Day 18: September 22, Goodbye to Turkey!

Had a lovely start to the day as we had a delicious (leisurely!) Turkish breakfast, then tried to get the free shuttle to Ephesus. We were planning on walking (with Daniel), but our hostel owner offered us this lift, so we decided to take it. Well it was free...after we endured the walk across town to the carpet shop where Karla very nicely entertained the owner's sales pitch before we all piled into the shuttle to Ephesus.

Within the first couple of min there, we found Jake who had gotten up early to beat the crowds, and we all wandered through the ancient Roman ruins together. Karla read to us from the guidebook, and we all learned that Ephesus was a major Roman port in Turkey, among other interesting facts about Roman life. The two most interesting edifaces were the stadium (which had fantastic acoustics! We could hear guides talking on the stage from all the way at the top of the amphitheater!), and the library which has an extremely ornate facade.

After Roman through the ruins, we walked the 3 km back into Selcuk. Along the way, we found this bizarre outdoor gym, where a bunch of equiptment normally found in a fitness center lined the street. The only thing was that it was all painted bright colors and not mechanized! We all got a big kick out of playing on it for a while...

Back in town, we ate lunch, then went to a cafe for a while to wait out the rain. By far the most exciting part of our afternoom came around 3 when the rain cleared and Jake had the wonderful idea of taking the shuttle out to the beach! It only took about 15 min to get out there, and as we arrived, the sun decided to peek out. Upon feeling the water, Daniel and we decided to go for a swim, while Jake guarded our stuff on the beach, alongside a beautiful stray dog. The water was glorious!

A couple hours later, we headed back into town and had dinner. We dropped Daniel off at the bus station, and Jake, Karla and I wandered around Selcuk for a little while. Tomorrow we move on again, this time to Greece. But we're going to miss Turkey!
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