Our last weeks in Marmaris, Türkiye

As a Norwegian citizens we can stay in Türkiye for 3 months without visa, and now it is time to sail away – out of Türkiye. But first we are trying to fill up our last days with exploring and friends.

We had heard a lot about the market in Mugla, which is every Thursday, so this week we rented a car and drove there. It is winter up in the mountains and Mugla lays at 660 meters so it could be snow along the road. But it was not snow on the road, and we could hardly see the snow in the mountains. On the way up to Mugla there is a couple of viewpoint so we had to stop.

Sharon went together with us for shopping

And this market is huge!! It was hard to find any parking, but we found one after driving around.

OMG!! Here is so much good stuff!

Of course a lot of people

And cold?? Yes it was soooo cold!

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Here is a video from the market:

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It was cold and after a while we had to eat lunch. It was hard to find a restaurant but we found Güzelköy Firin Kafe. Because it was so cold we order hot chocolate first (Astor and me), and that was really good! The food was pritty good as well!

After lunch we went back to the car and drove back to Marmaris.

We stopped at the viewpoint to Marmaris. There were a couple taking weddingphotos and we tried not to disturb them.

A lovely calm evening when we came back to the boat.

I am looking forward to a sunset where the sun goes all the way down to the ocean.

We wanna make new matresses for our main cabin and in our old boat at home we made the saloon into a big bed. When it is only the two of us it is a nice place to watch movies in the evening.

In the morning Astor took the matresses in the dinghy over to Firstsail.

So calm and nice morning

Beautiful skies! We went to Netsel Marina to empty our blackwater tanks.

And what happend! Three hours later it was like this, with hail!! It changed totally! Here we are south in the bay at Ataköy Marina to fill water. In Netsel Marina it is forbidden to fill water unless you have the boat in the marina… (but it depends the guy is working and who you are… ) In Adaköy Marina we had to pay for the water, but that is no problem.

I was so happy we had the cockpit encloser. It was windy as well so it was really bad weather for a couple of hours.

A video from that bad weather

After we came back to the anchorage in town we put our deck cusions into the saloon and were ready for a movie!

The day after we had dinner at our favourite restaurant Sevgiyolu. I will really miss this Mushroom with chicken!

Hassan, the manager of the restaurants was asking to see what I was working with at my computer, so I had to show him my blog.

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The 6th of February we woke up with news from the eastern part of Türkiye, it was a huge earthquake this morning. We don`t know anyone in this area, but some of our new friends in Marmaris has family there. So it came pritty close even if we didn`t feel anything. When I am writing this post 50240 has died in that eartquake and 122 500 is hurt.

Anyway, 6th of February is Mine and Astors day. We have been together for 13 years!

And that was a nice day to invite our boatfriends for dinner. I made moussaka, tzatziki and greek salad.

And Sharon came over with lemonpai. Oh that was good!!

After days with good food it was time do do a hike again. We went to the hill between Marmaris and Icmeler, and started at the same place as we did some weeks ago. More and more flowers is blooming.

After the fire last year they made a lot of gravel roads so it was easier to cut down the forrest.

And it is an amazing view up there

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Lots of places to hike!

Yellow is the colour

In the evening it is a big differens walking in the shadow or in the sun so I was happy when we came back to the sun. We went over the same hill as earlier and came down in Armutalan, and walked back to the boat.

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Here is the trail we hiked.

When we came back to town, Astor wanted to check a hardware store at the Blue Port shoppingcenter. He didn`t find what he was looking for. It started to get late so when we saw KFC we thought it could be nice to eat something light here instead of going back to a cold boat.

It was not only us who was hungry…

I guess the cat sitting behind Astor hoped for a bite!

Beautiful cats

The day after – new dinner. This time it was Mike (behind camera) who was the chef. But he is working a lot in his boat so he asked if we could host the dinnerparty. Bobby, me, Astor, Sharon, Geoff and Gül. And thanks to Mike for a really nice dinner and dessert!

Gül and Bobby talked about doing a hike the next day, so I asked if we could join them. They are 20 years younger than us so it could be hard for us, but I hoped it should be fine!

Bobby has a better tender than us so he took us to Icmeler. We used an hour first in Bobbys boat to discuss where to go. This trail was my choice, always difficult when you haven`t been there before.

The mountain between Marmaris and Icmeler, where we have hiked a couple of times.

I found the trail on Wikiloc. The different on Wikiloc and Alltrails (which we used a lot in Greece) is that on Wikiloc everyone share the track and you don`t know which one is the correct. On Alltrails there are maybe one or two tracks and a lot of comments instead on them. I wanted to find the trail up to the peak, but after follow this track we ended up a different place…

View from the trail down to Icmeler

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Icmeler to the left and far away in the middle of the photo you can see Marmaris

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The view out of the bay

It was time for a little break here with banana, pear and chocolate!

Most of it was good trails, but we lost our way a couple of times and had to have a look around.

One hour later we found a very nice place to have an extra rest. It was an amazing hike with this lovely couple!

Beautiful flower!

Bobby and Astor. You can see Marmaris behind them.

Me and my dear 🙂

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We guessed this tree burned inside in a fire

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The view down to Turunc

It is spring very soon and it starts to bloom everywhere

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When we finished the trail we had to walk 170 high meters down to Turunc and luckily some guys in a tractor gave us a lift!

In Turunc we lost the bus and had to wait for the next one. We went to the restaurant Gipsy to eat some lunch/dinner.

Here is the trail! 8 km over 4 hours very nice walk!

Have you seen this adorable cat?? Look at his eyes!! This is a Turkish VAN-cat, and this race is origin from the Van lake in Türkiye. It`s not a good idea to have this cat in a boat, because this cat likes to swim!!

I guess this cat escaped from the other cats…

Here is a video from this hike:

I promissed you in the last post that I would tell you about our next destination. So where do you think we are going? Well, I know that most of you following us knows that we sailed to Cyprus. We didn`t had any plan to go there, but what do we need plans for??

In the next post I will tell you about our absolutely last days in Marmaris, checking out of Türkiye, and sail over to Cyprus. See you in Cyprus!