#3: [14-Oct-07]

#2: [25-Mar-06]

21-May-2004 -- Lucky to have taken my GPS with us. This was no premeditated confluence visit. Somehow my wife and I found ourselves in Antalya, on the southern coast of Turkey. To ward off the five-star boredom, we rented a car to visit one of the closest unvisited Confluences. A camera we had not brought with us, thus before heading north, we had to find a shop selling disposable cameras. Otherwise fine, but the GPS-photos were too much asked of the disposable optics. You just have to take our word for having been there. Innocent until proven guilty, right?

After some hours of driving on almost forgotten side roads we reached the southern shore of lake Eğridir. After a vine-shaded lakeside lunch we started the final approach towards the Confluence, somewhere close to the eastern shore of the lake. To our great relief a crossroad emerged just as it started to seem that we would have to turn back on the main road and walk from the so far closest point, 2.6 km from the Confluence.

The road took us to a village called Yeşilköy (we think, see picture). The village was also the closest you could get by car. To get to the Confluence we had to walk through a backyard of one of the houses. We had problems understanding (some claim Finnish and Turkish be related, but that was of little help to us) whether we were welcome to cross the yard or not. On one hand the old lady was welcoming and polite and made no attempt to block our way. On the other hand, every time we started progressing she followed and started explaining fervently something and combined the explanations with strange hand movements and sound imitations. It would not actually have taken a genius to understand that those signs meant an angry dog, the chain of which the husband grabbed just as the monster leaped toward us.

Now it was just a 600 m long relatively easy climb amid some low thorny bushes. There was a tiny pasture 100 m further from where we found a path back down to the village, which made the descent even easier. It was soon ten to five and the minaret started to call people to the village mosque. We skipped.

When leaving the village, we stopped to take photos of the village and the village gate. Just as we were stepping into the car a smartly dressed gentleman came running downhill to us. Luckily, he was not demanding us to join the prayers. All he wanted was a ride to Eğridir. We approved. Next day we would head to 38N 30E.