Lycian way in winter - a hobo guide

How to fail walking 500 kilometers in a month and to enjoy it a lot

Have you heard about the Lycian Way? It's a long walking path that follows the south-western coast of Turkey. It's definitely worth walking. It goes through the mountains and many Antiquity ruins, it is rather touristy, there are fancy hotels in almost every village, sometimes it is difficult to find, it is always stunning and the official guide says you shouldn't walk on it in winter. We did walk on it in winter, had little money and camped every day, so we didn't use any of the hotels. (We "chose" the toughest winter in the last I don't know how many years to make the experience more intense.) 

It was amazing. This is how it went and what we found out. (Internet is full of articles about this path, but they mostly talk about going there in warmer weather and using all the expensive tourist infrastructure. So I hope this post might help somebody who would want to travel like us.)

At a snail's pace

Do you usually walk 25 km per day even with a heavy backpack? Forget it. 

I usually don't read guides or descriptions of a place I am going to because I don't want spoilers. Also, the Lycian way was for us a place where to survive winter on a year-long hitchhiking trip across Asia. That meant we couldn't really plan what equipment co carry - we just had to carry all we had (including heavy winter clothes, for south Turkey mostly useless) - and we didn't have to catch any plane or bus so there was no point in detailed planning anyway.

So before we actually set our feet on the path, I thought it was going to be an easy walk along beaches and through villages, with some mountain every now and then. When we started walking, I realized that there were only mountains, though. You either go steeply up, or down. The way hardly ever follows some road, dirt road or even a path. You usually just walk through rocks or shrubs in a direction you just can't guess without the waymarks. And you sometimes lose the waymarks and must look for them. (This was actually happening to us pretty much every ten minutes, so our walking actually meant looking for the way. We always found it, though. Eventually.) 

The official smartphone application for navigation would probably help a lot, but it costs money - and this is a hobo guide, right? (Same goes for the official guidebook. Which also is quite big and heavy. But there is a nice map in it.) We at least had a smartphone with Android offline maps, though (Cheating, I know. Sorry. However it's very handy and on a long trip it eventually might save money). We also had a Wikitravel guide (good if you get lost) and an unofficial free diary by some people who walked almost the whole path.

All this means that you are slow because you must constantly watch where you are putting your feet and where the waymarks are. Since it's winter, you also have few daylight. Walking with a headlamp is out of question - unless you have an airport spotlight, you get lost immediately and will be eaten by wolves and men-eating goats.

All in all, we would walk some 15 km a day (except the days we squatted in abandoned houses since it was raining, or had barbecue on the eternal fire for the whole day because it was awesome).

Sun, rain and snow - and squatting

Websites all over internet advise against walking in winter because of bad weather. We found that the path was still quite walkable. (We avoided all the big mountains higher than 1500 m of altitude, though. It's usually possible to walk on the road instead.) Even though we started in mid-December, there were many days when I was sorry I didn't have shorts with me. It was sunny, but still not too hot. Almost the whole December was just perfect. 

In January, the weather spoiled a bit, though. There still were days like in a fairytale. But there also was quite a lot of days with a parade of all kinds of bad weather. I was very happy we had some waterproof clothes, rubber bags for the most important stuff in the backpacks and a good tent that survived some hail storms. A large raincoat, possibly with a hump for the backpack is super handy too. (Also, you may look like a nazgul with such a raincoat and that's cool.)

Even when it was raining for several days in a row, it was quite easy to survive (and to stay at least partially dry) without using hotels. 

Along the way, there are actually loads of free hotels - if you use your imagination a bit and aren't too fond of luxury. We would set up the tent in abandoned houses under construction, gazebos, on terraces of hotels or shops closed for winter... Once we squeezed under a roof covering a tomb. (The ancient inhabitant didn't come to complain even though we celebrated the Christmas eve in there, so everything was fine.) Another time we even found a completely abandoned shepherd house with a functional fireplace. 

It was quite helpful to have a smartphone with a data card in order to check the weather forecast, so that we knew about the great floods in advance and could find a nice squat in civilization. We didn't have to stay on one place for more than two nights, though.

When it's snowing, however, it is a good time for a break until the thaw. You simply don't see the waymarks and have no idea where the path is. I should mention that in the lower parts of the way, it snows very rarely. It happened to us once and even the locals were surprised. (When I say locals I mean goat herders with whom we were stuck. We were camping near their house when the snow came - and since we were blocked in the mountains, they allowed us to lie around their fireplace and watch Black Sea folk dances and a program about pig hunting in their satellite TV the whole day. And they were giving us food. It was one of the best experiences from the trail, so I'm quite happy we were stuck there.)

The (lack of) supplies

If you look on the map, you might think that since the path goes through many villages, you will run into a grocery store every day. 

Except that you won't.

