a sweet jacket, the real business started as we went back and forth on price. What resulted is a 75% discount and a slightly irritated sales man (I think the price was on the money) who was wishing that he had picked to serve the massive Russian family buying matching jackets and fur coats instead.
Coat purchased, happy Emily, job done !

As it happened, we caught a lift with Hassan and Alison who were heading to Cappadocia the following day. Yay, no night bus for us!