Ugh...it is too early in the morning to be blogging, but after a 10 hour bus ride from Antalya to Goreme (Cappadocia), I am too hopped up to go to bed, but too tired to go do any exploring. I'm coming to accept that I'm just not one of those people who can sleep on the road...at least not in cars, buses, trains or planes. Anyhow, since I have a bit of time now, I figure I may as well write about my harrowing experience yesterday.

Ohlala...where to begin? Yesterday, being my only day in Antalya, I decided to pass on hanging around town and enjoying the beach and waterfront promenade, and instead made a day trip to Thermossos, an impressive ruined city left behind by the Greeks. In the company of R., a very cool Australian I had met the night before at the hostel in town, we spent the better part of the day making our way out to the ruins, which are situated high up on a mountain 34KM inland from Antalya, exploring the site, and walking the 9KM back down to the base of the mountain to catch a dolmus back into town. For the most part, it was a great day, the weather was agreeable, the site was nearly deserted and superbly preserved, and R. was excellent company. The only unfortunate thing is that I had given almost all of my clothes to a laundry service the night before, and so I was stuck wandering around the ruins and down the side of a mountain in a dress and flip flops, not exactly ideal for scrambling over the ruins of temples, and navigating through bushes. That being said, all was going so well until about halfway through the 9KM descent, when the single most TERRIFYING moment of my trip occurred: I crossed paths with a snake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! R. and I were in the process of making our way down the paved road, talking about Muammar Gaddafi and other fun stuff, when suddenly a teeny tiny snake darted across the pavement, passing within less than two feet from me. This may not strike most of you as being a big deal, but as many of you are very well aware, I am an absolute ophidiophobe...in layman speak, I am terrified of snakes (blame it on the Catholic upbringing). When we were walking around the overgrown ruins, it had occurred to me that it could be a real possibility that snakes might be lurking around in the grass and under rocks, and had mentioned to R. that in the eventuality that a snake should reveal itself, he would probably have to carry my lifeless body back down to the base of the mountain because I would surely have died of a heart attack, so to his credit, he managed to convince me that it would be better to keep walking rather than keel over and die. In any case, the cold sweat and wild heart palpitations eventually subsided, but I tell you now, I don't know if my poor little heart can handle another run in of this nature. I feel that for a girl who is as scared of snakes as I am, I've had an unusually high number of encounters with them in nature...


I'm sitting in a cafe, having a coffee and baklava, with the world's cutest dog lying at my feet, and a view of the fairy chimneys in the background...after a long travel day, it doesn't get much better than this. I think that today is going to be a bit of a write off, in terms of doing any real exploring of the sites, so I think I'll be happy to spend the day catching up on some reading, maybe start planning the next phase of my trip (after much contemplation, I think that this is going to be the last major stop in my tour of Turkey; I'm going to make a go at the Syrian border probably within the next three or four days), and resting up for the next couple of days of hiking...God help me should I have another run in with a snake.