Ho Ho Home of Saint Nicholas

As we sail up the coast, the sea literally turns turquoise and the beaches a creamy sandy color. We sail a 7-mile stretch of sandy Patara beach. At the end is the ancient town of Patera itself, the home of the kind 4th century Byzantine bishop Nicholas, who slipped into legend and finally myth as Santa Clause. It is an ancient Lyceum turned Roman city with many of the stone remnants of past greatness. Sarcogus built on towers rise up 15 feet in the air to punctuate the landscape. Well preserved arches attest to the grandeur of this once prosperous city. It is here also where St. Paul and St. Luke stopped on their gospel spreading missions to change boats. Is there something ironical about a guy that grew up in a beach town being sent to the North Pole forever?

We rented a motor scooter so we could visit all these historical sights. It was just as small scooter, but the handlebars and headlamp looked iike it came right off a Harley Davidson. Just as we were climbing the hill outside of the town of Kalcan, out of nowhere a dog snuck up behinds us and bit Steve on the ankle. It scared the heck out of us, and Steve received a pretty bad puncture bite. I took him to the town hospital but it was closed. So we decided to continue on our visit of the other quite large Roman towns of Letoon and Xanthos.

In between the ancient sites, we stopped at a small local restaurant in an equally small town. There are no tourists here. But everyone makes us feel more than welcome. You don’t order from the menu, you just go into the kitchen and point to the traditional dishes that are simmering in pots. Sooo good. The table next to us tells us we have to try the special desert of the region. You can only get it here. So we are game and out comes two little cakes. One is brown with some kind of dusting of bright green. The other piece looks like shredded wheat. They are both soaked in so much honey that you can’t really taste anything else. It is like you are eating honey with different textures. The desserts are so sweet in Turkey we rarely order them.

Towards the end of the day, Steve’s ankle starts to swell and become painful to walk on. So we head back to town and stop at a local pharmacy. You gotta love the treatment pharmacies are able to give. Two young assistants in white lab coats wash the wounds and disinfect it. Then they put a salve on it and wrap it all in a gauze band-aid. They are also able to sell him antibiotics and a pain killer/anti inflammatory. The next day he goes to the hospital and the doctor gives him a tetanus shot as well. Steve asks about rabies and the doctor tells him he doesn’t have the rabies shots. Not to worry. They haven’t ever seen a case of rabies around here. So Steve asks what signs to at least look for. The doctor tells him, don’t worry. If you notice any signs of rabies, you are going to die by then anyway. Yikes.