Woke up at 3:30 to grab the Havas bus from the Taxim section of ?stanbul to the local airport. Flew from ?stanbul to Adana, i?n the south of Turkey.
?n Adana, took the local Dolmush van from the airport into the center of town and walked around for a bit, searching for a hotel that looked ok – the first one we stumbled upon looked way way too nice, but finally we found one called Ak Otel that looked nice and low key. Checked in, had some tea with the owners, then set off on another crazy Dolmus ride further south to the ancient town of Kozan.
?n Kozan, we visited one of the newer hotels in town, and had a private meeting and tour of the place with the architect who designed it – the place was incredible, and built in the ruins of a tax collectors home.
Then, we hiked up a long muddy road all the way to the top of the mountain in the middle of Kozan, to see the ruins of an old monastery and castle. The ruins were spectacular, with hidden underground archways, caverns and domes. Despite the continued rain, we stayed on the ridge until the sun began to set.
After the muddy walk back to the hotel, we had another cup of tea, and set off w?th our friend from the hotel to find the Dolmush back to Adana.
Back in Adana, and all still going on 2 or 3 hours of sleep, we searched for an amazing kebap joint, where we ate, and ? stup?dly challenged one of the cooks to a hot pepper eating contest. ? ate literally the hottest pepper ?ve ever eaten, drank a giant cup of soupy goats milk yogurt, and got a good laugh with the staff.
After that, we went back to Ak Otel, and called it a night in time to f?nally get a full 8 hours of sleep.
Today, we are planning on sleeping in Atakya, where they have a church in a cave system, giant bazaar, and intense Turkish baths.
Internet access is getting sparse as we travel south, especially wifi for the iPhone, so ? will do my best to keep posting. Also, the keyboards here have a different key layout than american keyboards, some some characters may look a little weird.