[cheque]

Just booked the flights for 12 days in Antalya next month. 

Any advice anyone can share would be very much appreciated (Yes, I've already searched and read everything that came up).

Hoping to travel around a bit and get to Olympos and Akyarlar as well as Geyikbayiri. Looking at grades up to low 7s.

Cheers!

[csurfleet]

We spent a week there in March and had a great time. The climbing is almost invariably steep so factor in rest days! Did my first 7a on the last morning after chowing down on the ibruprofen to dull the ache in my elbows 

We stayed at the JoSiTo campsite which has its positives and negatives. On the plus side it is right next to some of the best climbing (as in 100m away) and if you can get one of the log cabins the rooms are really nice. On the negative we were told prices for food in the emails with them before we arrived that were significantly less than we faced when we arrived, to the point where we ended up hiring a car for the day to visit the supermarket and it worked out cheaper!  Also found the staff to be pretty rude towards us, although they seemed to get on fine with the german/spanish *shrug*. Next time we're going to stay in the climber's garden and concentrate more on the stuff up there.

Get on the stuff across the river from josito - its in the shade a lot of the day and the routes are quality with plenty of lovely tufa routes.

Be happy and smiley to the locals - they are really friendly in general. Both days when we headed up the road to the upper crag a local farmer gave us free oranges :D

[SA Chris]

Start learning thanks - Teşekkür ederim (teh-sheh-keur eh-deh-rim) now.

and Merhaba (Hello). Outside of Istanbul the Turkish all seem to be lovely people.

[cheque]

Thanks for the replies guys.  I have the guidebook now: wow! I also stayed up watching the North Face 'Free Range Turkey' videos last night, too.

My neighbour's Turkish and I'm planning to go round and ask him to teach me a bit of the language, particularly pronunciation.

It's interesting to get opinions on JoSiTo as it's hard to find anything relating to Geyikbeyiri that isn't at least partly an 'infomercial' for the place! Anyone stayed at Climber's Garden?

[SA Chris]

Dunno if you've seen this, might be useful

http://info.rockrun.com/articles/sport-climbing-in-atalya-geyikbayiri.html

[karl s]

Been there a few times, great climbing, but it could still be quite hot in October on the main crag above the road- you'll be OK if there's some cloud around.
I can't see the attraction of Jositos'- very overpriced and a bubble insulating you from the local people. Last time we spoke to some people who were staying up in the village with some local people- very hospitable and it sounded a really great experience.
If you're climbing low 7s then all the routes around Barbarossa/ Poseidon areas are worth looking at. There's some great blocky conglomerate stuff that looks loose but seems good when you're on it.
Have a great time there!

[tc]

Just booked the flights for 12 days in Antalya next month. 

Who did you book with?

[richieb]

We are going in November, flights with Thomas Cook from Glasgow.
Grim flight times though, the flight out there arrives at something like 3 am

[csurfleet]

We had the same issue - be warned, the airport has nothing at all open in the early hours so you'll be out of luck if you want a brew/beer/etc...

[cheque]

Yeah, Thomas Cook from East Midlands. Getting there at 1AM. Current plan is to camp at Josito for first five nights then head off to Olympos. Anyone stayed there?

[csurfleet]

Nope, but would be interested on your opinions when you get back - those tree house things look mint

[pog100]

 I really liked Olympos, in fact preferred it to Geb. Really laid back atmosphere, great beach restaurants and lovely climbing with sea views. Interesting ruins dotted all over the place and truly amazing flames coming out of the ground. we stayed in a very nice hotel, Canada, in the village. the tree houses and stuff  more like backpackers fare. Highly recommend it.

[cheque]

Got back 2 weeks ago but only just realised that I didn't share any knowledge gained.

We spent just over a week in Geyikbeyiri and just under a week in Olympos. The former has really fantastic climbing and I didn't find JoSiTo bad at all- only one member of staff was grumpy with us- everyone else was really friendly. It’s certainly expensive for Turkey and is more like mainland Europe than Turkey in general but it allows you to just make the most of the crags day after day with minimum effort expended on anything else if you have the budget!

We went to the two local restaurants up there- Pinar Alabalik and Geyikbeyiri Alabalik. The food is great at both (almost identical in fact) but the former is half the price as it’s in what appears to be an abandoned hotel and is an extremely low budget operation.

We went to Climber’s Garden for a drink one night and found that the place has a very different vibe to JoSiTo- comparatively very laid-back and probably a good choice for those who favour an early night with a novel and some yoga to getting drunk round the campfire and sharing raucous Alpine epic stories. Food is more expensive there though.

We stayed at Kadir’s Tree Houses in Olympos- despite it being absolutely dirt cheap I wouldn’t recommend it. As pog110 says, it’s more of a backpacker place than anything. In fact, Cirali (the other end of the beach from Olympos- an easy walk but a much longer drive) is a much better place to stay for climbers, I reckon.

The climbing in Olympos seems to be unfairly marginalised- few people go there for more than a day (when we saw the Spanish wads we’d met at JoSiTo on the beach they seemed surprised to learn there was any climbing there at all!) but while there’s not the thousands of routes of Geyikbeyiri there’s more variety in terms of location and style and huge amounts in the hard grades still to go by the looks of it. Development seems to be in the hands of just a few locals who are extremely psyched and friendly.

