Escape from Paradise...!

beauty courtesy of anders

There were aussies and Scotsman and kiwis. Two thick-ankled giants from Calgary. Starry-eyed and foul-mouthed lovers from Manchester.

Like some sort of international “Survivor” dream team, we all converged on the pirate-cove-turned-beach-resort of Olympos, as thousands of tourists do every year, at the southern tip of Turkey’s turquoise coast, where the past is forgotten and old grudges put aside to celebrate the wherewithal of the worlds heartiest binge drinkers.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved marching through the cave-city valleys of Cappadocia and climbing the ruined high-rises of hasenkeyf. But it was in Olympos that I finally found myself on “vacation” as defined by people’s dreams- that mystical land where everything always goes right, where the men are handsome and funny, and women are beautiful and sometimes sunbathing topless.

We were the chilled-out California boys, which is a good thing to be, especially if you have curly blond hair, which, when on the beach of people’s dreams, glows with a wispy sunlit halo and makes you look like an angel, which in turn makes people in a good mood almost disgustingly friendly towards you, and snowballs your delusional mental/vacation state to a dysfunctional prozac ecstasy.

Happy :)

Olympos is the kind of place where the lazy in you inevitably takes over. Slowly, terrifyingly, it oozes into your ears and settles in the front of your skull, just like those weird desert worm thingies that crawl into Chekov’s ears in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN.

Visitors inevitably find themselves staying an extra day or two regardless of schedules, plane flights or murderous pitchfork wielding mobs. There were legends of a German tourist who became so swallowed up by the lazy that her feet turned to wood, and her toes curled and worked their way into the sand like roots, and she became a tree.

Well, not really, but I’m starting one right now. I saw it happen. I swear.

A once sizable Lycian city, Olympos has roots in Greek and Roman mythology, allegedly being the birthplace of Vulcan, the god of blacksmithing, and the deathplace of Chimera, a firebreathiing demon of yore more widely recognized as the logo for the Turkish chain of gas stations PETROL OFISI.



chimera vs. chimera corporate logo

The Chimera was slain when Iobetes, King of Xanthos, dropped lead in its mouth from above. At the site where the creature died burns an eternal flame sprouting from the earth, which you can still go check out. The flame has been burning for as long as recorded history, and is also the site where the first Olympic torch was lit.

eternal flame of chimera

Supposed “smart” people say it’s a pocket of methane gas that is slowly seeping out of the ground, but ask the German tree woman and she’ll tell you differently. You need to bribe her with cigarettes first- no lights or menthols, and don’t bother her before 10 AM cuz she’s cranky.

Regardless, the historic mythology to the spot is and always will be appropriate for me. I will always remember Olympos as the place where the ancient Lycian Lazy Monster got to me. I became too comfortable there. When Anders and Ren were ready to go, I chose to stay. I let the lazy in, I let the beast crawl in my ears- I married it, made love to it, wallowed in it.

Amidst my decadence, the thought that I would never be able to leave set in, and I panicked. I became so comfortable that I ran. I ran away from paradise.

On the day that I sullenly boarded the dolmuş out of Olympus, somewhere on the sunny coast of the Mediterranean, the Greeks looked east towards Turkey and saw for the second time in 4000 years a pointy-nosed kid icarus falling back to earth like a flaming meteor, having flown too close to the sun, having come too close to heaven for any mortal to withstand.

German tree woman (taken by anders)

party people at the Chimera (taken by anders)

I will never be the same...