Back down to sea level

After watching the offshore islands slowly illuminate in the morning sunlight, we crawled down from the mountaintop lighthouse. Once on the hiking trail we still had 6 km of rocky dirt road to backtrack, yavaş yavaş. We discovered the most amazing sandy cove of crystal clear water, where several schools of tiny blue fish swam, occasionally jumping out of the water in a long line. Ahh çok güzel!


Islands appear like magic


This is totally why I'm NOT currently attending grad school

Once back to the hub village of Karaöz, we tested their beach and took advantage of the showers. Thank goodness there are so many roadside springs and beach showers along our route!


Team Jassler: we are biking & swimming machines!

We returned to the village's one tiny market, where we stumbled the once weekly fruit and veggie market (I didn't understand how they were eating! But now it's clear, the whole village stocks up at once). We bought tomatoes, peaches, peppers, and bananas for 4TL (-$2.40) then went back for more peaches and finally sampled one of the millions of karpuz (watermelon) that are sold everywhere. I must admit I'm totally bias, but not only are the salçi (watermelon) a fraction of the cost, but they are so much tastier in Shqiperi.

We stayed another day and night around Karaöz's coves, camping at the same beach we swam and picnicked at two mornings before. At night there was another Turkish family there, roasting their dinner on a campfire nearby. While in the water we spoke awhile with the daughters, using our very limited Turkish language skills. I registered for www.Turkishclass.com
and through the forum have acquired a whole slew of new words and phrases, practicing ways to string simple subject-verb-object combinations together. It worked pretty well but we quickly hit a wall.

A beach dog adopted us today. She was super cute! I have developed a strong fear and dislike for dogs but this little küprek was so friendly and playful she (very much a mama dog) almost jumped out of her skin in her excitement to play with us. This is the dog Brandon would adopt if he were here. We shared our leftover dinner scraps with her, then crawled into our tent to escape the bugs and fall alseep to the sounds and giggles of the nearby Turkish family frolicking in the dark water.


Küprek on the plaj