When making the decision to come to Istanbul, Turkey, I had to convince myself that I would be able to manage being several continents away from my loved ones on two traditionally family-oriented holidays: Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Now, I’ll ironically spend Nov. 22 stuck in class in Turkey instead of eating turkey. On the bright side, though, students in Istanbul enjoyed a weeklong break for another holiday: Eid al-Adha and Republic Day, the celebration of when the Turkish Republic was officially formed in 1923. For the break, several friends and I decided to take a grand adventure hiking part of the Lycian Way — a long-distance footpath along the coast of southern Turkey.

The plan was to hike and camp two days, take a two-night rest staying in a tree house hostel in the village of Olympos, then hike and camp for two more nights.

What an adventure it was.

We filled our lungs with fresh air and our eyes with breathtaking views, and huddled around the eternally burning flames of Mount Chimaera. We skinny-dipped in the Mediterranean Sea, trekked through ancient ruins, boated over a sunken city and made several friends on the trail.

Then there was the number of issues we encountered along the way, contributing to one of the most memorable parts of the trip.

We stopped at a beach to set up our tents because the idea of waking up to the sound of the tide was too romantic to pass up. The tiny fire we built to eat dinner around had just started to spark promisingly. Then the sky opened up, forcing us to dive into the tents for shelter.

With tired eyes, soggy tents and damp clothes, we awoke the next morning. But at least we still had the gorgeous view of the sun-sparkled Mediterranean Sea.

According to the estimation of a fellow hiker whom we had crossed paths with the evening before, we had less than two hours until we reached the village of Cirali, where we planned on stopping for part of the afternoon. Four hours later: Still no Cirali, as dark clouds appeared in the sky once again. We were just about to reach the peak of a particularly brutal incline when fat raindrops wormed their way through the trees.

Where the hell was Cirali?

Eventually the trail we followed led us out of the woods and onto a real road, but the red and white markers we had been following became even sparser than they already had been. It was getting dark outside and the freezing rain was nudging us toward a misery-fueled hysteria.

After a pained stretch of trudging on to the music of honked horns — whether the drivers beeped in commiseration or to taunt us for looking like a pack of drowned rats, I still don’t know — we were able to catch a cab to Olympos.

After hot showers all around, we realized that we lost our original path and ended up walking double the distance, up much higher inclines, toward a completely different destination than we had intended.

After several days drying out and hanging around Olympos, it was time to hit the trail once again, as we tried to find the trailhead for the Lycian Way. After asking for directions from more than half a dozen people, wandering through the woods searching desperately for the red and white ribbons, and consulting our guide book again and again, we realized that even if we did find our trail, we would never make it to our target destination before nightfall.

Feeling slightly defeated, but unable to deny the hilarity of the situation, we resignedly remapped our route. We still ended up hiking in the pitch darkness, but at least along a mostly flat part of the Lycian Way.

As we set up our tents using the thin glow of our flashlights, our spot overlooking the amazing Gelidonya lighthouse, I couldn’t help but think how lucky we were in our unluckiness.

Jillian D’Onfro is a senior magazine journalism and information management and technology dual major. Her column appears every Tuesday. She can be reached at jidonfro@syr.edu.

Published on November 6, 2012 at 1:36 am