Leafless crowns of Old World Sycamores wave around just out of picture. The Bayır Çayı flows past and will turn into countless waterfalls that braid over anything from small cobbles to house-sized boulders. Higher up, centenarian Lebanon cedars occupy inaccessible slopes. Beyond them, we catch a glimpse of the hills that hide the ancient city of Trabenna lain down scattered among crevices, roots and blocks. The Sivri Dağ (pointed mountain) watches over it all and always keeps an eye on us in particular.

Trabenna was one of 25 cities in the thriving Lycian League. Lycia's chronology:

• people spoke Luvian at some moment and Lycia as a region was mentioned in scripts of the ancient Egypt Empire and the Hittite Empire;
• Lycia was involuntarily incorporated in the Achaemenid Empire and developed its own language out of Luvian;
• Persian settlers came into the region, jostling the native language;
• selected people in Lycia had to fight for the Persians when the conflict began with Athens and then an assortment of Greek city-states;
• Lycia was free for a moment with the Achaemenid Empire defeated;
• Lycia shortly was connected to the Athenians and then seceded (as was allowed by the respective treaty) to become independent;
• Persians ruled again;
• Lycians revolted but were conquered by the Persian satrap of Caria (region west of Lycia);
• Macedonians came to reign the region (though they never got a hold of Termessos);
• Greek-cultured people settled in the region and finally jostled the Lycian language;
• when the Romans had emerged to the Mediterranean scene, they took it, gave it to the island of Rhodes, took it back, then made it a free Roman protectorate;
• the Romans saw the Lycian League emerge and gave the people the right to rule themselves, which they did as a federation. According to R. Bernstein (2005) this construction inspired the founders of the U.S.A. In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton and then James Madison (later becoming the 4th president) knew about Lycia and coined it as an example.
• Greek remained the dominant language, as inscriptions on tombstones all over these places show;

 

 

 

 

 

Flashback to the start...

The flight

Flight from Athens to Kos (for a ferry to Kalymnos) to Antalya.

...

Cliché Antalya

The identity check spews me out towards Antalya’s airport hall. Stair by stair, the hallway exposes me to the increasing sight of stray luggage. First I see an orderly graveyard-like field of suitcases. Then I notice the cases become more crisscrossly piled up onto each other. Towards the now revealing hall’s corner, the sea of luggage escalates into a monstrous suitcase tower of Babel that reaches for the roof while the cases desperately crush each other in a bid to not topple.

Just like that last summer's baggage handling crisis says hallo. So that's what happened when Covid19-restrictions ended and people overwhelmed vacation infrastructures. Now the extra usual influx of lost luggage has no real place and narrows the remaining passage where I slalom across all colors of trunks. A sign directs us to the now unconvincing promise of the baggage pickup from our plane that we just landed with.

Three women speak half-Turkish, half-West-Flemish. One of them talks about the new round of plastic surgery she anticipates (of the kind imaged on the left), a popular reason to come to Antalya. The next woman carries a stressed-looking chihuahua dog which she calls Chanel. The trio’s loud repetitive conversation centers around calling local people "A**HOLES". I discern that during their last routine visit, they paid too much for something… didn’t ask the price… looked like tourists with too much money. "Oh god, the bags are there!" I see the Turkish man think. Now he can also stop to involuntarily listen to the conversation.

I stride past people in jogging pants and flipflops who remind me of the other popular reason to fly to Antalya: the five-star resorts that endlessly line up along the sand beaches, east of the city (Lara). There, often-not-so-five-star guests maintain a constant flow of food, drinks and smoke entering and exiting their body. For this they reside in gold foiled prisons where they're served by low-wage workers. This specific tourist population comprises mostly of Russians and retired Germans, sporting an aesthetic of the babyboomer-era which some dare to call ‘kitsch’ (the resort on the right claims it resembles Châteaux of the Loire Valley).

On an average day 76.000 tourists hang out in great-Antalya. And in an average year there are 13 million tourists. In Europe, this scale of mass tourism is only equalled by Mallorca and the combined Canary Islands. Since 1985 the astronomic number makes Antalya one of these three industrialized monster-destinations that – on the other side of the medal – have brought many small European tourist destinations into a state of lost glory and neglect.

I hurry out of the building, into the night, eyed by a giant billboard. A young athletic swimsuited couple seems to watch me. And I think I've seen these stock photography people already somewhere else. Less athletic people speed by on fluffy flipflops, nervously looking for the quickest way to alcohol, sea and sand. On the sounds of flipflops flopping and trolleys rolling, these ghosts form a stampede that goes east.

Living place Antalya

I take a good look west where mountains rise, right from the sea, straight to the sky. I am coming you beautiful peaks, though for now inbetween us buzzes a brawling metropolis.

My car blinks left but no other car seems to notice. On the right, two cars honk as if I don't see the invisible blinkers which legitimize their shooting onto the big street. But the flame of their anger is short and the heat less than a breath.

Square, 20x20m, white, regularly spaced, balcony-rich towers pass by on the assembly lines by my sides. What's the mean monthly rent here? €350 + €20 (utilities) for a 45m² single-person studio? How much does an average person in Turkey make per month? €378? No, that can't be?

The car next to me has a Russian plate. Third time already this morning. Russians who look to escape conscription to war in Ukraine, have fled in masses to Antalya. Now they're with thousands and they significantly drive up local real estate prices.

But also lots of domestic people arrive here every day, mostly seeking salvation from remote rural areas. It's been going on since the 1940's when the average life expectancy was 40 years, half of what it is now. Soon after 1940, Antalya's population number started doubling every 10 years, all thanks to immigration as the urban fertility stabilized early. Rural fertility made sure that the metropolis easily reached 2.000.000 inhabitants today.

The whole of Turkey (86+ million inh.) features 25 million registered cars which take around 6.500 lives yearly. The districts of Antalya-ısparta-Burdur have a nearly unmatched road fatality rate compared to the size of the population, and to make it crazier, they have a pretty low amount of cars for that population. I don't know how the traffic danger statistics are for Antalya specifically, but probably hellish like the traffic that I am going through right now.

They may all be honking, almost constantly. But no one's screws are coming loose.. Not like at home when someone honks, there they mean it. So it's not all that bad. My car feels strange though so I stop. I see my tire nearly flat and then find a screw sticking out. An hour later, a wheel station fixes the pierced rubber for €5. I roll again, way faster than expected, and notice my traffic companions drive less an less like it’s the last day of their statistically 80-year-long life. The metropolis fades out.

“No Google Maps, I can’t drive through like the big garbage trucks”. I drive a few kilometers around to make it to a bridge over a burling river. Now I am really making my way deeper into the Konyaalti district, named after rocky sea cliffs. After a while I can carelessly stop my car on the road and check the fruit stall of a lady. Three lira (€0.15) lighter, I drive on with a sweet kilogram of mandarins shining on the back seat.

The outer Antalya no one told me about

The city keeps fading out as I take my wheels more into the mountains. The roads swing into the forests and bring me closer to the ruins of Trabenna and to the village of Geyikbayırı (The Deer Hills). Everybody had been coughing on the plane like the whole world was sick. By the time I arrive in the nighty mountains and meet the Austrians, I too start sneezing and coughing and quickly go to bed. The new impressions, the culture, the far-off place – the furthest I have ever been.. Wow, are they good for some solid fever dreams, while I ly there in the winter night, in a wooden shed buried under everything I could find. Thick felt blankets, one after the other, weigh me into a thin mattress and keep my ghost from escaping it all, while I flutter in a swamp of nightmares, instead of sinking deep into dreams.

...