Matthew's News and Gossip

So we finally staggered out of Capadoccia, a beautiful and great place. The next stop was a quick night in a very dodgy hotel in Istanbul. And after that we flew down to Dalaman and took a quick hop with a licensed bandit in a taxi to Olu Deniz. Olu Deniz is a seaside town full of English oiks where you can buy a full English breakfast and where the locals are amazed to hear anyone even try to use Turkish, and were equally amazed to hear an American accent from Sarah.

The real reason to go to Olu Deniz (in fact the only one) is to go paragliding. It's a paragliding Mecca because of this big mountain (Babadag) a 2,000 meter mountain right by the beach.


Babadag Mountain


You take off here


Take off over the ocean


You land here!

I had a great time flying although the thermal flying was pretty challenging. Sarah also had a great tandem flight, right before I had a fairly serious crash on take-off--thankfully my helmet and my back protection got me out of it with only a minor scrape. I girded my loins and took off again a few minutes later and had a great 25 minute flight.

One of the more amusing late nights we had was watching our hotel owner. Who had a special affinity with a certain well known American King!

Here are all the Olu Deniz photos


Sarah and Elvis

All that remained was a long trip home, first in a bus past an amazing CuNibm cloud.


A lovely CuNimb

Then we faced a long boring flight off to London then after a quick kip at Diana's I came home. Sarah remains marooned in Europe, friendless and alone!