We move towards the west, taking two of our friends from Flora. With Edwin and Gökçe, we make camp next to the ancient theatre in Kaş. We spend the night on the rocks, while we were still under the effect of Flora.
The following day, we reach the river between Letoon and Xanthos in Kumluova. One side of the wide beach ends at the sea, the other side at the river. If you swim in the river after the sea, you don’t need to take shower. There is an abondoned facility, in which there are caravans, just behind the beach. A shadowy place thanks to the trees. Also there is clean water which makes it a suitable place for camping. We spent one night there and visited Saklıkent before going to Refikler Farm.
Saklıkent Canyon is relatively calm as we are not in the season. We start walking in the canyon after wearing our helmets. It’s very enjoyable to walk in the muddy water flowing through the canyon, but sometimes it’s deep to the neck. Walking becomes harder when we reach to the end of the valley because of waterfalls and sloppy rocks. When the tour is completed and you turn back with all the mud on your body, a present waits for you. Freezing but mudless water coming from a different spring at the entrance of the canyon… You can take a shower as long as you can resist the cold water.
When we reach Fethiye, we take two travellers who contacted us before, one of whom is from Colombia and the other from Malaysia. We hit the road towards Refikler Farm.
Climbing towards Nif village starts after we turn right from Çiftlik sign on the way to Göcek. About 19 km, the view becomes better while we are going higher. High hills, a dense forest… Asphalt becomes dirt; dirt becomes mud with heavy rain. But the road ends in an amazing place…
We enter directly into the house not to get wet under the rain. The door is opened to a room heated by a stove with a teapot on it. A warm welcome…
Because of the rain, everybody comes together in the room. There are 12 people. Everywhere in the farm is common place but this room is the gathering place. The door of the kitchen and the bedroom with 8 beds is opened to this room. The room is the place of gathering for dinner and the night.
There is no owner(s) in Refikler farm. Eray says, Refik means friend, comrade. This is the garden of fellows.
Eray and Aşkın are here since the foundation of the Farm. Nilsu is here for 1,5 years also. And the little resident of the farm; Fındık…
A communal life is applied here with everybody who visits and stays there. This is the main goal. To put the ideas in practice… To see the dreams come true…
Life spreads everywhere in a 10 decare land. Hundreds of therapeutic herbs, edible plants and fruit trees… The land looks like a jungle because of the diversity.
We added a black mulberry and a cranberry tree to the diversity. It’s very enjoyable to think that those trees, we planted in the name of our first supporter Attila Bayındır and our dear friend who is also a traveller Uygar Önder Şimşek, will give fruits and make us remember our trip…
Thanks to the rich forest and vegetation in the area and, bees can make honey from different flowers in every season. Refikler Farm takes care of their bees and they produce natural honey from various flowers. They leave 2/3 of honey for the bees in each hive.
These days, there is the construction of a cob house with mandala roof. As everything in the farm is made by the existing material, pine needles are used instead of hay. This way, we have added another building technique to the ones we have experiences in our trip.
5 days we spent in Refikler was inspiring with the nights of deep discussions on important questions. We suggest everybody, who wants to experience communal life and breathe the fresh air of mountains, to visit the farm.
On Friday, we leave Refikler Farm and hit the road towards Istanbul to start our trip in Asia. We run into a surprise in our last camp in Anatolia, İzmir, Selçuk. In the free camping place we discover an amazing artistic work dedicated to peace. Three dimensional structure of Picasso’s Guernica… The work, which was built in a youth camp in 2010, shouts for the whole world in different languages; peace, paix, paz, barış, aşiti…