Bezirgan and back: a circular walk from Kalkan: page 1

We incorporated part of Section 10 into a circular walk from Kalkan. It takes you over the mountain rim that dominates the town and into the relative coolness of the high flat plain (the yayla) beyond.

Suleyman Tufan, our friend and favourite taxi-driver, drove us out the Kas road and dropped us at Ulugal, about 1Km beyond Club Patara. Where the road crosses a flat plain, there are three wells and a house by the roadside. Here a Grade 5 track (G5) leaves the road at a right angle and sets off north towards the hills. A few hundred metres on, keep straight ahead and up on a G2. New houses are being built on the right here. Continue on a clear G2, bearing first right and then left as it ascends and joins a G5 on top of the ridge among houses. Follow this downhill (it becomes a tarred G6).

When the road bears left to head to the cistern in old Kalkan, leave it on the east (right) side on a G2/3 towards an electricity pylon. Stay on this ascending path among olive trees until it meets the embankment of a G5 just below the Kalkan-Bezirgan road.

right, 11.11: on this ascent, this is the view towards the houses passed on the ridge, and the bay at Kalkan beyond.

All the olives on this hillside had been harvested. Two bulging plastic sack-fulls lay under a tree.

Scramble up the embankment onto the G5 and follow it, rising, right to houses, and stay with it as it swings left to meet the Kalkan-Bezirgan road. If going in the return direction, note that the G2 leaves the G5 on the left a few metres beyond a telegraph pole on the left - drop down the small embankment to the path.

From the Kas road to the Bezirgan road took us about an hour and a bucket or two of perspiration.

right 11.42: Simon and Pete where we joined the Bezirgan road.

Turn right (east) on the Bezirgan road and a few metres on find a Lycian Way signpost on the right, and the path to Bezirgan on the left, ascending steeply. In the Lycian Way guidebook (LWG) this is walked in the other direction, going from Bezirgan to Saribelen.

below 13.15: at a shepherd's unoccupied hut beside a well.

right 13.25: as the path crosses the mountain ridge, this is the view of the Bezirgan yayla. After all the climbing, it is only a short descent to the plain, and flat walking to cay and beer.

Once on the dusty pasture, we passed a large herd of black goats. A man was drawing water for them from a well; his bicycle lying nearby.

He cycled past us later, between cay and beer.

right 14.07: In Bezirgan. Rather than turning left in the direction of Akbel here, we continued on into the village.

There is a mosque near the sign, and beyond that on the left cay is served at a shaded table. We joined the mostly old men sitting there (handshakes all round) and had our cay while we struggled to make conversation.

continued on page 2.