April 16, 2004 |
The only sign of humans is the road and fading sound of the bus. Surrounded by forest, we can just catch glimpses of the water far below between the trees.
“Çirali! Çirali!” The call of the bus attendant wakes me from my doze. Flustered and hot, James and I scramble to collect our gear under the watchful eye of moustachioed farmers, white-veiled women, and a red-headed toddler seated quietly on his mother’s lap. Squeezing past bags of lettuce, fragrant herbs and bright red tomatoes, we emerge into the blinding noon sunshine.
With a honk of the horn, the bus rumbles on. We’re left alone in the middle of a pine forest, still half asleep.
We’re on Turkey’s Lycian coast, a bump extending into the Mediterranean Sea in the southwest of the country. It’s the home of the ancient Lycians, a proud race that developed the world’s first democracy. They also resisted being fully overwhelmed by the Greeks and later the Romans, and produced Saint Nicholas — yes, the Saint Nicholas who later morphed into the jolly man of the North Pole. Ruins of Lycian cities are scattered throughout the area, including superb tombs carved into cliffs.
A different world
It’s only 216km from Fethiye in the west to Çirali in the east, but it feels like we’ve changed worlds. In the west, new hotels, villas, and apartments spread like a rash from the turquoise Mediterranean water up the hillsides. The towns are busy with honking cars and buses, buzzing mopeds, the hammering of new developments — and of course tourists, with their associated shops and touts selling everything from tours and carpets to jewellery and meerschaum pipes.
But above Çirali, the only evidence of humans is the road and the fading sound of the bus. Behind us is a steep forested slope, in front we can just catch glimpses of the water far below between the trees. It seems we’ve finally found a place in which to properly experience Turkey’s natural wonders.
Just as we’re wondering how to get down to the beach, a minibus appears. We clamber on board, and are taken down the forested valley. Along the way there’s a few wooden restaurants set between the trees, but no sign of concrete anywhere. When we reach Çirali it’s the same thing: low wooden pensions and restaurants set amongst fragrant orange orchards, with not an apartment building or tout in sight.
We make our way to the Myland Pension, a little out from the centre of the village. Our host Pinar shows us to our room — a small but comfortable wooden bungalow set amongst banana and other fruit trees. There’s a hammock right outside the door, and the beach is just across the road and through a sand dune. Bliss!
Deliberately low rise
It might seem as though Çirali is simply one of the last fabled backpacker destinations — idyllic, undeveloped locations where local culture and natural wonders remain untainted by mass tourism developments.
But in fact, the village is deliberately focusing on quality rather than quantity when it comes to tourism.
Çirali moved from an agricultural economy towards tourism in the late 1980s. This small village could easily have gone the same way as much of the rest of the Mediterranean coast — seeing a massive boom in construction at the expense of the area’s natural gems.
But Çirali beach is one of the last major nesting sites in the Mediterranean for the endangered loggerhead turtle. With new tourism facilities threatening the nests, the conservation organization WWF stepped in.
They worked with locals to develop a more responsible form of tourism — one that would still make money, but would also help with conservation efforts. Under the project, kiosks and restaurants built too close to the shore were moved back to the legal distance from the water. Ecotourism activities were started, and a land-use plan developed. In addition, the village moved from traditional agriculture, which previously polluted soil and water supplies with pesticides, to organic agriculture.
Ruins and eternal flames
Floating in the clear turquoise waters of the Mediterranean, we can appreciate the efforts the locals have made to preserve their village. All we can see is water, beach, forest, and the remains of an old crusader fortress — much more soothing than the overdeveloped towns further west.
At one end of the beach there’s the ruins of the Lycian town of Olympos to explore. At the other end is the Chimera — eternal flames fuelled by seeping natural gas, and the place where the mythical fire-breathing chimera was slain.
And rising above it all is Mt Olympos – our main reason for coming to Çirali. But that’s another story.