The Final Getaway

$90 round trip tickets?! To Jordan for five days with eight of my friends?! That sounds awesome! Oh wait, you guys are leaving on Tuesday night so I would miss six hours of class on Wednesday.... Hmm.. Okay, yup still going! Oh wait, I have an exam on Wednesday and the next cheap flight isn't until Friday night? Nope. Not going. So, what to do.....

Answer? Go to Olympos, Turkey! A few of my friends did a hiking trip for 12 days in Southern Turkey over spring break and both spoke of Olympos  as one of the most beautiful places they had ever been. Considering, as I mentioned before, many of my friends were gone for the weekend, I decided to indulge myself in one final trip before the last week of school and finals. Luckily I convinced Joe to join me and we spent two and a half days in the stunningly beautiful town (if you can call it a town).

After waking up at 3:45 on Thursday morning, taxiing to the bus, busing to the airport, taking a one hour flight to Antalya, getting on the wrong bus that dropped us off on the side of the road, taking another bus that took 1.5 hours from Antayla to Olympos, and then one final bus that took us down the mountains and into the valley.... and still able to hit the beach by noon? Not bad at all.

Just for some background, Olympos is essentially a collection of "tree house hostels" along a little dirt road that opens up to a historical park of ancient ruins and eventually the Mediterranean. The hostels aren't really tree houses, but little cabin-like structures on stilts.

The Orginial Tree House Hostel

Unfortunately we checked out before I took a picture of our "treehouse," but it looked a lot like this.

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking but, in short, we spent two and a half days lying at the beach, hiking up into the ruins, lounging in the hammocks of our hostel, and drooling over the incredible home cooked breakfasts and dinners that were included in our hostels price of $15 a night.

Fresh Fish Dinner 

With mountains jutting up straight from the beach and old castle ruins looming above the tree tops, the beach was absolutely stunning.

Olympos draws some pretty intense rock climbers 

Did not want to leave.

How clear is this water!

Only downside of the trip? Severe sunburn. Oh and our one hour flight back to Istanbul after a two hour bus ride to Antayla was suppose to leave at 10:25 pm...Actual departure time was 2:00 am. Ah well. A small price to pay for three days in paradise.