Termessos and the Karain Cave

For some reason it feels like more of an adventure as the taxi you’ve hired to take you round sites for the day pulls up just as the call to prayer starts echoing out over the rooftops. I left the very affordable and surprisingly nice La Paloma in Antalya (which surprisingly spoke more German than English) just as Hossain, my drive pulled up in his car.

He was nice and laughed at my attempts at Turkish and I could tell right away he was going to be a good driver. Don’t know why, but had that good feeling about him.

Anyhow, we spoke to the extent that my still nascent Turkish allowed and then drive up the 35 or so kilometres to Termessos.

Termessos is a bit of a mystery city, located inside the beautiful Güllük Dagi National Park on top of a simply stunning mountaintop. The Termessians were said to be a fierce and warlike people and were famous for having successfully fended off Alexander the Great in 333 BC (though personally, having climbed all the way up the mountain to try to get to what would have been the walled city, think, if I were Alex, I would have left them to it on the difficulty of the climb), and maintained an independent ally rather than being absorbed by the Roman Empire. The site is stunning though and wildly rough, making you feel very Indiana Jones as you stumble up and amongst hte ruins. Due to the difficulty of he climb, I don’t think any but the most ambitious tour groups must make it up and I had the site, quite largely to myself in places. Mostly completely overgrown in places by vegetation, the two highlights for me were the incredible theatre which has a jaw-dropping view backed onto the mountains that the city nestles between and the peaceful and serene lower gymnasium which still manages to maintain this sense of an only recently fallen empire.

After giving my legs a pretty hefty workout scrambling across decaying ruins and up and down pretty steep hills, I walked down the kilometre to the entrance and we drive onto the Karain Cave.

I was surprised by the cave actually. Apparently continously inhabited for 25,000 years since Paleolithic times it is actually one of the most important sites in Europe and bones like elephant and hippopotami have been discovered here which seems totally inconceivable looking out across the parcelled land that Turkish farmers are eeking out an existence on there now.

Also, the caves are much,much bigger inside than I realized. Take a torch if you have one because not all of it is lit and I was surprised to find myself using my flash in places as I moved about. It must have been amazing while inhabited and even though it’s a quick run around while you’re there is well worth the detour. Bit of a good climb up to the cave so pace yourself. My legs were whining about the undue exertion by this time.

Anyhow, after that Hossain dropped me off at the ottogar and I leapt on a minibus after some confused directions to Çirali. Driver went screaming by my stop though and it was only me paying attention to the signs at the side of the road and a very loud “Çirali ?” question that brought him to the right side of the road, a kilometre beyond where he was supposed to drop me and 7 kms from the actual village. Luckily, as I started walking down to the village, a kind pension owner picked me up and dropped me off.