We woke this morning to bright sunshine and a picturesque lake right in front of us. For a while we lay in bed watching the more energetic locals out getting their morning exercise and then eventually stirred ourselves out of bed. The sun and scenery did not encourage a rapid departure so we did some chores, went for a walk into the town center for a little shoppping and just plain looking. It was lunch time before we finally got ourselves underway.

From Beysehir we headed west along the lake shore for a while before turning south towards the towns of Derebucak and Ibradi. This route took us into the Taurus Mountains and with that a very significant change in scenery. Suddenly we were driving on narrow mountain roads, with craggy peaks, lots of interesting stone ramparts and very pretty forests of pine, juniper and cypress.

We passed through a number of small villages throughout the afternoon and could not help but notice that the men of these villages over 40 years old seem to spend their time at the local cafe sipping tea and chatting.


By late afternoon we were looking for any flat spot off the roadway as an overnight camp when we spotted a rough side road that would give us protection for the traffic on the narrow mountain road.