Turkish Delight & Other Adventures - Part 2, SO MUCH FUN!

So, finally, I get around to updating my adventures in Turkey. I had the best time on this vacation, and I highly recommend Sarigerme to any of you planning future travel.

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Highlights from the trip include:

1. I JUMPED OFF A MOUNTAIN!
2. I JUMPED OFF A FREAKING MOUNTAIN!
3. I JUMPED OFF A HOT DIGGITY DOGGITY MAMA SAY MAMA SAH MAMAMAFUSAH MOUNTAIN, Y'ALL!

Straight kickin it about 6,500 feet in the air. No big deal...

My good friend Wendi got me to not only sign up for paragliding, but to actually do it. Which, for me, is a HUGE thing. I'm a big fan of say, standing in line for the roller coaster, totally intending to do it, and then getting to the front and just flipping up deuces and bouncing. For me to get all the way up the mountain (in truth, the van ride up was far more scary than the trip down - have they never heard of guardrails?!), stand on the side of the mountain, watch other people run off the side of the mountain, and STILL then run off the damn mountain myself ... well let me just say I ended up surprising myself. I wasn't convinced I was going to do it until I was actually, in fact, doing it. There was a moment where my body and mind disconnected - mind was going "ok, ok, we can do this" and body was going "HELL TO THE NO, ARE YOU CRAZY?!" and that's when I stopped running and tried to just stop. Thank goodness they have a "helper" who pulls you and the guide along to ensure that you actually do, indeed, get off the mountain.

Hi, that's me! Off the mountain! And my SUPER SUPER patient guide Baris.

This is me, in all my paragliding glory...

Aside from JUMPING OFF A MOUNTAIN, I also discovered a love of all things catamaran.

I am normally not a huge fan of boats. I get on one and the refrain from Gilligan's Island comes to mind. I start humming "Three hour tour" over and over again. When I was on a boat tour in Dubrovnik, I got horribly sick after we transferred to a smaller boat. When I was on a boat tour in Hong Kong, I spent most of it either head between my knees or sick in the tiny bathroom. I was determined that this trip would be different, so I came equipped with Bonine. A lot of Bonine.

Me after Bonine. 

The first boat trip we took was a 12-island tour leaving from Gocek. I absolutely loved this trip. The water was stunning and we had a great time with our guide, Kenan. The worst part about the trip was all the other people on the boat. We were surrounded by very loud and annoying tourists, several of them with children who seemed to be hopped up on a combination of meth, sugar and helium. This is not intended to be a complaint about children in general - as we happened to meet a very nice family from the north of England who had the most delightful daughters; rather, I'm pointing out that there were very SPECIFIC children who seemed to have zero adult supervision. Running through a boat up and down stairs which are wet and slippery is just asking for an accident. These kids were all over this boat, playing tag, throwing things, splashing everyone and everything - and there was nary a responsible adult in sight. I spent most of my time in the water trying to avoid the havoc.

The water. So beautiful.

I loved the boat trip so much, I was super happy to do the catamaran tour. We heard about the tour from our new best friend, Ahmet. Ahmet works for the hotel and his job is to sell water sports. He stopped by every day just to say hi and to enable me to practice my horrible German. I should say that maybe the reason Ahmet was our friend for life was that I tried out the few words of Turkish I know - those being, "Hello", "Thank You" and "I love you".

This was our boat capitan - Yugel aka Das Kapitan

This would be Ahmet.

And I found that put me on a catamaran and I'm happy happy happy times a thousand. I think I like being closer to the water and the sense of control that offers. I also like that it goes fast with the wind, but not too fast. Of course, Wendi's favorite part had to have been when I was stretched out catching the sun and we hit a huge wave and I got completely drenched.

El Capitan (of the catamaran), Wendi and me - and yes, I AM rocking the life jacket. Don't hate.

I learned this trip that I need to be near water, much more often. I also look a lot better with a little bit of sun. Considering I regularly slather myself with SPF 50, I'm usually the color of Casper the Friendly Ghost. But the Turkish sun meant that I somehow got to be the color of a semi-healthy individual. I didn't really burn - except for the top of my left foot (yeah, weird, I know). But now I want to be near the sun all the time so I look reasonably alive.

Other highlights from the trip include:

- The weird waiter guy who gave off a definite creeper vibe and who seemed to pop up everywhere and kept inviting us to town - we kept saying no.
- The time we went to the Blue Lagoon and on the way back our tour bus got into a wreck with a car because one of the passengers decided to open the left hand back door - without looking. That was fun.
- The time we were on the tour bus with a guy from England who KNEW EVERYTHING. No joke. No matter what the subject, he KNEW ALL ABOUT IT. Wendi cracked me up by pointing out that for someone who had been coming to Turkey for like 10 years (he shared this with the whole bus), he somehow had yet to learn about sunscreen
- The time I played DJ and danced all over an empty dance floor while Wendi controlled the smoke machine and I drank too much and woke up the next day feeling like I had been beaten in my sleep
- The time we all jumped off the boat and ended up leaving Ahmet in charge - and he had been drinking - and we were all sort of scared the boat wouldn't come back.
- Me realizing that I really, really, REALLY need swimming lessons. Upside: I taught myself to swim at age 12 and I can keep myself afloat. Downside: I have no idea how to actually properly swim in the ocean - thus, the life jacket.

I would love to go back to Sarigerme. I had such a great time. I relaxed, learned a great deal about myself and I JUMPED OFF A MOTHERTRUCKING MOUNTAIN!!!

View from Baba Dag - the mountain we paraglided off. No words.