Locals probably don't need shops much because they make many groceries themselves. If they need something more, they go by car to town. So in the villages (especially between Fethiye and Kınık) the shops are only meant for tourists. Which means that in winter there are none, are closed (most often) or there is a nice surcharge on everything except bread. 

As a result, we started running out of food the second day. What we missed most was bread. Eventually, each of us would have half a loaf for every meal. First we would have bread with cheese and olives and spicy peppers, then bread with peppers and then bread with bread. (For dinner, there would be bulgur with an instant soup cooked on campfire, yay.)

The third day we found an old lady who was selling frozen bread.
The fourth day, we discovered that we hadn't bought enough frozen bread and that half a loaf was kind of few.
Then we found an open tourist store and bought six loafs of bread. It was still few but we couldn't fit it anywhere, so it ended up tied to Vojta's backpack.
Then we ran out of bread again and when we were asking for a store, a man gave us a loaf for free (and said it was a right thing to do since he was a Muslim).

Then we arrived to a big village full of greenhouses and bought 3 kg of tomatoes. The next day, some nice people gave us 3 kg of oranges, and we again had no room for it, so it was hanging in plastic bags all around us. 

Later, my mum came to join us for a week and when she was leaving, she bought us loads of food. The only problem was that we still didn't have any room in our backpacks, so the food had to hang outside in plastic bags again. We weren't hungry anymore but it took Vojta 30 fucks more than before (and he had used to swear a lot even before) to pack his backpack every morning.

A week later, we finished all the food, so our backpacks were lighter again and we were hungry again. Fortunately, after Kınık the path goes way more often through big villages or small towns with shops, so we weren't hungry too often. We also started adding peppers, onions and chili peppers to our bulgur. Sometimes we replaced bulgur with red lentils, which was way better than just bulgur with an instant soup. (Cooking on fire is not a problem anywhere except the centres of the towns. We had a gasoline cooker but we would use it only when we were squatting because normally we would be able to make a campfire even on the rainy days.)

One more thing worth mentioning is that there are orange trees growing everywhere. In winter, they are full of oranges. The thing is, though, that there are two kinds of oranges - ones are sweet and the others are very bitter and sour. You can never guess from the outside which one is which, so it always is a surprise.

Antiquity ruins. And tombs

There are loads of them. Everywhere. Usually you just walk through them. You can find a tomb on a parking lot, in somebody's garden, on a pasture or on the side of a new road among pieces of rocks, sand and other construction waste. 
The path is designed to go through some of the largest and most beautiful old Lycian cities. It may be useful to stress that to enter them, or to enter some parts of them, you must pay an entrance fee. Usually it is between 8 and 20 Liras (2016). However, the ticket booth is not always totally easy to find and there is not always a person inside, especially if you come at night. (Vojta was always eager to find it, I was less.) 

A nice thing for travellers (and probably a nightmare for historians) is that nobody bothers you much at these places. In winter they are not crowded (except by sheep), so you can stay pretty much how long you wish (even the whole night), eat your breakfast in ancient parliaments, swim in rivers that go through the cities and yell "this is Sparta" in amphitheatres. A couple of times we came very late and there was no flat spot for the tent except next to the ruins, so we slept there and payed the entrance fee when we were leaving. Nobody seemed bothered. (However, we always made sure not to leave any litter and not to damage anything.)

Mosques, key to civilization

You might be asking how could one stay clean in winter without using tourist services. Especially if you are hiking with a backpack heavy as hell and you sweat.

There is actually quite a lot of options. Since winter in south Turkey is not very cold (it's very rarely freezing at night) and there is a lot of fresh rivers, it is best to swim in the estuaries on sunny days. You can bathe in the sea and then to wash the salt out in the river. We did so twice, in Olympos and near Kınık. In winter there are few people on the beach, so you don't need to worry you shock somebody with a European swimming suit. (There is a trick, though - most of the rivers between Olympos and Demre are salty.) 

If you are lucky enough, you also can find a working beach shower. Most of them are off in winter, though. We found one, near a hotel that was being repaired. When you are deep in the mountains, not on the beach, you can use water from springs.

This is all nice, but what if it is cold, raining for several days in a row, you are using all your energy to keep your gear dry and it is out of question to undress outside? (If it's cold and rainy long enough, you may realize that human is a filthy creature generating all kinds of muck.)

You are lucky to be in a mostly Muslim country, though. Mosques are your saviour and a carrier of civilization. There always is water (cold), a sink and a toilet. (Contrarily to my expectations, usually not a scary one.) They have roofs. They are in every village. And they have minarets, so you can see them from afar. It means that you can clean your teeth, wash your gear and your socks several times a day, if you like.

Sometimes, they even have functioning power plugs, so you can charge your phone. (If you are charging it long enough, you even may watch the imam singing the prayer call to a mike. If you are charging it too long, the imam may switch the power off.) If they also had free wifi, I would consider converting to Islam.

