Selcuk, Koycegiz, and Paragliding in Olu Deniz

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Two thousand feet below me, the Mediterranean sparkled (sparkled!) like the twinkle of a mirrorball in the blue eyes of a Disco Queen. Just a few minutes ago I was standing on a mountain, and now I was flying, seated in business class on Paraglide Airlines. My tandem pilot, Alper, was hunting thermals, which would boost us up so quickly it left my stomach reeling. He spun around a few times until sweat washed my face, the sun baking in the upper 30’s. To his (and my) disappointment, I turned a shade of lime, recalling the time I puked exiting the fifth rollercoaster at the Six Flags in New Jersey. So he leveled out, coasting seaward, allowing me to fully realize the meaning of the world “breathtaking”. Olu Deniz on Turkey’s south coast is known as one of the world’s best paragliding destinations for good reason.

But, as usual, I’m flying ahead of myself. Catching a night bus out of Istanbul, I quickly realized how little I had seen of the city. Modern Turkey is somewhat removed from my impressions of the living brochure that is Sultanahemet, the main tourist district. It took almost two hours for the bus to crawl its way out the city, giving me a tour of the modern buildings and suburbs of Istanbul, and some of the 12 million people who live in them. The women don’t all dress like ninjas, mustached men don’t all work in the carpet trade. Sometimes I have to remind myself that a few days in a city (or country) is like watching the first five minutes of a movie – you get an idea what’s going on, but you’re still a long way off from the end credits. Traffic was dense as the roads were reorganized for Istanbul’s first Formula One Grand Prix, taking place on the weekend. Newspapers were covered in pictures of Schumacher and C-Grade celebrities (Bo Derek, Mike Tyson) in town for the event, and through the Turkish I could decipher pride and a sense of achievement. “I love my country,” Ilhan tells me, a sentiment shared by many of the Turks I meet. After decades of stalling, the EU is finally set to admit Turkey into its fold. The Turkish currency was “normalized” a few months ago, chopping off six zeros so that 1 million lire is now just 1 lire. Tourism is up, optimism is up, and the country seems poised for serious growth. Of course, I am still only five minutes into this Mediterranean movie marathon.

The night bus deposited me in Selcuk, a base to visit the famous ruins of Ephesus. The town was peaceful, in contrast to the ruins itself, which were swarming with screaming kids and tourists. Called the “largest open air museum in the world”, Ephesus was a major city in ancient Greece. Later it became a major city for the Romans, before it was looted and sacked by the Goths, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, and Debbie and Dick Harrison from Springfield, Missouri. The ruins stretch for miles and include an enormous amphitheatre, fossils of temples and wide, pillar-lined boulevards. Cruise ships and buses pack in the numbers, and even the Ephesus posters on the walls of travel agencies can’t get a clear shot without Tammy and Tom Peterson, of Steubenville, Ohio. All in, it left me feeling underwhelmed, so I took a walk down the road, bought some juicy, softball-size peaches from a farm store, and hit the pool. My abode, Kiwi Pension, is the brainchild of a New Zealander named Alison, who visited Turkey 21 years ago and never left. Kiwi’s pool, located on the outskirts of town, is nestled in a mandarin orchard and filled with clear, cold spring water - the kind you can drink and swim in at the same time. For a few hours, it was just me, floating on the pool noodles (surely one of mankind’s best inventions), the heated wind blowing like a cranked up hair-dryer. Up the road was the house the Virgin Mary supposedly lived and died in, and down the road lay the rocks that now make up the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. But flat on my back in a cold pool, surrounded by mandarins, peace and quiet, is how I will remember Selcuk. Later, the Ross’s, a friendly family vacationing from Edmonton, joined my pool party and later took me for the best meal I’d had in ages. Hospitality and generosity extends beyond Turkey.

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