Day 218: Sapadere Canyon

Nov 7 - Today is our first paid tour in Türkiye, a ‘jeep safari’ to Sapadere Canyon, about 40 km SE of Alanya. We were wandering around yesterday looking for taxis to ask about pricing for going here, but found a tour agency that was offering it cheap, significantly less than the costs I had seen online. I had already read that these jeep safaris were done in the open back of a jeep, and water guns were supplied to passengers could ‘shoot’ at other jeeps, so the first thing I asked is if they were going to do that nonsense. They said no, because it was no longer summer.

So we showed up this morning to the pick up point, and stood around with a British couple who were also going. They had come to spend three days just in Alanya from London, taking flights directly to Antalya Airport then road transfer to here. It seemed like an odd choice, especially since it is so far out of ‘beach’ season, but I imagine there are deals to be had now.

Speaking of tourism on the southern Turkish coast, I have mentioned before that most of the tourists I’ve seen are Russian. In fact, I’m getting the impression that the main boost to tourist development here is because of them. We pass by a few shopping malls today were the promotions are only in Turkish and Russian, hence outranking English. At the moment, due to the war in Ukraine, Russians are finding many barriers to getting visas for western European countries. This is obviously not the case in Türkiye (nor could it have been much of a problem when we were in the Balkans). I also saw many in Georgia, but there the demographics were different, as I saw groups of men as opposed to families with young children.

We end up with eight tourists on our jeep, three of which are Russian. We drive down the coast and turn up a small mountain road through banana plantations. Ever since heading east from Antalya there have been many bananas, either terraced on the mountainsides or enclosed in plastic-sided greenhouses. It looks like it has become a huge agricultural industry here.

I can see on Google maps that our jeep is meandering all over the place, taking small dirt roads through pine forests, rather than the larger paved roads that head up the valley. I’m guessing that this is how they conduct the tour, by making it seem more rugged. Some of the spots we go through are 4WD only, and the point seems to be only to make it more dramatic, revving the engine and going up a steep incline, only to back down it again. Really tedious, given that we aren’t 14 years old or drunk. It reminds me how fortunate we’ve been so far on this type of day tour, as up to now, they’ve all been done really professionally, with knowledgeable guides. This is the first one that is scripted entirely for the young party set. It is like the land version of the pho-pirate ships we see everywhere offshore, where the voyage promotional posters promise ‘drinking, dance music, and a foam party’.

Things calm down a bit when the British couple asks to have the roof tarp pulled across, since today is cold and we have no defense at all against the wind. The driver doesn’t want to do it but eventually does.

We stop at a restaurant for bread and tea. It is in an isolated part of the canyon, made entirely to support the jeep safari circuit.

The first stop for attractions is Dwarf Cave. Given that all the surrounding terrain here is limestone, there must be thousands of caves in these hills. This particular one is heavily built up for easy tourist access, with lights inside.

On to the upper reaches of Sapadere Canyon. I know there would be a nice waterfall here, but was not expecting the dramatic cliffs leading up to it.

From here, to to lunch at another place that feeds off the tours to this canyon, talk to the British couple about the disaster of the British Pound, and go back to Alanya. It starts to rain, so not much more we can do outside today.