Once we even found a mosque with a shower. It didn't work but it still was a room that you could lock and that didn't have any wind inside. You can then heat water on a camping stove and mix it with cold one. One army cooking pan of very hot water can make two bottles of normally hot water, and that is enough for turning a filthy goblin to a clean and civilized homo sapiens. 

There also are Couchsurfers living on the way, and if you're a Couchsurfing member and not as useless at time management as I am and you ask to stay in their place long enough in advance, they may answer you. At least I suppose.

As for laundry, we had an unfair advantage - my mum came to join us and then flaw back home, and we were twice staying with her in civilization with a laundry machine. Except for that, we would use remote springs and taps on hot days. We would then dry the clothes on our backpack or by just wearing it wet (there is nothing like taking off your T-shirt on an abandonned dirtroad and then jump behind the shrubs three times because all the inhabitants of the nearby village decide in the very moment to go, one by one, to the next village on motorbikes).

Hospitable people, business people and scammers

I was surprised how touristy the Lycian way actually was. There are hotels and restaurants even in the most remote villages and they are advertised even on the most unexpected places. It happened to us several times that we were balancing on a steep goat path in the middle of nowhere, looking for a waymark, and we found an advert on the rock instead. Some people or maybe even whole villages make their living by selling services to walkers.

This is very nice for fancy tourists, but if you don't actually want to use any tourist services, it may complicate your life. Especially because people often offer you things and it is quite difficult to distinguish who is simply hospitable like people in Turkey usually are, and for whom you are just a walking wallet and is trying to manipulate you into buying stuff you don't want.

Even though we would normally only buy groceries, it happened to us once that a hotel owner was waiting for us at a beginning of a village. Somebody whom we had met in the mountains nearby had called him we had been on the way, and he probably wanted our money so bad. He was very friendly and was pressing a taxi, a hotel and a restaurant meal on us even though we had told him clearly we didn't have budget for such things. We were unfortunately out of supplies, so we needed to buy bread from him, though. He wasn't willing much to tell us the price in advance. Eventually he invited us for tea and then made us pay for it. (The amount was way too high.) We actually lost not much, but the whole situation was creepy.

However, this was our only awkward experience. Usually people respected our refusal (we were also quite lucky that most of the hotels were closed for winter). And we met many people who simply were hospitable or wanted to just talk with us.

We were offered coffee at some point and as we were chatting with our hosts, we got three huge bags of oranges. A lady called us from her doorstep at night when we were passing by just to give us several pieces of delicious traditional bread with herbs. A mayor of a village let us camp on his balcony when we asked if we were allowed to camp on a village lawn. He also invited us home for tea and we ended up eating apples and sunflowers seeds with the whole family. In the morning, his wife gave us bread and olives. Goat herders in the mountains let us stay day and night in their house when we were blocked by snow. Even though we had refused to buy a meal from them before the snow came, they were feeding us all the time for free (we eventually payed them because otherwise we would feel like assholes, but they hadn't asked for the money). A guy invited us home for tea when it was raining even though we said we wouldn't stay in his hotel. From time to time, people would give us bread or fruits or just stop to talk with us a bit...

And there was Salim the Fishman, our adoptive grandfather. When we were passing near his cabin on the beach, he invited us for tea - and we stayed two days. He let us go fishing with him. He was cooking for us and we made barbecue together. He let us stay in his cabin and use his bucket shower. We went with him to a tea bar on the neighboring beach. We did shopping for him in the town. He didn't want anything from us except our company. He is a thoughtful man and we talked with him about a plenty of things (in English - he had learned it from walkers). When we finally left, we missed him.
He loves having people around. He even asked us to tell our friends about him. So if you happen to walk on the Lycian way, don't forget to drop by for tea! He lives on the Andriake beach near Demre in a house he made himself from wooden pallets that some survivalists had left behind. (He also owns a house in a village but he doesn't like leaving the sea, so he stays on the coast all year long). 

In conclusion, we eventually found out that it had been too bold to think that we would walk all the way from Fethiye to Antalya in one month. We eventually got from Antalya to Demre and with my mum from Çıralı to Kemer. All in all, it was something like three quarters of the marked 550 km path. (We would have been glad to walk the last quarter too but we had to do visa paperwork for our further travels.) 

However, we enjoyed the walk a lot. We had seen loads of ancient tombs, columns and amphitheatres (and slept near one of the tombs). We had met a couple of nice and interesting people. We had found out we actually could walk a long time with a bag weighing oh-my-God Kilograms. We had lost some weight (and Vojta said he had acquired some new muscles, but I didn't, so I think he's been lying). We had squatted both in abandoned village houses and in luxury hotels under construction. We had had a hovercraft full of eels. We had survived a couple of storms and eaten tons of oranges (even though some were the bitter ones, not meant for eating). We had found ourselves a spare grandfather. And in the end, we still weren't fed up with the path and realized we would like to come back at some point.