Cheap travel-wise, don’t expect many people in Antalya itself to have heard of Geyikbeyiri (‘Gay-eek-bye-air-a’) let alone know where it is! You need bus number 501 or 512 which leave infrequently from the Antalya Otogar (bus station). It’s worth the hassle as it’s 3 lira rather than 20 Euros to get JoSiTo to fetch you! To get from Geyikbeyiri to Olympos you need to go back to Antalya Otogar from where it’s easy to get a minibus there, although it will drop you at a roadside café on the main road when you’re nearly there where you have to wait for another one to take you to Olympos itself. Not sure how you’d get straight to Cirali instead, but as I say, I’d much rather stay there if I went again.

The current (4th) edition of the guide came out seemingly while we were on the plane and is well worth getting as it has whole new areas in it, let alone new routes and sectors!

[Pitcairn]

We went for 4 weeks in january this year and stayed in the Climbers Garden.  The people there are really nice, they have a good restaurant (great steaks and apple cake, nice coffee), internet that works and an ok common room area/ kitchen.  The downsides where that the kitchen and common area were a bit grotty particularly when it was busy as many of the climbers couldnt be arsed to wash up there stuff (the staff do clean it once a day) and that the showers were not the best and sometimes pretty cold.  they may have sorted this though.  We didnt bother with a car but either hitched to the village down the hill to go to the market or hired one through the climbers garden people for €20 per day.

Regarding the climbing, we stayed at Geyik for the whole time.  Theres loads of routes to keep you going.  Between us our grade range was 5+ to 8a+ and it worked fine.  There are loads of great routes in the 6s and 7s and the styles vary from blobby roofs to crimpy walls.  I liked it and even though I was there for 4 weeks I would still go back.

[Paul B]

Would the current travel advice put UKBers off Turkey as a Dec destination:

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/turkey

Am I right in thinking that BMC insurance etc. is still valid unless you travel against the advise of the above?

It seems v. cheap but I'm hearing mixed opinions on the quality of Antalya as a destination.

[dave]

Would the current travel advice put UKBers off Turkey as a Dec destination:

With your record for good luck I'm sure it'll be fine.

[T_B]

The BMC Travel Insurance covers you for visiting areas where the FCO advise against "all but essential" travel.

I think you'll find not many Brits are travelling to Turkey at the moment.

[TobyD]

Would the current travel advice put UKBers off Turkey as a Dec destination:

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/turkey

There was a similar warning in place when I went in April. Lots of security at the airport in Antalya, but if you stay at climbers garden and get an airport transfer (recommended) you'll hardly notice anything unusual. Small rural villages are not going to be high on the IS strike list, I think that unless it gets a lot worse any risk is totally acceptable. I thought it was a good destination personally, and really enjoyed the trip.

[remus]

Was totally fine when I went in December, didnt really feel that different to a trip to spain.

Regarding quality, I thought it was really cool. Not as developed as much route development as other countries, but plenty to keep you going for a month or two, especially if you dont limit yourself to Geyikbari.

[moose]

I had a similar sounding experience last time I was there - increased security at the airport compared to my first trip (X-ray checks of bags at the terminal entrance) but no different once in the rural area.  I really enjoyed the climbing at Geyri  - though on both trips I only tried routes in the mid-6s to mid-7s range.  Circumstances never fitted looking at the harder stuff, ,so what I mainly remember is how pleasant the easier routes were - nice steep, tufa climbing from 6b+ upwards - rather than the death-slab stuff I seem to find myself gibbering up at those grades.  I'm at Kilnsey tomorrow - I could bring the guide if you haven't seen it. 

By the way, Steve Dunning's tip when I was considering a return (before the recent instability) was to get a hotel in Anyalya.  He said he got an absolute bargain 5* stay, 45 mins drive from the climbing.  The camping (at JoSiTo's anyway) is not that cheap - when I stayed the primary currency was Euro's and the prices reflected that. 

[Paul B]

I had a similar sounding experience last time I was there - increased security at the airport compared to my first trip (X-ray checks of bags at the terminal entrance) but no different once in the rural area.  I really enjoyed the climbing at Geyri  - though on both trips I only tried routes in the mid-6s to mid-7s range.  Circumstances never fitted looking at the harder stuff, ,so what I mainly remember is how pleasant the easier routes were - nice steep, tufa climbing from 6b+ upwards - rather than the death-slab stuff I seem to find myself gibbering up at those grades.  I'm at Kilnsey tomorrow - I could bring the guide if you haven't seen it. 

By the way, Steve Dunning's tip when I was considering a return (before the recent instability) was to get a hotel in Anyalya.  He said he got an absolute bargain 5* stay, 45 mins drive from the climbing.  The camping (at JoSiTo's anyway) is not that cheap - when I stayed the primary currency was Euro's and the prices reflected that.

I'll be there tomorrow if you wouldn't mind bringing the guide (thanks).

[moose]

will do....