Sapadere Canyon and Selge

Made it to the falls!

For our first weekend off, the St. Olaf team took two day trips up into the mountains. We piled in Tim's little white car and zoomed down the highway out of Gazipasa. Our destination for Saturday was Sapadere Canyon, a system of waterfalls and mountain streams that cut through the mountains to the north. The cool mist from the waterfall was a refreshing break from the heat we're used to on site. John even jumped in! We hiked so close to the falls that it turned out there was no need to swim to be totally soaked by the time we made it back to the car. Being up above the river surrounded by green was absolutely surreal, especially when compared to the dry dusty landscape I had expected from Turkey. The variety of different climates and wildlife you can see in just a few hours of driving is astounding. This place is certainly has much more to offer than what I expected from the Mediterranean!

Potato and cheese gözleme, yum!

We stopped for çay and gözleme at a little place in the town at lunchtime. Gözleme are like a cross between a crepe and a quesadilla and are usually filled with potatoes or cheese and parsley. The best around are the ones you find at small roadside places like the one we went to. The owner of the restaurant stopped to chat with us as we ate, and even brought

us some crisp green plums after we had

finished our meal. Turks are incredibly friendly, and almost every person I have met so far has done their best to talk with us, despite the language barrier. John is always an immediate conversation starter with Turkish people. His last name is "Turco," and with his beard he looks almost like a local! The Turkish guys on the dig love him, and I can always hear one of them laughing and saying "Maybe Turk!" when they all hang out together.

Standing in the entrance to the temple ruins and holding a chunk of column carving.

On Sunday, our little group road tripped three hours into the mountains to visit the town of Selge, which sits almost on top of the ancient city with the same name. The site has never been excavated before, and

there are ruins covering the entire mountainside. To enter town, an old woman kicked her cow aside and opened the gate for us so that we could drive in. Her field was in the middle of where the stadium would have been, and she had used the carved benches to mark the edges. We also saw a tarp being held down by the leg of a statue! The people of the town completely coexist with the site, not allowing it to disrupt their lives, yet leaving the vast majority of the material where it lies.

The Selge theatre.

We began our exploration at the theatre, which is incredibly well preserved and dwarfs the town beside it. I hoped to be able to test the acoustics, but we had to fend off the village women who were very persistent in their efforts to sell us things. Interactions like that are always a bit of an ethical challenge. I don't necessarily believe that I should be obligated to purchase something just for being there since the village has no ownership of the ruins, yet I do feel like tourists owe the villagers something for the ability to freely explore the place they live, especially since it's not like we can't afford to spare a few lire. Hopefully I'll figure out a better way to navigate similar situations by the end of the summer.

Goats don't care that they're stepping on archaeological evidence!

One of my favorite moments from the day was coming across an old woman having a conversation with a man all the way across the field from her! They were watching a herd of goats together and chatting from their respective posts despite the distance between them. We continued hiking up the mountainside, scrambling over fallen columns and marble blocks until we reached the bouleuterion, or council house. Only a few sections of wall remained standing, but the paved floor was clear. The temple and hero shrine had also fallen, but we could identify the spaces from the foundations and column pieces.

Sites like Selge are my preferred tourist destination. There are no tours or signs telling you where to go, it's just your curiosity that guides you through the space. We could have stayed for hours just exploring the mountain side and examining the ruins, inscriptions, and monuments that have been left in situ on the hillside.

Check out the slideshow below for some more photos from our weekend adventures, and enter your email to get updates when I post!

Thanks for reading :)

-GMH

On the way to the falls.