I shook my tambourine the whole time.: Kabak Valley

The best of all.

We stayed in this really incredible valley with almost no people (although Mustafa, the camp owner, said that more and more people are trying to cash in on the area, even though it's a nature reserve and people shouldn't be building there) overlooking the sea. We stayed at Fullmoon Camp, slept in bungalows, showered outside, hiked to the beach and along the Lycian trail, and ate delicious home-cooked food made by Mustafa's family every day. They grow almost all of their own food and Mustafa also told us that all the people in the valley are going to get together this fall and harvest wild grapes in the area to make wine.

The Lycian trail stretches from Fethiye to Antalya and takes 27 days to hike (although Mustafa said he did it in 20). We used this trail to get down from the natural waterfall in the area, but on the way up Mustafa took us the 'canyoning route', which was essentially us climbing sheer rock face up a waterfall for two hours, swimming in natural springs to get across newly flooded areas where you could no longer hike or climb, and trying to ignore the spider webs that I walked through. It also resulted with some mild to not-so-mild injuries, including a shard of wood in my knee. While climbing I tried to hoist my left knee up to the next level of a rock, and ended up slamming it into a tree trunk. After me and my friend Vicki screamed as loud as we could for what seemed like minutes, I tried to take it out myself and almost fainted. Mustafa came over and just casually snatched it out of my knee while laughing, then we continued to the top of the waterfall.

Needless to say, it was an adventure! And at 40 lira a day (including all of the delicious food)!