The Quest for Positive Vibes

The second day of biking didn't quite go as planned. About ten minutes outside of Datca I had a bug fly inside my helmet, and I pulled over so I could remove it. As I was slowing down, nearly to a stop, I began to hit gravel. In a classic stupid motorcycle move, I broke the two finger rule (apply no more pressure on the front brake than your two fingers can manage) and the front brake locked up and skidded sideways in the gravel, taking the scooter down and me with it. It was really minor, I wasn't going fast so all I ended up with is a bruise on my shoulder and a small scrape on my hand. The scooter took the brunt of it, the left mirror broke off and the fender was pretty scratched. Better it than me. 

So that ended my scooter trip. My shoulder was sore so I didn't really want to ride too much anymore. I finished the ride back to Marmaris and handed the scooter back, having to fork out a little extra money for the damage. Insurance is such a waste of time in the developing world. I caught a bus right away to Fethyie and arrived at a guest house that didn't live up to my expectations. There was only one other guy in the dorm with me, and I only briefly talked to him in the morning. The lack of fellow backpackers since Istanbul has come as a surprise to me, the last week hasn't been overly social.

I got up today and quickly headed out for the Lycian tombs that are carved into the cliff face, trying to make it there before the heat of the day set in. It beat me by a mile; by 10:30 it was scorching hot. After a week or so of going hard, moving around often and doing lots of site seeing, I was getting the feeling I needed some relax time at the beach to recharge the batteries. And as is always my philosophy while traveling, I followed my gut instinct and deviated from the plan, heading for Kabak. 

I caught the minibus there and arrived at 2. Kabak is basically a deep valley surrounded by high mountains, with cabin guesthouses set up along the sides, with a path leading to a secluded beach below. I chose the first guest house I came to, the highest one up the valley, because I'd rather do the climb five times without a backpack than once with it, dying in the intense heat. 

I chose the cool, shaded bungalow that was encloased under a large tree, not stopping to think of the reprocussions of that decision. They quickly made themselves known when I organizing some things and noticed a movement to my right. A spider nearly the size of my hand ran across the wall, and I got the fuck out. The guest house owner came to kill it, and attempted with his hand and a leaf (making me look like a pussy) but ended up driving it up into the rafters. Needless to say I changed to the most exposed, hottest, non-basement-like bungalow. 

As was usually the case with my spider encounters on my last trip, I'm going to regard this one as a rare event and count on it not happening again. Fingers crossed. I'll concentrate on the positive vibes, for this place seems pretty cool so far. The beach is chill and not touristy at all, everything has good energy to it.