Day twenty three - 24 August 2009; Oludeniz and jumping off mountains

To Oludeniz, where we camp at a British run campsite with very British food and British alcohol prices. It's very pleasant though as it has it’s own beach on the famous ’Blue Lagoon‘, well famous in Oludeniz anyway. It is actually very blue too.

Blue Lagoon

In the early evening, some of us including Dave, Meg, Gaz, JC and myself decide to jump off a mountain, each of us attached to a man wearing a parachute. This turns out to be as scary as you might expect, but not as frightening as the journey up the mountain in an overfilled open truck on a dirt path overlooking near sheer drops.

can you tell what it is yet?

We get to the top, into our sexy jump suits……..running take off…lift up…Wow! There are many places you can paraglide or parachute, but there can’t be many with scenery like this. Overlooking mountains and the colourful Turkish sea, I can see the lagoon and our campsite, and the many very expensive yachts lounging off the coast. Eventually, after getting a little used to dangling in the air by a string, I ask my ‘driver’ to speed up my descent toward the end and,  doing spirals, I overtake the others on my way down. The sounds I am making in this particular video carry a parental warning.

ecstatic paragliding video

blue lagoon below

that night was a bit of a blur if I'm honest

That night, I go out with a group including JC, Jen (skinny pale northern lass from Leeds) and a few others. Myself and Jen being Liverpool fans, we start to watch the Liverpool v. Aston Villa game, but Liverpool are down 2-0 at half time so we leave….the group loses some members and gains some others (I lost track of who was there if I'm honest). I remember stopping to do karaoke somewhere, doing Iggy Pop’s ‘The Passenger’, the night's entertainment being otherwise reliant on the Karaoke host’s versions of Elvis songs from his fat Vegas years. JC then pushed me into the pool, which I wasn’t necessarily displeased about, although we were beginning to attract a lot of attention from the other, largely, um, retired holiday makers in the what I then realised was an hotel restaurant. Later, JC, Gaz, Lucinda and myself drink Rakis in various places and dance ridiculously.